By BBC World Service
The world's great authors discuss their best-known novel.
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This month, for the seventh World Book Club edition celebrating International Women writers, Harriett Gilbert is joined by the remarkable British writer Bernardine Evaristo from her home in east London to talk about her Booker-Prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other. Although...
This month World Book Club talks to acclaimed British author Deborah Levy about her Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel Hot Milk. In this era of coronavirus we are sadly not able to gather together in a studio but we will...
This month World Book Club marks the recent worldwide publication of The Mirror and The Light by treating you to a repeat of our memorable edition of the programme with the double-Booker prize-winning British writer Hilary Mantel. Recorded two years...
Long-listed for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, Bhutto’s lyrical debut novel unfolds over the course of one morning in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan's Tribal Areas close to the Afghan border. Set during the American invasion of Afghanistan,...
French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani joins Harriett Gilbert in the Radio Theatre at the BBC and readers from around the world to talk about her novel Lullaby, the devastating story of a nanny, Louise, who kills two children in her care....
Harriett Gilbert is joined by Zimbabwean novelist Petina Gappah for this month’s edition of World Book Club, continuing 2020’s celebration of women’s writing. Petina will be answering questions from readers around the world about her novel The Book...
Naomi Alderman talks about her extraordinary novel The Power which imagines that women suddenly develop an electrifying strength, putting them firmly in control - of everything. The new order spreads around the globe, liberating women from enslavement and subjugation but...
This month World Book Club is in Germany marking the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall with a programme from the St George’s Bookshop in the heart of the capital. We’re speaking with one of the country’s...
David Nicholls talks about his internationally successful novel Us. Almost three decades after their improbable relationship first blossomed in London biochemist Douglas and his attractive artist wife Connie live seemingly happily enough with their moody 17-year-old son, Albie just outside...
The Colombian novelist and journalist Héctor Abad discusses his memoir Oblivion, a heart-breaking tribute to his late father. Héctor Abad Gómez was a medical doctor, professor and human rights campaigner in the city of Medellín, Colombia, whose criticism of the...
British writer Ann Cleeves discusses Raven Black, the haunting first novel in her award-winning Shetland crime series, with presenter Harriett Gilbert, a studio audience and readers around the world. On a remote Scottish island in the Shetland Isles, a teenage...
Acclaimed Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma talks about his novel The Fishermen. Shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, The Fishermen tells the story of four young brothers who defy their authoritarian father to go fishing in a forbidden river on...
Acclaimed British writer Andrea Levy was only 62 when she died earlier this year. This month another chance to hear this hugely popular author talking about her multi-prize-winning novel Small Island. A thought-provoking tale of love, friendship and immigration...
This month World Book Club talks to award-winning writer Siri Hustvedt about her novel What I Loved, a troubling, often turbulent tale of love, art, friendship and heartbreak set amidst the darkly flamboyant New York art scene of the late...
This month World Book Club talks to award-winning American writer Donna Leon about her celebrated novel Death at La Fenice. When legendary German conductor Helmut Wellauer is found dead in his dressing room two acts into a performance of...
Highly acclaimed British author Tessa Hadley talks to Harriett Gilbert about her award-winning novel - The Past. Recorded at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival in the elegant surroundings of The Mathematical Institute, part of the university. Tessa skilfully...
This month World Book Club comes from the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival in the elegant surroundings of The Mathematical Institute, part of the university, and we’re talking to the highly acclaimed British author Tessa Hadley about her award-winning novel...
This month a special edition of BBC World Book Club coming from Nairobi in Kenya. Lawrence Pollard talks to celebrated Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o in the company of an enthusiastic audience of readers and students who have gathered in...
This month we’re talking to bestselling British writer JoJo Moyes about her wildly popular novel Me Before You. Lou is a small town girl in need of a job. Will is a successful high-powered city trader who becomes wheelchair bound...
World Book Club talks to one of the world’s leading thriller writers, British-born Lee Child. Killing Floor is the first book in the internationally popular Jack Reacher series and presents the all-action hero for the first time, as the tough...
This month's World Book Club once again comes from China's capital Beijing. Lawrence Pollard interviews acclaimed and controversial writer Chan Koonchung about his much debated dystopian novel The Fat Years from a buzzy local bookstore in the city centre, filled...
This month BBC World Book Club comes from Beijing with Lawrence Pollard. The programme is a guest of the Bookworm, three rooms and a roof terrace full of books in Chinese and English, a fixture on the literary scene here...
This month on World Book Club award-winning British writer Kate Atkinson discusses her celebrated novel Life After Life. In it Atkinson poses the question: What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally...
On this month’s World Book Club, as he turns seventy, another chance to hear acclaimed American writer James Ellroy, who over a span of fifteen years worked on a massive fictional chronicle of 1960s America. American Tabloid, the first...
This month’s World Book Club broadcasts from the Man Booker 50 Festival at the Southbank Centre, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the renowned prize. In the World Book Club chair is the double-Booker prize-winning British writer Hilary Mantel discussing the...
