Episode 19

Joining Mariella Frostrup in this week’s episode of The Book Show are the bestselling American novelist Douglas Kennedy with his latest emotional blockbuster; Booker-winning author Graham Swift with Making  An Elephant; and one of the world’s most popular children’s authors Jacqueline Wilson drops by to revisit her teenage years.

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 Douglas Kennedy’s Leaving the World and want to discover further compelling reads about the dilemmas faced when fate throws a loop, why not try these:
Andrew Rosenheim: Stillriver
Stillriver is a tale of love, family relationships and tensions within small town America. After a troubled childhood, Michael Wolf returns home to Stillriver when his father is brutally murdered. His life is thrown into turmoil as he tries to uncover the mystery surrounding his father’s death and also discovers that the love of his life is back in town.

Lionel Shriver: The Post-Birthday World
The future of Irena McGovern all hinges on one kiss which will determine whether she stays with the intellectual Lawrence or runs off with hard living Ramsey. We get to see how her life would unfold with both men and how their contrasting characters would affect her relationships and career. Each man has his flaws… but then, as we know only too well, no man is perfect.

If you liked Graham Swift’s Making An Elephant and want to read further autobiographical gems, give these a go:
JG Ballard: Miracles of Life
In Miracles of Life, JG Ballard tells the story of his childhood internment in wartime Shanghai, his struggle to raise his children alone after the death of his wife, and a career that has seen him alternately hailed as a great prophet and labelled a moral pariah. It’s a fascinating insight into the warped mind and warm heart of one of our most original novelists.

Julian Barnes: Nothing To Be Frightened Of
With characteristic elegance and intricacy, Julian Barnes returns to the subject of death, thirty years since his first novel on the subject. While exploring his own anxieties, he also gives us a hilariously unsentimental and revealing portrait of his family and childhood.

If you liked Jacqueline Wilson’s My Secret Diary and are keen to revisit the early memories of other children’s authors, try these:
Roald Dahl: Boy
In Boy, Roald Dahl recounts his days as a child growing up in England – from boarding school to the enviable position of chocolate tester for Cadburys! Sadistic matrons and bullying masters are interspersed with fond memories of his most inventive pranks such as punishing the owner of the local sweet shop by infiltrating his gobstopper jar with a dead mouse. Surprisingly, he lived to tell the tale.

Judith Kerr: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is the first in a trilogy of books in which Judith Kerr, creater of the beloved cat Mog, tells a fictionalised account of her own childhood and adolescence. As a young Jewish girl, forced to flee her home in Germany in 1933 to escape the Nazis, the Kerr family escaped through Switzerland, spent some time in Paris and then finally arrived in England in 1936.

Bedside Table
This week the spy author Charles Cumming unveils what books he keeps by his bedside table:
Len Deighton: Action Cook Book
Me Cheeta - Autobiography
Richard Ford: The Lay of the Land

Fine Line
This week the fantastic A L Kennedy reveals her favourite line from a book.

Book Club
This week we visit Tombland Bookshop in the picturesque Norwich where John Freeman recommends Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind.

Write Place
We visit Jeffrey Archer’s study in a folly as he divulges into his rather regimented writing habits.

Quests’ literary heroes and heroines
Each week our quests tell us about their literary heroes and heroines. This week Douglas Kennedy’s literary hero comes from Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair; Graham Swift’s favourite character can be found in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles; and Jacqueline Wilson’s literary favourite is from P.L.Travers’ Mary Poppins. But who have they chosen?