Browse content similar to 02/12/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Tonight, on a Book Review Show special, Christmas has come early, | :00:11. | :00:14. | |
we are helping you to pick the best books to put under the tree this | :00:14. | :00:19. | |
year. With just 21 shopping days until | :00:19. | :00:23. | |
Chris marks we have asked each of our panelists to pick their top | :00:23. | :00:31. | |
tips for boorbist presents this year. Kate Mosse enthuses about | :00:31. | :00:36. | |
Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, and Ian Rankin's crime thriller, | :00:36. | :00:46. | |
:00:46. | :00:46. | ||
The Impossible Dead. Marcel Theroux argues the case for Matthew | :00:46. | :00:51. | |
Hollis's Fransolent. Mark Ravenhill champions shoe selected stories by | :00:51. | :01:01. | |
:01:01. | :01:04. | ||
Alice Munro, and Factory Girls, and Sophie Hannah battles for Why Be | :01:04. | :01:11. | |
Happy When You Could Be Normal, and the very, very bad Sex Awards. In | :01:11. | :01:14. | |
the week of his death, we know the scene for which Ken Russell will | :01:15. | :01:23. | |
always be remembered. Here for a premature Christmas the | :01:23. | :01:33. | |
:01:33. | :01:38. | ||
four crickets you dream of meeting under the mistltoe, Kate Mosse, | :01:38. | :01:42. | |
Mark Ravenhill, Sophie Hannah and Marcel Theroux. | :01:42. | :01:47. | |
This week each of my guest has chosen two books, one fiction, one | :01:47. | :01:50. | |
non-fiction, that they recommend you buy someone for Christmas. Each | :01:50. | :01:56. | |
has two minutes to argue their case. First up is Kate. Kate's first | :01:56. | :01:59. | |
choice is Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, a bomb bastic memoir that | :01:59. | :02:03. | |
makes sure there is fun in feminism. It is the funnyiest book I have | :02:03. | :02:07. | |
read this year, possibly one of the funnyiest books I have ever read. | :02:07. | :02:13. | |
It is part rant, part philosophy, part feminism, part memoir. This is | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
not a feminist manifesto, or a call to arms. This is absolutely an act | :02:17. | :02:20. | |
of personal enlightenment. And saying, these are the things that I | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
thought, this is why I call myself a feminist, you too should call | :02:24. | :02:30. | |
yourself a feminist, I will tell you why I think it is. This is the | :02:30. | :02:34. | |
anti-Cosmo, it is the anti-women's magazines, this sort of woman or | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
that sort of woman. This woman says you can be any woman you want to be, | :02:38. | :02:42. | |
you know what, it is fun. Trust me, the minute you do that and lie on | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
the floor and look up at the starsa decide the person you want to be, | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
your life will change. Anybody who gets this book will laugh all the | :02:50. | :02:53. | |
way through Christmas and Boxing Day, they will feel liberated to | :02:53. | :02:57. | |
drink and eat as much as they want. When they shut it they will think I | :02:57. | :03:01. | |
will give that to another ten people I know. Kate's choice of | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
fiction is Ian Rankin The Impossible Dead. His second crime | :03:05. | :03:12. | |
drama, featuring DCI Malcolm Fox, a very different rozzer to Rebus. | :03:12. | :03:18. | |
Rankin is one of the most important British crime writers, it not, the | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
most important. Many people have not been able to get into him, | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
because he wrote so many Rebus novels, this is just the second in | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
a new series. I want to say to anybody, who has always wanted to | :03:30. | :03:34. | |
read Ian Rankin, but put off by the fact there is 25 Rebus novels. | :03:34. | :03:38. | |
These new ones with Malcolm Fox are great. They work, why, because they | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
are proper plotting, characters, properly clever. They also have | :03:43. | :03:47. | |
what all great crime writing has, which is a proper sense of social | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
context, and really showing a mirror, holding a mirror up to the | :03:50. | :03:55. | |
world. There are all sorts of things about what it means to be a | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
