Bookclub

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to the renowned travel writer and novelist Colin Thubron about his account of travelling through Russia in the late 1990s, In Siberia.It's the story of how Thubron made a 15,000-mile journey through an astonishing region - one twelfth of the land surface of the whole earth. He journeyed by train, river and truck among the people most damaged by the breakup of the Soviet Union, travelling among Buddhists and animists, radical Christian sects, reactionary Communists and the remnants of a so-called Jewish state; from the site of the last Czar's murder and Rasputin's village, to the ice-bound graves of ancient Scythians, to Baikal, the deepest and oldest of the world's lakes. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Colin Thubron Producer : Dymphna FlynnFebruary's Bookclub choice : A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride (2013).

James Naughtie and readers talk to Clive James about the first volume of his autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, which has sold over a million copies.Clive James is a poet, essayist, novelist, documentarist, critic, talk show host, travel writer, cultural commentator - and red-hot tango dancer. The audience talk to Clive about Unreliable Memoirs, which covers his boyhood years in Kogarah, a suburb of Sydney. Clive was born in 1939; the other event that year (he says) was the outbreak of war, from which his father never returned. Clive tells Bookclub how that event has dominated his whole life.

In an extended version, Jennifer Egan talks about A Visit from The Goon Squad.

James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author Edward St Aubyn, who is best known for his five autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, which dissect the agonies of family life with honesty, wit and precision. His debut novel Never Mind won a Betty Trask award, while our chosen book is the fourth in the Melrose series, Mother's Milk, and was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker prize.In Mother's Milk, the middle aged Patrick Melrose is married with two young children. He finds his wife consumed with motherhood and his mother consumed by a New Age Foundation, and about to disinherit him in favour of a suspect Irish shaman. The novel opens with a dazzling scene as Patrick's first son Robert narrates his own birth as it happens, and then grows into a young boy who understands far more about life than he ought. Patrick is caught in the family wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide and his once wealthy, illustrious family is in peril.In this rare interview, Edward St Aubyn admits he does not enjoy discussing his work in public, and says that in Mother's Milk there is less of himself in the character of Patrick than in the previous novels; and he describes the writing processes behind his acerbically funny and disarmingly tender novel. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Edward St Aubyn Producer : Dymphna FlynnDecember's Bookclub choice : A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010).

Peter Høeg's internationally bestselling Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow was the original Scandi-crime thriller. First published in 1992 the novel's runaway success was due to its extraordinary central character, 37 year old Smilla Qaavigaaq Jasperson, as well as the unfamiliar backdrop of snowy Copenhagen and the icy wastes of Greenland. Smilla is half-Dane and half-Inuit; she is unmarried, childless, independent and irascible and yet she forms an unlikely friendship with her neighbour six year old Isaiah.The book opens when the young boy has fallen to his death from the roof of their apartment building; it's ruled an accident, yet Smilla, an expert on ice and snow, can tell from his footprints that he was running from someone. She begins her own investigation, forming an uneasy friendship with another neighbour, a mechanic. Smilla uncovers a trail of clues, and her sense of snow leads her into a mystery that goes back decades.Peter Høeg explains how the character of Smilla came to him in an unlikely way, as he saw a Somalian woman cross the street in Copenhagen and knew his next main character would be called Smilla. For Høeg, books are intuitive and less logical than daily life. He candidly discloses that Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow was written by a young and inexperienced novelist, and how looking back, he is dissatisfied and rather ashamed of its enigmatic ending. He says that writing a novel is like running a marathon, it's an intense experience, and by the end, the writer can lose concentration in his exhaustion. Presented by James NaughtiePresenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Peter Høeg Producer : Dymphna FlynnNovember's Bookclub choice : Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn (2006).

Patrick McCabe speaks to James Naughtie about his novel, The Butcher Boy

Anne Patchett on her award winning novel, Bel Canto.

Deborah Levy talks about her novel, Swimming Home.

Michael Chabon talks about The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with James Naughtie and a group of readers. The novel follows the story of the teenage Josef Kavalier, who makes a daring escape from the Germans in Prague in 1939, leaving his family behind. He travels across Europe and eventually arrives at his cousin Samuel Clayman's house in Brooklyn. There the pair discover a shared love of the burgeoning comic book world of Superheroes - Joe Kavalier is the artist, and Sam Clay, as he becomes, is the writer. Together they create a hero of their own, The Escapist, a Houdini-type figure who fights the Nazis, frees the enslaved and leads them home. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2001.Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Michael Chabon Producer : Dymphna FlynnJune's Bookclub choice : Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru (2011).

Sunjeev Sahota discusses his novel The Year of the Runaways which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. The Year of the Runaways follows the stories of three undocumented Indian men who share a house in Sheffield. Tochi has fled India after his family were killed in a Caste-related massacre; Avtar arrives on a student visa, but intending to work. Randeep, Avtar's friend and neighbour, is the beneficiary of a sham marriage. In a flat on the other side of town lives Randeep's visa-wife, the British-born Narinder. Her cupboards are filled with his clothes, in case Immigration arrives. Sahota was named as a Granta Best Young British Novelist in 2013. Presented by James Naughtie and including contributions and questions from a group of invited readers.Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Sunjeev Sahota Producer : Dymphna FlynnMay's Bookclub choice : The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2000).