Bookclub

James Naughtie is joined by author Matthew Kneale, whose book English Passengers won Whitbread Book of the Year in 2000. They discuss this rampant and ambitious piece of writing that deals with big ideas like radical theory, genocide and Darwinism, yet is hilarious too.

In the 100th edition of Bookclub, James Naughtie is joined by American crime writer Elmore Leonard to discuss his book Rum Punch. The novel is set in Florida and features the character Jackie Burke, who became Jackie Brown in the film of the same name by Quentin Tarantino.

James Naughtie is joined by John Berendt to talk about his book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The story tells of what John Berendt experienced in Savannah, Georgia, in the early 1990s when the town was turned upside-down by a strange murder.

James Naughtie is joined by Lindsey Davis to discuss her thriller Time to Depart, about investigator Marcus Didius Falco, a kind of 1950s gumshoe detective, operating in the teeming bustle of Rome.

James Naughtie is joined in Brighton by novelist Ali Smith to talk about her book Hotel World.

Malorie Blackman joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss Noughts and Crosses, her novel set in an alternative reality in which people are either a Cross, with money, prospects and position, or a Nought, with very little.

Lionel Shriver joins James Naughtie and a studio audience to discuss her book We Need to Talk About Kevin, a novel about an unloved son who grows up to commit a horrifying crime.

James Naughtie is joined by American satirist P J O'Rourke to discuss Holidays in Hell, his account of his experiences as foreign correspondent for Rolling Stone Magazine in the late 1980s.

James Naughtie is joined by George Macdonald Fraser to talk about his Flashman books which use Thomas Hughes' bully character from Tom Brown's Schooldays.

American writer Joyce Carol Oates joins James Naughtie and readers to discuss We Were the Mulvaneys, the story of the break-up of a family after the random disaster of a rape.