Books And Authors

In the final part of her history of women's writing Mariella Frostup considers developments in female fiction since the publication of Bridge Jones's Diary in 1996. What is the state of writing by women a century after women achieved emancipation? Is the idea of women's writing outmoded now, where does `chick lit' fit in, and is feminism a concept which young female novelists consider central to their work? The programme also asks whether the literary establishment itself is suffering from gender bias.

Harriett Gilbert talks to Alexander Waugh and Xanthe Clay about their favourite books.

In the third instalment of her history of women's twentieth-century writing, A Book of One's Own, Mariella investigates the era of sexual liberation in the 1960s & 70s and how it ignited feminist fiction. She also traces the explosion in feminist literary theory. And as this year's Harrogate Crime Writing Festival ends, Mariella asks if the genre has become too gory.

Harriett Gilbert talks to Raymond Tallis and Allegra Stratton about their favourite books.

Mariella presents the second part of her series examining the history of women's writing in the last hundred years. This week, she explores fiction of the 1930s and 40s - a time when the vote had been won but sexual inequality was still rife. Plus as the bicentenary of William Makepeace Thackeray's birth approaches, comedian Al Murray tells us about his great, great, great grandfather and why Vanity Fair is still as relevant today as it was when it was first written in 1848.

Satirical writer John O'Farrell and historian Juliet Barker talk to Harriett Gilbert about their favourite books - all of which use an unusual blend of fact and fiction. They evoke the lives of the Brontes, the worst civilian disaster of World War II and the British mandate in Palestine.

Mariella presents the first in a four part series examining the history of women's writing in the last hundred years. In A Book of One's Own: How Women Wrote The Twentieth Century, she speaks to leading novelists, critics and publishers to trace the evolution of women's emancipation in fiction. Part 1 explores the literature of the suffrage movement with the aid of Shirley Williams - daughter of the iconic feminist author Vera Brittain - and asks why the names of so many groundbreaking suffrage writers have been erased from our literary history. Also, Ross Raisin, author of God's Own Country, discusses his new book Waterline.

Fay Weldon and Louise Welsh talk to Harriett Gilbert about the books they love.

Broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli and comedian Simon Evans talk to Harriett Gilbert about their favourite books.

Harriett Gilbert discusses favourite paperbacks with writer Fleur Adcock and comedian Laura Solon. Their choices include a modern classic by Evelyn Waugh and two coming-of-age novels, one set in France and the other in the north of England.

John Banville, writing as Benjamin Black, discusses the fourth novel in his Dublin mystery series A Death In Summer. How publishers are responding to the growing demand for short form fiction with writers Kevin Barry and Laura Dockrill on the phenomenon of the low priced short story download. And novelists Mary Hoffman and Lucille Turner look at the implications of writing books about iconic pieces of art.

Margaret Drabble discusses the new collection of her 13 short stories, published between 1966 and 2000. John Crace (the man behind the Guardian newspaper's Digested Reads) recommends books to read while relaxing on a beach and stands up for the classics. And author Helen Oyeyemi talks about her new novel Mr Fox, a modern day re-telling of the Bluebeard tale.

Harriett Gilbert's guests, actor Bill Paterson and travel writer Dea Birkett, discuss with her their favourite paperback books. The choices include two novels, one set in post-war California and the other in post-war Germany, and a travelogue which is also a personal history.

Mariella talks to award-winning author Amitav Ghosh about River of Smoke - the second book in his Ibis Trilogy set in the waterways around Canton during the events leading up to the start of the First Opium War in 1839. In this week's Reading Clinic, author Joanna Kavenna recommends fiction in which women rise like a phoenix from the ashes. And writer and poet Iain Sinclair explains why Alexander Baron, the British novelist of the Second World War, should be rediscovered and re-read.

Lord Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, and novelist Mavis Cheek are Harriett Gilbert's guests in this edition of A Good Read. Each brings a very different recommended read to the studio: a series of essays celebrating the wild places in nature; an early novel by a poet; and a profound but disquieting debut novel about a disturbed child.

Joining Harriett Gilbert to discuss some favourite books are historical novelist Lindsey Davis and writer and critic James Walton. Their choices are all novels: they feature the excitement of a Royal escape, the entertaining emotional journey of a poetry editor with writer's block, and some wonderful writing about childhood.

Mariella celebrates a renaissance in historical fiction writing with authors Philippa Gregory, Sarah Dunant and Adrian Goldsworthy. The programme also includes an interview with Hilary Mantel, author of Booker prize winning novel "Wolf Hall" about the Tudor politician Thomas Cromwell.

Mariella talks to Frederick Forsyth, forty years after he wrote his ground-breaking novel The Day of the Jackal, one of the first modern international conspiracy thrillers. Authors Louise Welsh and Francis Spufford pay homage to one of the giants of English literature, Robert Louis Stevenson. And how amateur writers across Afghanistan are critiquing each other's work in home-grown literary salons.

Mariella talks to novelists Eoin Colfer and John Boyne about their new books as they cross the divide between writing for children and adults. Jim Crace, author of Booker nominated novel Quarantine, talks about writing his last book in a career which has lasted 25 years. And hot new Irish writer Kevin Barry and critic Suzi Feay discuss the way in which long running television drama series have influenced the contemporary novel.

Mariella talks to Booker winning author Anne Enright about her new novel, The Forgotten Waltz. Dickens fan Roy Hattersley and academic John Bowen examine the literary friendship between Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. And young adult author Patrick Ness talks about picking up the literary baton, after he completed a novel by fellow writer Siobhan Dowd following her death from cancer.