carer and juggling the personalal life and professional lie. These | :03:58. | :04:02. | |
people are all men, that is refreshing foo. It is absolutely a | :04:02. | :04:06. | |
crime novel you can give to anyone who likes crime, it won't offend | :04:06. | :04:10. | |
anyone, but when you shut the book you will think that was a proper | :04:10. | :04:17. | |
old fashioned puzzle. Caitlin Moran, Sophie did you read it and want to | :04:17. | :04:23. | |
give it to ten people and shout hurray? It is a brilliant and | :04:23. | :04:26. | |
hilarious book. You can't imagine that any woman with a sense of | :04:26. | :04:30. | |
humour wouldn't love it and wouldn't be able to relate to it | :04:30. | :04:36. | |
completely. It is just hilarious. It is riven with humour, but makes | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
some incredibly serious points. I thought one of the best things was | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
when talking about a 14-year-old boy and girl saying, on-line porn, | :04:44. | :04:49. | |
why can't it be lovely, it is so scary for both girls and boys at | :04:49. | :04:54. | |
that age, let's have more of it, but let's make it consensual, great | :04:54. | :04:58. | |
sex. Do you think it was worth reading? I would regift it, I'm | :04:58. | :05:04. | |
afraid! After about 25 pages, because I think Caitlin Moran is a | :05:05. | :05:09. | |
very attractive person and I love her columns. But that voice, after | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
about 25 pages it really pulls. She has developed this thing, a nerdy | :05:14. | :05:18. | |
teenager, she's a woman, as the title of the book says. This nerdy | :05:18. | :05:23. | |
teenager with a snake bite in one hand and menthol cigarette in the | :05:23. | :05:28. | |
other, just ground me down, I found it hard to get through. I'm with | :05:28. | :05:31. | |
Mark, I found the serious sections more moving, when she was writing | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
about her decision to have an abortion, when she's writing about | :05:34. | :05:41. | |
breaking up with a boyfriend. These kinds of things. I felt she had six | :05:41. | :05:44. | |
espressos and tried to write jokes about her underwear. It is funny, | :05:44. | :05:48. | |
what is great about the book is her sharing stuff that one would be | :05:48. | :05:52. | |
embarrassed to share. That is liberating. There is a great line | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
about talking about overweight, saying we were the elephants in the | :05:56. | :06:02. | |
room. When you are fat when you are not shaped like a human. Did'nt you | :06:02. | :06:05. | |
think the threading of this idea, particularly for younger | :06:05. | :06:09. | |
generations, the idea that the serious stuff is threaded through | :06:09. | :06:12. | |
with all this humour. I think in terms of talking about abortion, it | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
is one of the best and most moving things I have read ever about | :06:16. | :06:21. | |
abortion. That is true, I'm obviously not its demographic. I | :06:21. | :06:27. | |
thought it was feminism as seen through Sunday Times style section, | :06:27. | :06:34. | |
Mulberry handbags and Jimmy choos. Jo there were developments of the | :06:34. | :06:41. | |
last 30 years, and if we went back to 1970 most of the problems would | :06:41. | :06:47. | |
be solved, it is a peculiar idea of feminism. There is ladishness to it, | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
I'm too old for it. I read it because my 21-year-old daughter | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
recommended it to me. Although you say it looks slightly regressive to | :06:55. | :06:59. | |
cancel it all out, it is more about a different way of looking at some | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
of the issues that have not been solved. I didn't find the voice | :07:03. | :07:08. | |
greated at all -- grated at all. I loved that voice, she came across | :07:08. | :07:13. | |
as such a lovely, funny person. does in her columns too. | :07:13. | :07:20. | |
message comes across strongly. is the message? Being a feminist | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
involves asking the question, would the men be doing this, are the men | :07:24. | :07:30. | |
doing this? I thought feminism was just about discovering you are a | :07:30. | :07:36. | |