This month World Book Club talks to internationally celebrated Indian writer Anuradha Roy about her much-loved novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing. Spanning three generations of an Indian family from the turn of the 20th century to India's partition An...
Epic in scope, Away is the captivating story of young Lillian Leyb, whose family is destroyed in a horrific Russian pogrom and who comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. When she hears that...
This month World Book Club talks to British writer Sarah Waters about her chart-topping novel, Tipping the Velvet. Celebrating twenty years since its first publication Tipping the Velvet is a bawdy, historical, lesbian romance, following the startling career of Nan...
Presenter Lawrence Pollard talks to chart-topping Chinese-American writer Celeste Ng and an audience gathered in the local Boston radio Newsfeed Café in the Boston Public Library about her bestselling novel Everything I Never Told You. In 1970s small-town Ohio Lydia...
Award-winning Dominican American writer Junot Diaz talks to World Book Club on location in Boston, US, about his wildly popular novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Moving across generations and continents, from the dark and tragic past in...
This month World Book Club talks to Scottish poet Laureate Jackie Kay about her award winning novel, Trumpet. When legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody dies an extraordinary secret is revealed, one that he shared in life only with his...
This month World Book Club comes from the Belgium capital Brussels for an Agatha Christie special. The programme visits the Bibliotheca Wittockiana to discuss one of the bestselling crime novels of all time: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha...
Best-selling Australian writer Richard Flanagan talks about his Booker prize-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North. This unforgettable novel about the cruelty of war and the tenuousness of love and life tells the story of captive Australian soldiers...
Best-selling British writer Alan Hollinghurst talks about his Booker prize-winning novel, The Line of Beauty. In the summer of 1983 20-year-old graduate Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the glamorous Notting Hill home of ambitious Tory MP Gerald...
On this month’s World Book Club British writer Jane Gardam discusses her award-winning novel Old Filth with the studio audience at Broadcasting House and listeners from around the world. Edward Feathers is a child of the Raj. His earliest...
This month World Book Club is celebrating its 15th birthday and has come to where it all began – in September 2002 - The Edinburgh Book Festival, to talk to Irish literary superstar Sebastian Barry about his poignant and much...
With an IQ that’s off-the-scale and a hyper-active mind 13-year-old Lou feels out of place amongst the beautiful, confident teenagers in her class. She finds no comfort at home as her mother is in the throes of a profound depression....
This month World Book Club is talking to chart-topping Australian writer Tim Winton about his unforgettable novel Cloudstreet. Winner of the Miles Franklin Award and recognised as one of the greatest works of Australian literature, Cloudstreet is Tim Winton's sprawling,...
This month World Book Club is in the BBC Radio Theatre and is talking to one of the most popular and widely read British novelists, Jeffrey Archer, about his stunningly successful novel Kane and Abel. William Lowell Kane and...
This month we mark the recent death of the St Lucian poet, playwright and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott with another chance to hear him talk-on-the-programme about his poetic masterpiece, the book-length Omeros. Following the wanderings of an extraordinary cast...
This month World Book Club visits the Oxford Literary Festival in the elegant surroundings of Worcester College, part of the university and is talking to the hugely popular British author Robert Harris with an audience about the first of his...
This month World Book Club are once again part of The Hay Literary Festival in Cartagena, Colombia. Harriett Gilbert and a Festival audience talk to the acclaimed Swiss writer Joël Dicker about his gripping and chart-topping novel The Truth About...
This month World Book Club are lucky enough to be in the beautiful old city of Cartagena in Colombia as part of the Cartagena Hay Festival of Literature. Harriett Gilbert will be talking to one of Colombia’s most acclaimed...
We talk to the acclaimed Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard about A Death in the Family, volume one of his remarkable series of memoirs My Struggle. Knausgaard writes with painful honesty about his childhood and teenage years, his infatuation with...
This month World Book Club is talking to the acclaimed British writer Margaret Drabble about her remarkable novel The Millstone. At a time when illegitimacy is taboo, Rosamund Stacey is pregnant after a one-night stand. Despite her independence and academic...
Russian writer Dostoyevsky’s haunting classic thriller, Crime and Punishment, is celebrating its 150th birthday this year. Consumed by the idea of his own special destiny, Rashkolnikov is drawn to commit a terrible crime. In the aftermath, he is dogged...
This month World Book Club talks to the acclaimed Irish writer Anne Enright about her poignant Booker Prize-winning novel The Gathering. In it Veronica, one of the nine surviving Hegarty siblings, is bringing her brother Liam home to Dublin to...
Harriett Gilbert talks to the hugely acclaimed writer DBC Pierre about his best-selling first novel Vernon God Little. An absurdly humorous look at the misadventures of a Texas teen named Vernon Little whose best friend has just killed 16 of...
We talking to acclaimed Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vasquez about his dark and compelling novel The Sound of Things Falling. Vasquez explores the recent tortured history of his home country through a complex interweaving of personal stories and confronts the...
This month we’re in The Book Lounge Bookshop in Cape Town, South Africa and talking to the Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng about his Man Asian Literary Prize-winning novel, The Garden of Evening Mists. This haunting tale, set in the...