Books and Authors

Harriett Gilbert's guests, actor Bill Paterson and travel writer Dea Birkett, discuss with her their favourite paperback books. The choices include two novels, one set in post-war California and the other in post-war Germany, and a travelogue which is also a personal history.

Mariella talks to award-winning author Amitav Ghosh about River of Smoke - the second book in his Ibis Trilogy set in the waterways around Canton during the events leading up to the start of the First Opium War in 1839. In this week's Reading Clinic, author Joanna Kavenna recommends fiction in which women rise like a phoenix from the ashes. And writer and poet Iain Sinclair explains why Alexander Baron, the British novelist of the Second World War, should be rediscovered and re-read.

Lord Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, and novelist Mavis Cheek are Harriett Gilbert's guests in this edition of A Good Read. Each brings a very different recommended read to the studio: a series of essays celebrating the wild places in nature; an early novel by a poet; and a profound but disquieting debut novel about a disturbed child.

Joining Harriett Gilbert to discuss some favourite books are historical novelist Lindsey Davis and writer and critic James Walton. Their choices are all novels: they feature the excitement of a Royal escape, the entertaining emotional journey of a poetry editor with writer's block, and some wonderful writing about childhood.

Mariella celebrates a renaissance in historical fiction writing with authors Philippa Gregory, Sarah Dunant and Adrian Goldsworthy. The programme also includes an interview with Hilary Mantel, author of Booker prize winning novel "Wolf Hall" about the Tudor politician Thomas Cromwell.

Mariella talks to Frederick Forsyth, forty years after he wrote his ground-breaking novel The Day of the Jackal, one of the first modern international conspiracy thrillers. Authors Louise Welsh and Francis Spufford pay homage to one of the giants of English literature, Robert Louis Stevenson. And how amateur writers across Afghanistan are critiquing each other's work in home-grown literary salons.

Mariella talks to novelists Eoin Colfer and John Boyne about their new books as they cross the divide between writing for children and adults. Jim Crace, author of Booker nominated novel Quarantine, talks about writing his last book in a career which has lasted 25 years. And hot new Irish writer Kevin Barry and critic Suzi Feay discuss the way in which long running television drama series have influenced the contemporary novel.

Mariella talks to Booker winning author Anne Enright about her new novel, The Forgotten Waltz. Dickens fan Roy Hattersley and academic John Bowen examine the literary friendship between Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. And young adult author Patrick Ness talks about picking up the literary baton, after he completed a novel by fellow writer Siobhan Dowd following her death from cancer.

This week Mariella Frostrup is in extended conversation with the novelist Edward St Aubyn. This programme does contain some disturbing content.

Two eras of journalism collide in Annalena McAfee's debut novel, 'The Spoiler'. Sir Max Hastings discusses how journalists have been portrayed in fiction and Emmy Award winning comedy writer Steve Hely talks about his first book 'How I Became a Famous Novelist'

Mariella Frostrup talks to Orange prize nominated novelist Jennifer Egan about her book, A Visit From The Goon Squad. Writers Hisham Matar and Mirza Waheed examine how the experience of living in a region with ongoing political conflict translates into fiction. Children's author Anthony Horowitz and his son offer literary advice to teenage boys.

Mariella Frostrup talks to author of Brick Lane, Monica Ali, about her new novel inspired by the life of Princess Diana. Seventy years after her death, novelist and critic James Runcie assesses the legacy of Virginia Woolf. And librarians, listeners and writers defend public libraries.

Mariella talks to writer Will Self about cuts to UK libraries. Novelists Joseph O'Connor and Maggie O'Farrell discuss why dead lovers haunt the pages of their books. And have young novelists forgotten how to be funny? Comedian Robin Ince offers guidance.

Mariella Frostrup talks to Justin Cartwright about his new book Other People's Money. Acclaimed actress Juliet Stevenson describes her unabridged reading of George Eliot's Middlemarch. Plus American writer Jessica Francis Kane discusses why she made a very British tragedy the subject of a fictional book.

A bonus download: Alan Bennett reads an extract from his diaries in Untold Stories.