human being. It is not about saying you can have all kinds of ways, it | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
is about personal self-respect and having a reasonable deal in the | :07:39. | :07:44. | |
world. She has these ground rules. How do you judge whether you're | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
being a feminist and whether you are behaving in an appropriate way, | :07:48. | :07:54. | |
she says the question is to ask "are the men doing this?", I | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
thought when I was having my mascara put on in the make-up room, | :07:58. | :08:04. | |
I thought are the men having mascara. We asked, we were denied. | :08:04. | :08:09. | |
Even just the pubgt situation annoyed me, if I had a pound for | :08:09. | :08:13. | |
every -- pubgt situation marks annoyed me, if I had a pound for | :08:13. | :08:19. | |
every one I would be a rich man. She loves a list, it was like | :08:19. | :08:23. | |
reading an awful teenage diary. Final word? I think there is an | :08:23. | :08:26. | |
element of age, I think I'm probably too old for this, maybe | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
you are too. I think what it is, this is individual feminism, but it | :08:30. | :08:35. | |
is also a feminism that is refusing to be defined about what other | :08:35. | :08:39. | |
people said feminism should have been. That is incredibly important | :08:39. | :08:46. | |
in terms of liberating girls and boys. We move on to Ian Rankin, did | :08:46. | :08:51. | |
you find with the book that he absolutely had got his mojo back? | :08:51. | :09:01. | |
:09:01. | :09:02. | ||
wasn't aware of him ever having lost it, I have to say. I thought | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
it was a brilliant book, what I particularly loved was the absolute | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
focus on story. You can tell, all the way through, that the author | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
just loves telling a good story, that is his top priority, and I | :09:13. | :09:16. | |
sometimes get slightly tired of reading, I read an awful lot of | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
crime novel, often I get the sense that telling a brilliant story is | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
not the writer's main priority. Here is absolutely was. As you say, | :09:26. | :09:31. | |
it is immaculately plotted, it races along. The characters have | :09:31. | :09:41. | |
:09:41. | :09:44. | ||
real depth, it is so sort ofers and economical in terms of the prose, - | :09:44. | :09:49. | |
- terse and economical in terms of the prose. It is a true story, the | :09:49. | :09:53. | |
murder, it felt to me that Ian Rankin had embraced this, and | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
thought I will put everything I have into it? It goes like a train. | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
You don't know until the last ten pages, which is everything you ask | :10:00. | :10:05. | |
in a thriller. I really enjoyed it, in that respect. It was my first | :10:05. | :10:09. | |
experience of Ian Rankin. Was it? was glad I could come into a second | :10:09. | :10:14. | |
novel in a series and not feel I had all this baggage. It was | :10:14. | :10:21. | |
refreshing that the detective was a, he wasn't a maverick, he was a wuss | :10:22. | :10:28. | |
and shying away from conflict, it was a relief to dispense from the | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
cliches. There is real wit and sharpness about it. It is my first- | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
ever Ian Rankin book, the first time I have ever tasted the mojo. | :10:37. | :10:42. | |
And it was absolutely fantastic, he's so topical on the money with | :10:42. | :10:47. | |
SNP politics, and just feels so much as though it is right in the | :10:47. | :10:50. | |
moment. Just the lightest of touches he can establish a | :10:50. | :10:55. | |
character and situation. Just as a writer you are rereading this and | :10:55. | :10:59. | |
say how can you so quickly establish a character. The dialogue | :10:59. | :11:06. | |
is fast, the short sentences, the genre pleasure, he says do you | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
think we should speak to the former psyche cotic Scottish terrorists, | :11:11. | :11:16. | |
does he have anything to do it, of course he does. He's part of | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
