Bookclub Folgen

Arundhati Roy talks to James Naughtie and readers about her Booker prize winning novel The God of Small Things.It's Arundhati Roy's first and so far only book of fiction and it took the literary world by storm, winning the Booker Prize in 1997. It's a story about the childhood experiences of fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by the "Love Laws" that lay down "who must be loved, and how, and how much". The book is a description of how the small things in life affect people's behaviour and their lives, and with a love affair between characters of different backgrounds, shows how cruel the caste system could be. Arundhati Roy talks about why she's never written fiction since, and how she's not ruling out a return to the genre. She describes how her training as an architect was useful in the planning of this multi-layered story, with its complex time frames which owe a debt to James Joyce's Ulysses.November's Bookclub choice : The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Mohsin Hamid talks to James Naughtie and readers about his bestselling book The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This edition of Bookclub will be broadcast just two days after the novel has been featured as Radio 4's Book at Bedtime, and it's a timely choice as we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a sparse, gripping, short novel that tackles the complex issues of Islamic fundamentalism and America's 'war on terror' with sympathy and balance.It's the story of Changez, a high-flying young Pakistani man living in New York at the time of the attacks, whose life is turned around on that day, and who in the aftermath returns to his native Pakistan. Changez tells his life story to an unnamed stranger, an American man, at a tea house in Lahore. Readers may recognise the same device was used by Albert Camus in his novel The Fall - and Mohsin Hamid acknowledges the debt to the French novel.As night falls, the tension grows between the Changez and the American and a sense of mystery and suspense grows page by page. Who is this American? Is he a spy? Does he have a gun in his pocket, and what exactly has the 'reluctant fundamentalist' come to believe? This novel has one of the most ambiguous endings in contemporary fiction and readers will be telling Mohsin Hamid how they think it finishes.October's Bookclub choice : 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy.Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Donna Leon talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about the first in her hugely successful crime series set in Venice, Death At La Fenice.The book launched the career of her fictional detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti in the early 1990s, and he is now beloved by readers. Like an Italian Maigret, he's a policeman of integrity. Brunetti also has a fulfilled family life with his intellectual and feminist wife Carla, and their two children, who are trapped in an eternal adolescence as the Brunetti series progresses and the years pass by. The portrait of the family, along with the subtle and vivid picture of Venice, and the enticing descriptions of what Venetians eat, is at the heart of Leon's books, giving a warmth that balances out the darkness of the crimes.The books also give us an insight as to how Italy as a country works. Donna Leon is an American who's lived in Venice for more than twenty years and she describes the corruption, inertia, nepotism and cynicism so sharply we can only think it's authentic. Although the books are translated into twenty languages now, Italian is not one of them. She tells James Naughtie and assembled readers it's because she wishes to remain anonymous in her adopted city.September's Bookclub choice : 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' by Mohsin Hamid. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.