Bookclub Folgen

With James Naughtie.Donna Tartt discusses her cult debut novel The Secret History, first published in 1992."I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."In a rare visit to the UK, Donna Tartt discusses The Secret History, which she has described as a 'why dunnit'. It's a murder mystery about a group of classic students at a privileged New England college; but from page one she discloses that the friends have murdered one of their number, Bunny. A literary thriller with allusions to Euripides and Dostoevsky, The Secret History was an overnight sensation and has gripped readers for decades.As always in Bookclub, a group of invited readers join in the discussion too.February's Bookclub choice : The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie.Lee Child discusses the first in his hugely successful Jack Reacher series, Killing Floor, and published in 1997. He's now gone on to write 18 books featuring his grizzled action hero, a former military policeman of no fixed abode.Lee reflects on the genesis of Jack Reacher, who appeared when he decided to write fiction after being made redundant by Granada TV in 1995. Lee says that he and Jack were on a parallel journey in Killing Floor, as Jack has just left the military and is out in an unfamiliar world at the same time as Lee. As he looks back, he can see his own raw emotion in Jack, who in Killing Floor is a character full of fury. But by book seven, the frustration had abated and Jack's anger had calmed down.The books have gone on to sell over 60 million copies worldwide.As always on Bookclub, a group of invited readers join in the discussion.January's Bookclub choice : The Secret History by Donna TarttProducer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie.Matthew Hollis discusses his Costa winning biography of the poet Edward Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France.The book is an account of the final years of Thomas who died in action in the First World War in 1917.Although an accomplished prose-writer and literary critic, Edward Thomas only began writing poetry in 1914, at the age of 36. Before then, Thomas had been tormented by what he regarded as the banality of his work, by his struggle with depression and by his marriage.Inspired by his life-changing friendship with American poet Robert Frost, Thomas wrote poem after poem, and his emotional affliction began to lift.The two friends began to formulate poetic ideas that would produce some of the most remarkable verse of the twentieth century. But the First World War put an ocean between them: Frost returned to the safety of New England, while Thomas stayed to fight.Hollis is a poet himself and talks about the poetic life as well as the roads taken - and those not taken - that are at the heart of the book.Producer Dymphna FlynnDecember's Bookclub choice : Killing Floor by Lee Child.