investigating other policemen and the mistrust and disDane they are | :11:20. | :11:24. | |
held in, and taunted by the other policemen. It is fascinating. | :11:24. | :11:28. | |
had all these different sets of cops, he managed to delinate them | :11:28. | :11:34. | |
incredibly well very quickly, you got a clear sense of character. | :11:34. | :11:38. | |
What is so clever about it, there are essentially two parallel | :11:39. | :11:44. | |
stories, the nature of terrorism, how in the mid-1980s many of us | :11:44. | :11:47. | |
lived in that sort of way, now we are in a different generation of | :11:47. | :11:50. | |
terrorism. It is so light, there is no, let's pretend we were in the | :11:50. | :11:55. | |
same place as then, it means you come away thinking the patterns go | :11:55. | :11:58. | |
around and comes around. It does end with two guys chasing each | :11:59. | :12:03. | |
other in a forest. Which is standard. As elaborate as it is, | :12:03. | :12:08. | |
the pay-off ends up there. Any way, one for the stocking I think. Next | :12:08. | :12:15. | |
up to get into the Santa spirit, is a different selection, a biography | :12:15. | :12:24. | |
of the war poet, Edward Thomas, and a 700-page graphic novel. The non- | :12:24. | :12:30. | |
fiction is Now All Roads Lead To France, a touching biography of | :12:30. | :12:34. | |
Edward Thomas. It is not the first biography but the best. It focuses | :12:34. | :12:38. | |
on the last five years of his life. He's an interesting character, he | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
came to his poetic vocation late. It is about the crisis he went | :12:41. | :12:45. | |
through that leads to him finally discovering what he's supposed to | :12:45. | :12:49. | |
be in life, which is a poet. It is about the world of 100 years ago. | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
It starts around 1911, it is a world that is vanishing, but it is | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
the world that our grandparents and great-grand parents knew. It has a | :12:57. | :13:02. | |
trace of fame yart about it, at the heart of it is a really -- | :13:02. | :13:08. | |
familiarity about it, and at the heart of it is about creativity | :13:08. | :13:14. | |
ruining your life. He's a miserable sod throughout the book, not a | :13:14. | :13:19. | |
sympathetic character. The catalyst of his become ago poet is his | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
meeting with Robert Frost, coming to London, part of the literary | :13:22. | :13:25. | |
world, their friendship uncorks something in him and it comes to | :13:26. | :13:30. | |
right. He gives a good account about how poetry happens, a very | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
plausible description of what a poet does and how a people comes | :13:33. | :13:38. | |
into being. It is a timely book, we are coming up to 1914, the | :13:39. | :13:42. | |
centinary of 1914, and thinking about the First World War, this is | :13:42. | :13:46. | |
one of those books that sets the scene for that period of | :13:46. | :13:49. | |
remembrance. For his fiction choice, he hasic | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
abouted Habibi, a rich and summous graphic novel by Craig Thompson. | :13:53. | :14:03. | |
:14:03. | :14:05. | ||
What I liked about the book. It is graphic Noel that tells the story | :14:05. | :14:11. | |
of two orphans, it is a rip-roaring read t has a lot of sex in it. It | :14:11. | :14:17. | |
isn't for children, it is graphic, it is for adults. It is set in an | :14:17. | :14:24. | |
Arabian Knights world of desspottic Sultans and uniques and hare | :14:24. | :14:34. | |
:14:34. | :14:36. | ||
recommends, it is also -- There is Arabic kal lig fee, there is an | :14:36. | :14:40. | |
extraordinary lovely object out of this, which would be a lovely thing | :14:40. | :14:50. | |
:14:50. | :14:50. | ||
to find under the Christmas tree. The he had war Thomas first. I | :14:50. | :14:55. | |
wonder -- The Edward Thomas first, I wonder if Richard Thomas set out | :14:56. | :15:01. | |
to write this, and thought how difficult a person Edward Thomas | :15:01. | :15:05. | |
was, it starts as a story of someone who becomes a poet from | :15:05. | :15:12. | |
being a cricket, then there was all this dark stuff about him? The film | :15:12. | :15:17. | |
was so suck sibgt in why the book works. It was beautifully written. | :15:17. | :15:21. | |
There is the life and the expression of poetry and how | :15:21. | :15:25. | |
creativity works, the destrubgtiveness of being poisoned | :15:25. | :15:30. | |
