With James Naughtie. Emma Donoghue discusses her novel Room with an invited group of readers.Donoghue, an Irish writer living in Canada, tells the story of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who has been imprisoned with his mother in a tiny room - 11 feet by 11 feet - for his whole life. Emma was inspired to write Room after reading about European kidnapping cases such as the Fritzls in Austria, and so Jack was born into captivity after his mother was taken by a stranger at the age of 19 and held prisoner in a converted garden shed.Told in Jack's voice as he learns of a world outside his small prison, Room was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010. But Emma says that the premise of the novel is to explore the myths and realities of motherhood and parenting rather than focus on the crime of kidnapping - and one reader tells her how surprised she was find so much humour in the novel. July's Bookclub choice : Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? By Lorrie Moore (1994).

With James Naughtie.Australian novelist Christos Tsiolkas responds to readers' questions about his award-winning debut The Slap. The book generated considerable debate - should you slap a child who's misbehaving, but isn't yours? In this controversial novel Tsiolkas presents an apparently harmless domestic incident from eight very different perspectives and examines how its aftermath reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. He explains how he uses this one event to discuss the realities of contemporary Australian society - its materialism and racial prejudices, and how lives of the immigrants' children are so different from their parents'.June's Bookclub choice is Room by Emma DonoghueProduced by Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie. Celebrated Irish writer John Banville discusses his novel The Sea which won the Man Booker prize in 2005.In The Sea, middle-aged art historian Max Morden loses his wife to cancer and is compelled to go back to the seaside resort where he spent childhood holidays. It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time.John Banville talks about the power of revisiting places from childhood, how he wanted to be a painter as a teenager but found he had no talent. He explains how he painstakingly writes his novels over many years, creating sentence after sentence, but in the end he always feels the book is an embarrassment and a failure, and that he must move on to the next novel. May's Bookclub choice is The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas.Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie.Naomi Alderman, listed as one of Granta's Best Young Novelists 2013, responds to readers' questions about her first novel Disobedience.Alderman, herself a product of London's Jewish community, tells the story of Ronit, a young woman who's escaped her Orthodox upbringing for independence in New York. Ronit is forced to face her past when she returns home after her father, a pre-eminent Rabbi, dies. Disobedience won the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers.Producer: Dymphna FlynnApril's Bookclub choice : The Sea (2005) by John Banville.

With James Naughtie.Khaled Hosseini talks about his global bestselling novel, The Kite Runner with a group of invited readers.The book describes how the happiness of an afternoon's kite flying competition in late-1970s Kabul is broken when young Amir fails to help his best friend Hassan avoid a terrible incident. The effects on the duo's friendship are devastating. Over 20 years later, Amir returns to Afghanistan from America, determined to redeem himself.Khaled Hosseini explains the unequal relationship between the two boys that lies at the heart of the novel, and how the reader has a sense of dread and impending catastrophe as the story develops. He says that although the West has a view of Afghanistan as a violent culture, he remembers that for most of the twentieth century, Afghanistan was a peaceful place, and that the West has exoticised Afghans as being 'warrior' like.March's Bookclub choice : Disobedience (2006) by Naomi AldermanProducer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie.Donna Tartt discusses her cult debut novel The Secret History, first published in 1992."I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."In a rare visit to the UK, Donna Tartt discusses The Secret History, which she has described as a 'why dunnit'. It's a murder mystery about a group of classic students at a privileged New England college; but from page one she discloses that the friends have murdered one of their number, Bunny. A literary thriller with allusions to Euripides and Dostoevsky, The Secret History was an overnight sensation and has gripped readers for decades.As always in Bookclub, a group of invited readers join in the discussion too.February's Bookclub choice : The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie.Lee Child discusses the first in his hugely successful Jack Reacher series, Killing Floor, and published in 1997. He's now gone on to write 18 books featuring his grizzled action hero, a former military policeman of no fixed abode.Lee reflects on the genesis of Jack Reacher, who appeared when he decided to write fiction after being made redundant by Granada TV in 1995. Lee says that he and Jack were on a parallel journey in Killing Floor, as Jack has just left the military and is out in an unfamiliar world at the same time as Lee. As he looks back, he can see his own raw emotion in Jack, who in Killing Floor is a character full of fury. But by book seven, the frustration had abated and Jack's anger had calmed down.The books have gone on to sell over 60 million copies worldwide.As always on Bookclub, a group of invited readers join in the discussion.January's Bookclub choice : The Secret History by Donna TarttProducer : Dymphna Flynn.

With James Naughtie.Matthew Hollis discusses his Costa winning biography of the poet Edward Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France.The book is an account of the final years of Thomas who died in action in the First World War in 1917.Although an accomplished prose-writer and literary critic, Edward Thomas only began writing poetry in 1914, at the age of 36. Before then, Thomas had been tormented by what he regarded as the banality of his work, by his struggle with depression and by his marriage.Inspired by his life-changing friendship with American poet Robert Frost, Thomas wrote poem after poem, and his emotional affliction began to lift.The two friends began to formulate poetic ideas that would produce some of the most remarkable verse of the twentieth century. But the First World War put an ocean between them: Frost returned to the safety of New England, while Thomas stayed to fight.Hollis is a poet himself and talks about the poetic life as well as the roads taken - and those not taken - that are at the heart of the book.Producer Dymphna FlynnDecember's Bookclub choice : Killing Floor by Lee Child.

With James Naughtie. The celebrated travel writer Paul Theroux discusses Dark Star Safari. The book is his account of an overland journey from Cairo to Cape Town, which he made 35 years after first living as a volunteer teacher in Malawi in the early 60s. In the programme he talks about the pleasures and hazards of travelling across countries that many consider no-go areas. He recalls the joy of wild camping by the little known pyramids of the Sudan, the peril of being shot at on the road, and how the continent has changed since he first knew it as a young man. He explains his theories on western aid, and how he manages the rigours of travelling. He says it's best to travel light and alone, with an open mind, a willingness to make friends - and to never forget a paperback.October's Bookclub choice : Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.Producer Dymphna Flynn.

Deborah Moggach talks about her bestselling novel Tulip Fever, a story of love, greed and betrayal in 17th Century Amsterdam.Artist Jan van Loos falls for his married subject Sophia during 'tulipomania'. Prices for the recently introduced flower reached extraordinarily high levels - one bulb could fetch thousands of pounds - and then suddenly collapsed.James Naughtie and a group of invited readers discuss the story and its resonance with 21st century boom and bust economies, as well as the paintings that inspired Deborah to write the novel.September's Bookclub choice : Dark Star Safari by Paul TherouxProducer : Dymphna Flynn.