Bookclub Folgen

James Naughtie and readers talk to American writer Nicole Krauss, shortlisted for this year's Orange Prize.Our chosen novel is her critically acclaimed The History of Love.It's a complex tale of loss - a lost manuscript, lost homelands, characters grieving for lost loved ones. There are four separate narrators who are all drawn to the lost book - also called The History of Love. Leo Gursky is at the end of his life, tapping his radiator each evening to let his neighbour know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the local coffee bar. He doesn't want to die on a day when no-one has seen him. As a young man Leo wrote The History of Love in pre-war Poland. Although he doesn't know it, the book also survived, crossing oceans and generations and changing lives.Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that book, and lives across New York City from Leo. She and her little brother, who thinks he is the Messiah, are recovering from the loss of their father. The starting point for writing the novel was the story of her grandmother, who came to England as a chaperone on the Kindertransport, and lost all her family in the Holocaust. She had fallen in love with a young doctor, whom she had also presumed dead. Forty years later, he wrote to her grandmother from South America. Nicole's History of Love is like a jigsaw, where all the pieces come together at the end - and she talks about how she has no preconceived idea about where the story will end as she begins. Nicole likens it to being a traveller in a foreign city, walking from street to street, finding her way. July's Bookclub choice : 'The Music Room' by William Fiennes. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Andrew O'Hagan is a rising star in the literary world. He joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss his novel Be Near Me, the story of Father David, an aesthetic English Catholic priest working in a working class community in Ayrshire.This is a poignant story of a man who doesn't fit in. Father David is trapped by class hatreds, and troubled by sexual feelings which he struggles to keep submerged. He's a character who's almost intent on self destruction, and as the reader follows his story, we can't help but think it's going to end in tragedy.Andrew O'Hagan talks about the challenges of writing such a story in the first person, how inevitably people think it's about himself - and how by creating a protagonist whose side of the story is not quite reliable leads to intrigue in the mind of the reader.Andrew has drawn on the community where he himself grew up - a community ridden by class and religious divide. One of the novel's strongest characters is Father David's housekeeper Mrs Poole who was based on Andrew's mother and colleagues. His mother was a school cleaner and as a child Andrew spent some of his school holidays watching and listening to their conversations as they went about the 'big clean' - preparing the school for the new academic year. The starting point for the book was when Andrew happened to be in a café in Paris and noticed a Catholic priest drinking coffee alone in the corner. Andrew watched as a tear fell down the priest's cheek, and immediately began to wonder what his story was and went home to write it.As always on Bookclub, a group of readers join the author in the discussion and James Naughtie chairs the programme.June's Bookclub choice : 'The History of Love' by Nicole Krauss. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Recorded at the Verbal Arts Centre in Londonderry/City of Derry, James Naughtie and readers talk to one of Ireland's finest writers - Jennifer Johnston. Now in her eighties, Jennifer has been called 'The Quiet Woman' of Irish literature. Her distinguished career has spanned more than 40 years and has netted the Whitbread Prize among her many awards. Her books are taught on the Irish school curriculum and in American Universities. The chosen novel for this edition of Bookclub is one of her later ones, The Gingerbread Woman. Like many of her novels, this story deals with personal conflict, as two characters meet by chance one day on a cliff top overlooking Dublin Bay and form an uneasy friendship. Yet the conflict between these two mirrors a bigger question - the conflict between the North and South of Ireland. Jennifer Johnston is a writer who watches and listens. She's best known for her portrayal of different Irelands, notably the group called the Anglo-Irish, who appear in what became known as The Big House novels. More recently she has moved her protagonists out of the countryside and into the affluent suburbs.Jennifer grew up in a theatrical house - her father Denis was the leading playwright of his day and her mother Shelah an actress. Jennifer describes how her literary upbringing has resonated through her writing, and how much she enjoys writing dialogue.As always on Bookclub, a group of readers join the author in the discussion and James Naughtie chairs the programme.May's Bookclub choice : 'Be Near Me' by Andrew O'Hagan. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.