by creativity with no outlet. But I wish I hadn't read it. I have | :15:30. | :15:40. | |
:15:40. | :15:41. | ||
always very much enjoyed his poetry. I hate to look at art through the | :15:41. | :15:44. | |
prisism of his life, they are not the same thing, the man, the woman, | :15:44. | :15:48. | |
the art. I have always, there is always a filter around the First | :15:48. | :15:52. | |
World War, we all know a lot about it, it is one of those periods of | :15:52. | :15:57. | |
history that we know. He's not just a miserable old sod, he's self- | :15:58. | :16:01. | |
obsessed, preoccupied all the time, he leads his wife, children, | :16:01. | :16:05. | |
friends a merry dance, and there is a horrible sort of mythology of the | :16:05. | :16:11. | |
great man of letters, when he isn't even one. So I found it very | :16:11. | :16:15. | |
interesting as a biography, or all sorts of reasons, but I wish I | :16:15. | :16:22. | |
hadn't read it. Ted Hughes talks about him being the father of us | :16:22. | :16:27. | |
all? God help us. His wife wrote a memoir of their relationship, which | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
is an interesting work. I'm not claiming anything exemplary about | :16:32. | :16:36. | |
their relationship. They got married very young and it was a | :16:36. | :16:39. | |
difficult relationship. He was so cruel to her. The idea of him | :16:39. | :16:43. | |
blossoming out into a poet, before he gets to that point, the one time | :16:43. | :16:50. | |
he actually turns back on his critque, is on pound. He says Ezra | :16:50. | :16:53. | |
Pound is this marvellous as new writing, then he reverses his | :16:53. | :16:58. | |
decision when he's facing other poets' wrath. I thought that was an | :16:58. | :17:03. | |
interesting point in the book, it was almost when he stopped being | :17:03. | :17:06. | |
the critic, when he realised it wasn't for him. I found all the | :17:06. | :17:11. | |
gossip about the poetry world, all these people who you hear as | :17:11. | :17:15. | |
legendary games in poetry, you read their work, suddenly -- names in | :17:15. | :17:20. | |
poetry, you read their work, and suddenly they are ordinary human | :17:20. | :17:25. | |
beings with ambition and squabbling. I agree with Kate, Edward Thomas | :17:25. | :17:30. | |
comes across as such an awful person. I'm usually sympathetic to | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
unsympathetic characters, I love them, he was a peculiar brand of | :17:35. | :17:41. | |
self-absorption. Spiteful. It says his children sat in silence at the | :17:41. | :17:44. | |
dinner table every night because they were so scared of saying | :17:44. | :17:48. | |
something that would bring on one of his bad moods. I thought I'm not | :17:48. | :17:51. | |
interested any more. If your children were that scared of you, | :17:51. | :17:57. | |
then I don't care how good your peoples are, I'm not interested. | :17:57. | :18:02. | |
Poems are, I'm nod interested. makes the book powerful is we know | :18:02. | :18:08. | |
where it is heading, it is going to the war. This man gets obsessed by | :18:08. | :18:13. | |
these little battles between poets and the daily grind of cruelty to | :18:13. | :18:17. | |
his family and hardship of living. We know we are heading towards the | :18:17. | :18:21. | |
First World War, when we get there he can't quite say why he's going | :18:21. | :18:26. | |
or fighting. He has a fatalistic sense of why are we doing this? | :18:26. | :18:29. | |
thing we haven't mentioned is his love for the landscape, and what he | :18:29. | :18:32. | |
feels about nature, it is very profound. I feel I should say a | :18:32. | :18:39. | |
word in his defence. I think one of the things that makes him so | :18:39. | :18:43. | |
prickley, is because he hates himself for the way he behaves | :18:43. | :18:48. | |
towards his family.'S on the bread line,'s earning beans and he can't | :18:48. | :18:53. | |
feed his family. He finds -- he's on the breadline and earning beans | :18:53. | :18:56. | |
and he can't feed his family. not just his family, there is one | :18:56. | :19:01. | |
bit that resonates, it describes a friend of his builds him a house to | :19:01. | :19:04. | |
live in from all the best new materials, his comment is the house | :19:04. | :19:09. | |
is full of old griefs, full of new griefs to come. I just thought what | :19:09. | :19:13. | |
an ungrateful get. There is something ruthless about an artist, | :19:13. | :19:21. | |
