Sunday 16:00-16:30, repeated Thursday 16:00-16:30, except first Sunday in the month when it is replaced by Book Club.
Open Book spotlights new fiction and non-fiction, picks out the best of the paperbacks, talks to authors and publishers, and unearths lost masterpieces.
This week
Sunday 30 December 2007
Woody Allen – author of one of the books chosen by the panel this week.
Mariella Frostrup explores the elusive art of comedy writing in the company of four illustrious guests. In the studio are author Lynne Truss, John O'Farrell, former Spitting Image writer and author, writer D J Taylor and Professor of Literature John Bowen.
Giving the lie to the truism that the best way to kill a joke is to have to explain the panel each pick their favourite piece of comic writing from Charles Dickens to Woody Allen to Frank Skinner and debate the elements that make up brilliant funny writing.
Is laughing out loud at what you read a guilty pleasure better indulged in private? Join the public discussion of private humour, here on Open Book.
Eats, Shoots and Leaves – Lynne Truss
Publisher: Profile
Making The Cat Laugh – Lynne Truss
Publisher: Profile
An Utterly Impartial History of Britain (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge) - John O’Farrell
Publisher: Doubleday
Diary of a Nobody – Charles and Weedon Grossmith
Publisher: Penguin
Stars and Bars – William Boyd
Publisher: Penguin
Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
Publisher: Penguin
From A View To A Death – Anthony Powell
Publisher: Mandarin
The Insanity Defence: The Complete Prose – Woody Allen
Publisher: Random House Trade
Frank Skinner Autobiography – Frank Skinner
Publisher: Arrow Books
Into the Heart of Borneo – Redmond O’Hanlon
Publisher: Penguin
