Episode 17

In this week’s epic edition of The Book Show with Mariella Frostrup we talk to the Children’s Laureate and top poet Michael Rosen; Charles Elton drops by with his stunning debut novel; and the original angry young man Alan Sillitoe is still raging at 80.

To read first chapters of the books featured in The Book Show for free, visit LoveReading.co.uk for a taste of what’s coming up!

If you liked Michael Rosen and are keen to dip into the work of some of the previous Children’s Laureates, why not try these:
Michael Morpurgo: This Morning I Met a Whale
This environmentally friendly story is about a whale that swims up the Thames with a message. Young Michael hears his plea that humans must put right the damage they have done to the earth before it’s too late. Michael promises to spread the world but can he convince his teacher and schoolmates? And can he help the now stranded whale reach the ocean in a race against time?

Anne Fine: Bill’s New Frock
Bill knows he’s not going to have a good day when he wakes up one morning and, to his horror, finds out he’s a girl! Worse, his mother makes him wear a frilly pink dress. How will he survive a whole day in pink? He discovers that life is certainly different for girls…

If you liked Charles Elton’s Mr. Toppit and are after another sparkling debut novel, here are a couple more to explore:
Ross Raisin: God’s Own Country
God’s Own Country follows an intelligent but highly disturbed adolescent who becomes obsessed with a young blonde girl who moves into the farm next door. The landscape of the Yorkshire moors is powerfully rendered, but it is the protagonist’s strikingly original voice and rich dialect which has excited the critics.

Poppy Adams: The Behaviour of Moths
Poppy Adam’s debut novel also attracted critical fanfare. It’s narrated by Ginny, an elderly and reclusive moth-expert, who finds that her carefully regimented routine is suddenly shattered by the return of her exuberant sister after a forty year absence. Their reunion forces Ginny to reassess her past – but it also emerges that she’s a less than reliable narrator…

If you liked Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and are after more stories from the angry men of the 1950s, give these seething books a try:
David Storey: This Sporting Life
This Sporting Life is another unflinching portrayal of working-class existence up north. It depicts a young rugby league player who embarks on a relationship with his landlady. The story charts his rise to affluence at the height of his abilities, and his subsequent demise.

John Braine: Room At The Top
In this 1957 classic novel, also set in a drab northern industrial town, Joe Lampton rejects the working-class life led by his parents and instead settles into a miserable marriage with the boss’ daughter. Room At The Top takes an unsparing look at the British obsession with social class and the bleak reality of ordinary daily life.

Bedside Table
The excellent Marina Lewycka lets us in on her bedtime reading habits.
Donald Sassoon: Mona Lisa
Felicity Lawrence: Eat Your Heart Out

Fine Line
This week author Wendy Holden reveals her favourite line from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.

Book Club
This week we journey to the tiny town of Linlithgow in the heart of the Scottish Borders for a book club recommendation from The Linlithgow Bookshop. The shop’s owner Jill Petal recommends Margaret Forster’s Keeping The World Away.

Write Place
We explore the study of the author and Poet Laureate Andrew Motion in this week’s Write Place

Guests’ literary heroes and heroines
Every week our guests tell us about their favourite characters in literature. This week’s choices are as eclectic as always: Michael Rosen’s hero is from Erich Kästner’s Emil and the Detectives; Charles Elton finds his favourite character from  Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys; and Alan Sillitoe’s literary hero is from Stendhal’s The Charterhouse of Parma. But who have they chosen?