any artist. I think maybe we are a bit schemeish because we recognise | :19:21. | :19:26. | |
something in our glrb squemish because we recognise it. Let's talk | :19:26. | :19:33. | |
about Habibi, it is the Koran, Old Testament, it is sex, saidism, | :19:33. | :19:41. | |
isn't it? I thought it was great. I hadn't appreciated how much | :19:41. | :19:43. | |
connection there was between the Koran and the Old Testament, and | :19:43. | :19:50. | |
how many of those stories from the two Bibles cross over. Then it | :19:50. | :19:55. | |
takes on this huge epic journal year, it is graphic novel, all | :19:55. | :20:00. | |
about ink and symbols, it has this weird sexuality in the centre of it | :20:00. | :20:05. | |
that is really quite disturbing.S had attitude to sex and sexuality | :20:05. | :20:10. | |
is very strange, that drew me through the book. He grew up in an | :20:10. | :20:12. | |
evangelical household, there is some distaste or something about | :20:12. | :20:20. | |
the sex in the book. I found it difficult to navigate it through, | :20:20. | :20:24. | |
you had to go back, you were trying to work out was she telling the | :20:24. | :20:28. | |
story to the little boy. That was good, you looked at all the | :20:28. | :20:31. | |
beautiful caligraphy. That was so beautiful about the book, the | :20:31. | :20:41. | |
:20:41. | :20:42. | ||
stories within stories, the reminding of the be a -- be a | :20:42. | :20:47. | |
hammic faiths have. It is beautiful and interesting about the Old | :20:47. | :20:50. | |
Testament and Koran faith, but I was appalled. This book starts with | :20:50. | :20:54. | |
the rape of a nine-year-old. Although we are saying this sex is | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
distasteful, I think it is a bit more than that. If this was a book | :20:57. | :21:02. | |
that had been discovered, in the deserts, in 1600, I would possibly | :21:02. | :21:08. | |
find it less worrying than I do. This is written by a young man, now. | :21:08. | :21:14. | |
All the way through the book, it is a series of, the lead child, as she | :21:14. | :21:19. | |
is, being raped over and over again. It is not sex, it is rape. For me | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
it was too much. What did you think about that? My views on this book | :21:24. | :21:28. | |
should probably be completely discounted, because I hated it. But, | :21:28. | :21:33. | |
I'm sure it is brilliant, I have a problem with the graphic Noel as a | :21:33. | :21:40. | |
form, eventhough I abs -- graphic novel as a form. Eventhough I love | :21:40. | :21:46. | |
novels, as soon as I saw Habibi I thought, oh no, I just hated it. I | :21:46. | :21:52. | |
don't know how much was that this specific graphic novel. The great | :21:52. | :21:57. | |
thing about this as a graphic novel is he is able to move through | :21:57. | :22:01. | |
different forms of story telling, some of the pictures look like | :22:01. | :22:06. | |
something out of a Disney film and he moves through into script. | :22:06. | :22:09. | |
is the problem, it is seductive. The idea that some how, because it | :22:09. | :22:13. | |
is very beautiful and very clever, all of those things I agree with, I | :22:13. | :22:18. | |
did actually, in a weird way, enjoy touching it and looking at it in | :22:18. | :22:24. | |
all sorts of ways. But in the end it is still images of a child being | :22:24. | :22:26. | |
raped repeatedly through this entire book. I couldn't get past | :22:26. | :22:31. | |
that to appreciate the beauty, I'm sorry to say. You will be getting | :22:31. | :22:38. | |
it. The sex is disquieting. It is meant to be. Next to poke their | :22:38. | :22:42. | |
head above the parapet is Mark, with a selection of short stories | :22:42. | :22:46. | |
that almost qualifies as new, and unChristmassy account of working | :22:46. | :22:54. | |
life in China. Mark's non-fiction choice is | :22:54. | :22:58. | |
Factory Girls by Leslie T Chang, knows narrative of the largest | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
migration in history, is an explanation of what motivates the | :23:02. | :23:07. | |
largely female work force. expect the book to be an expose say | :23:07. | :23:10. | |
of the terrible conditions, and the conditions are very, very tu. But | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
it is also a tribute to their energy, and their determination. | :23:15. | :23:20. | |
What Chang manages to do is really personalise it, she is of Chinese | :23:21. | :23:25. | |
