This podcast features Open Book and A Good Read. In Open Book, Mariella Frostrup talks to leading authors about their work. A Good Read features Harriett Gilbert discussing a range of favourite titles with guests.
Episodes available:
Indefinitely 
Tue, 14 Oct 14
Duration:
29 mins
Actor Sheila Hancock and columnist Cosmo Landesman talk about the books they love with Harriett Gilbert, including How To Lose Friends & Alienate People by Toby Young, Stoner by John Williams and Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner.
Sun, 12 Oct 14
Duration:
28 mins
Mariella Frostrup is joined by award-winning Irish writer, Colm Toibin, to discuss his new novel, Nora Webster, and to look back over a career that spans a quarter of a century.
Tue, 7 Oct 14
Duration:
28 mins
Jeremy Paxman and Mary Beard argue heatedly and entertainingly about the books they love, with presenter Harriett Gilbert acting as referee. Jeremy's choice is Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain: a rollercoaster of a novel that's been called the Catch-22 of the Iraq War. The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis is classicist Mary Beard's recommendation. It's a depiction of French peasant life that's been described as even greater than the film of the same story. Travels with my Aunt, a genuinely funny novel by Graham Greene, is Harriett Gilbert's contribution.
Sun, 28 Sep 14
Duration:
28 mins
Mariella Frostrup discusses Robert Merle's iconic French series The Brethren, now in English. And behind the genius of Ian Curtis and the socio-linguist Steven Pinker on style.
Sun, 21 Sep 14
Duration:
28 mins
Novelist Esther Freud talks about her latest, Mr Mac and Me, inspired by the time architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh spent in Suffolk. Howard Jacobson talks about the book that he would never lend, not least because he can't find it at the moment and the changing face of book launches: how the crowded market has inspired publicists to think of new ways to draw attention to new books.
Sun, 14 Sep 14
Duration:
28 mins
Ali Smith has been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize for the third time this year for her novel How To Be Both. She talks to Mariella Frostrup.
Sun, 31 Aug 14
Duration:
28 mins
As we head for a September publishing bonanza, Mariella Frostrup is joined by acclaimed writers Ian McEwan and Amy Bloom, as well as Books Editor of the Guardian Claire Armitstead.
Sun, 24 Aug 14
Duration:
27 mins
Writers Damian Barr, Evie Wyld and Joe Dunthorne discuss the rise of live literary events.
Sun, 17 Aug 14
Duration:
28 mins
A literary ramble through the Yorkshire moors and the work they have inspired, from the Brontes to Sylvia Plath. With authors Ross Raisin, Will Atkins and Professor John Bowen.
Sun, 10 Aug 14
Duration:
28 mins
John Banville takes Mariella on a tour of the foggy streets, smoke-filled bars and genteel hotel tea rooms of 1950s Dublin.
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