Bookclub

James Naughtie and Madeline Miller discuss her debut novel The Song of Achilles which won the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012.

In The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller presents a love story against the backdrop of the Trojan war - between Achilles, leading the Greek army, and his best friend Patroclus. Her imagined relationship between the two men explains the emotional support that Achilles gets from Patroclus, the strength of the bond between them and the depth of Achilles' grief at his friend's death.

Recorded with a group of invited readers.

October's Bookclub Choice : A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard (2014)

Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Madeline Miller Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Alice Oswald, Radio 4's Poet in Residence, discusses her collection Falling Awake which won the Costa Poetry Prize 2016.

Falling Awake explores two of Alice Oswald’s recurring preoccupations - with the natural world, and with the myths of more ancient civilizations. Alice studied Classics at university and on graduation became a gardener. Homer, she says, made her a gardener because in the ancient world, the archaic poets create continuity between human beings and our surroundings.

The poems in Falling Awake move easily from the observation of the falling rain, or the stealthy tread of a fox through a darkened garden, to the sight of the head of Orpheus floating away on the River Hebron after he's been killed, with his voice still singing as it goes. And, then finally, to Tithonus, a forty-six minute poem written for performance which is a gripping evocation of dawn - again from an idea bequeathed by classical mythology. The poem takes us, as it did one summer as Alice observed the dawn, from the moment when the sun is six degrees below the horizon to the breaking of light.

Presented by James Naughtie with readers from the charity Poet in the City asking the questions.

Presenter : James Naughtie Producer : Dymphna Flynn

March's Bookclub Choice : Tightrope by Simon Mawer (2015)

Jessie Burton discusses The Miniaturist, her debut novel which was the subject of a bidding war between 11 publishers at the 2013 London Book Fair. Set in Amsterdam in 1686–87, the novel was inspired by Petronella Oortman's doll's house which is on display at the Rijksmuseum.

Jessie explains how she created her own fictional version of Nella Oortman for the novel. At the age of 18, Nella marries a rich merchant, Johannes Brandt, hoping for love and prosperity. Instead, she enters a world of tensions, secrets and mystery which soon threatens her future. Johannes gives his new wife an extraordinary wedding gift: a miniature replica of their home. As the enigmatic craftswoman delivers more and more miniatures for the cabinet house, its tiny occupants start to mirror their real-life counterparts in unexpected ways.

Presented by James Naughtie and recorded with a group of invited readers.

Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Jessie Burton Producer : Dymphna Flynn

February's Bookclub choice : Falling Awake by Alice Oswald

American author Meg Wolitzer discusses her novel The Interestings, which follows a group of friends from teenage years through to middle age and marriage and children.

Aged 15, the group first meet at on a warm night at Spirit in the Woods summer camp in 1974. They drink, smoke pot and share their dreams and vow always to be interesting. Although not strictly an autobiographical novel, the idea for the book came from Meg's own experience as a teenager at summer camp in the same era and how the experience can give young people the opportunity to re-invent themselves. What links the six teenagers in The Interestings is their creativity – but how many of them will be successful in their chosen fields?

Decades later, aspiring actress Jules has resigned herself to a more practical occupation, Cathy has stopped dancing, Jonah has laid down his guitar and Goodman (a bit of a misnomer) has disappeared. Only the animator Ethan and theatre director Ash, now married, have remained true to their adolescent dreams and have become shockingly successful.

As the group's fortunes tilt, their friendships are put under strain and Meg Wolitzer explains to Bookclub how the strain of envy and disappointment drives the story.

Meg Wolitzer has been enjoying great success this autumn with the film version of her novel about a Nobel prize winning writer, The Wife.

Presented by James Naughtie and recorded with a group of invited readers.

Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Meg Wolitzer Producer : Dymphna Flynn

January 2019's Bookclub choice : The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (2014)

Neel Mukherjee talks about his Man Booker Prize nominated book The Lives of Others, which explores the way an Indian family's history is disrupted when one member becomes involved in extremist political activism.

The programme was recorded in the library at Styal Prison, Cheshire, with a reading group of women prisoners, and with the support of the National Literacy Trust and the Books Unlocked reading scheme.

The Lives of Others is set in Calcutta and the ricefields on the edge of the jungle in the west of West Bengal. It takes place in the second half of the 1960s and centres on the large and relatively wealthy Ghosh family, led by a patriarch and matriarch who rule the family, from the top of a large shared house, with other relatives on lower floors depending on their social standing.

The eldest grandson, Supratik, has left home and joined the Naxalite communist rebels and is working secretly in the countryside to mobilise the peasants against the landlords. Letters from him to an unnamed correspondent form one thread of narrative. The other is an intricate account of events and relationships on the various floors of the Ghosh house. There are tragedies and comedies, deaths and births, disasters and feasts and a mystery involving jewellery.

The cast is huge and the reader spends time, at one point or another, with most of them. The reading group at Styal prison talk about the large cast of characters and how they drive the story, and also describe the importance of the prison library and reading in their daily lives.

Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed Guest : Neel Mukherjee Producer : Dymphna Flynn

September's Bookclub choice : The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (2011).