origin herself. She has really personal connections with the sbt | :23:25. | :23:34. | |
matter, but she -- Subject matter, but she follows it into the | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
factories. When you read the book you get projected back to yourself, | :23:38. | :23:42. | |
the past, you get a sense of what it must have been like to be part | :23:42. | :23:47. | |
of the Industrial Revolution in England in the 1840s, that sense of | :23:48. | :23:52. | |
phenomenal social change. The most popular book to date about the | :23:52. | :23:58. | |
Chinese situation has been Wild Swans, that very much focused on | :23:58. | :24:04. | |
events of 40, 50 years ago. For any reader, this is a really great book | :24:04. | :24:07. | |
to get a sense of where China is now, and where it might be going. | :24:07. | :24:11. | |
In the fiction catagory, mark has chosen New Selected Stories by | :24:11. | :24:21. | |
:24:21. | :24:26. | ||
Alice Munro, a compendum of some of the author's finest work. What is | :24:26. | :24:32. | |
great in a few pages she manages to capture 30 years. There is huge | :24:32. | :24:38. | |
momentous changes in individual's lives, often women, often set in | :24:38. | :24:42. | |
her native character. There is as much incident as a Thomas Hard | :24:42. | :24:47. | |
Times novel, but written with the - - Thomas Hardy novel, but written | :24:47. | :24:50. | |
with the lightest of touches. They are ordinary situations, how we | :24:50. | :24:56. | |
feel about being married, being a parent, our relationship to the | :24:56. | :25:00. | |
past. There is something about the sense of humour, there is a slight | :25:00. | :25:05. | |
sense of her characters being pioneers. I think there is | :25:05. | :25:09. | |
somewhere in there a Canadian sensability. I don't think that | :25:09. | :25:15. | |
could have been written by an English or Scottish writer. | :25:15. | :25:19. | |
This is some of her best known stories, do you think reading them | :25:19. | :25:24. | |
again, did it reinforce her reputation as a famous short story- | :25:24. | :25:28. | |
teller? I think she's one of the best writers on the planet right | :25:28. | :25:33. | |
now, this collection is amazing. She has a buy onic level of | :25:34. | :25:37. | |
observation. She's -- bionic level of observation. She's hearing and | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
seeing things that other writers don't get. Whether it is nature or | :25:41. | :25:44. | |
a glance between lovers, or something in a marriage or | :25:44. | :25:48. | |
relationship, as you read the story you see it with an incredibly | :25:48. | :25:51. | |
enhanced level of intensity, that stays with you some what when you | :25:51. | :25:55. | |
put the book down. She has an exceptional gift. It is a gift for | :25:55. | :26:01. | |
the short story, but is the short story itself satisfying, she brings | :26:01. | :26:04. | |
these wonderful characters to life and they are gone in a puff of | :26:04. | :26:08. | |
smoke? That is always my feeling about short stories. That I often | :26:08. | :26:12. | |
feel a little bit like a need another piece of toast, I'm not | :26:12. | :26:18. | |
quite full. I think she's equisite. It is the literature of observation, | :26:18. | :26:21. | |
it is the literature of the moment, rather than the overblown, purple | :26:21. | :26:27. | |
prose, that would be all over the place. I think that what makes her | :26:27. | :26:30. | |
different from any of the other short story writers, of course, is | :26:30. | :26:40. | |
she had sequences of characters, ages -- ageing of characters, there | :26:40. | :26:50. | |
:26:50. | :26:50. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 195 seconds | :26:50. | :30:05. | |
They were liberating themselves in a way. She had -- she said she had | :30:05. | :30:10. | |
read more about the bottom of Oprah Winfrey than about China! I was | :30:10. | :30:19. | |
really pleased to have read it. There is no sense at... You are | :30:19. | :30:23. | |
right that this is liberating and actually these young women, I | :30:23. | :30:29. | |
thought particular the chaps in the village and that was all very good. | :30:29. | :30:35. | |
They have not got more power. That is precisely it. For me, the most | :30:35. | :30:44. | |
poignant moment... It is about their possessions. Depending on | :30:44. | :30:47. | |
their job status, their power relationships within the family | :30:47. | :30:53. | |
changes. But still, that counts for a lot. It has one of the characters | :30:53. | :31:01. | |
is... Hang on. Let her finish at point! I found it an incredibly | :31:01. | :31:06. | |
gripping book and I could not put it down. I thought it was so | :31:06. | :31:10. | |
interesting about the relationship between women's career aspirations | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
and their family relationships and how those things work together. | :31:14. | :31:17. | |
There are so few books about women's attitudes to their working | :31:17. | :31:24. | |
lives. Even in the West. brilliant thing about this was that | :31:24. | :31:29. | |
it was life-affirming in the way they helped each other. Some of the | :31:29. | :31:33. | |
girls didn't but many did. What we don't see are these terribly | :31:33. | :31:37. | |
downtrodden slaves, which we thought we were going to see. But | :31:37. | :31:42. | |
things are changing and you get the sense of massive upheaval. Let's | :31:42. | :31:47. | |
move on to your choice, as Sophie. One from the celebrated crime | :31:47. | :31:57. | |
:31:57. | :31:59. | ||
writer and the real story behind Oranges Are Not the Only fruit. | :31:59. | :32:04. | |
This non-fiction choice details and upbringing in Accrington and a | :32:04. | :32:09. | |
child who had lived in the shadows of her mother. The title is a | :32:09. | :32:15. | |
direct quote from Mrs Winterson, Janet's adoptive mother, when she | :32:15. | :32:20. | |
tells her she is in love with a girl and she tries to explain to | :32:20. | :32:25. | |
her that it makes her happy being in a relationship with this girl. | :32:25. | :32:33. | |
Why be happy when you could be normal? It is a brilliant title. | :32:33. | :32:37. | |
And debris and moment in the book, because at that point, a new kind | :32:38. | :32:43. | |
of realise, well, this is what we are dealing with. I don't buy into | :32:43. | :32:48. | |
this idea that if you write about upsetting things then you have | :32:48. | :32:51. | |
written a depressing book. If you have written brilliantly about | :32:52. | :32:55. | |
difficult, traumatic experiences, that is uplifting. To see somebody | :32:55. | :33:00. | |
can go through such a horrendous experience and come out not only | :33:00. | :33:10. | |
:33:10. | :33:15. | ||
intact, but also as brilliant a Sophie's fiction choice is Faithful | :33:15. | :33:25. | |
:33:25. | :33:25. | ||
Place by Tana French. The police detective Frank, is told by the | :33:25. | :33:30. | |
police that the suitcase of his girlfriend has been found of 20 | :33:30. | :33:33. | |
years ago, they were supposed to elope together, and she disappeared | :33:33. | :33:37. | |
and nobody saw her again. Frank is determined to get to the bottom of | :33:37. | :33:40. | |
this and find out what happened to the love of his life who | :33:40. | :33:45. | |
disappeared 20 years ago. My main interest in Tana French's writing | :33:46. | :33:50. | |
and this book is the human story. Her characters are so real. I think | :33:50. | :33:54. | |
thatth's because she gets right into their minds. She writes about | :33:54. | :33:59. | |
character -- I think that's because she gets right into their mind, you | :33:59. | :34:02. | |
know what they are thinking, even when they are having unworthy | :34:02. | :34:06. | |
thoughts, even if they are being selfish and a bit grotty and not | :34:06. | :34:10. | |
doing the noble thing, you are right there inside their heads with | :34:10. | :34:15. | |
them. It is as well written as any Booker Prize winner. And as | :34:15. | :34:20. | |
brilliantly plotted as any best- selling commercial novel. It is | :34:20. | :34:25. | |
virtually a perfect book, in my view. | :34:25. | :34:31. | |
Mark, for you is a virtually a perfect book? On the re-gift pile | :34:31. | :34:39. | |
again. For me, the central character was PC Plodding, really. | :34:39. | :34:45. | |
I'm not good with crime models, maybe a bit butch for me. These | :34:45. | :34:48. | |
middleaged men with troubled family lives, plodding through a plot, I | :34:48. | :34:51. | |
find dull. I thought the writing a novel about how much Dublin, | :34:51. | :34:55. | |
Ireland has changed, was really a great thing. I wanted that theme to | :34:55. | :35:03. | |
have room to breathe. I felt it was trapped by genre and even the | :35:03. | :35:07. | |
tropes of genre writing. Very much like Ian Rankin's book was set in | :35:07. | :35:13. | |
Scotland, the Dublin of this was very well realised? I have never | :35:13. | :35:17. | |
read Tana French because the jacket it had made me think it was | :35:17. | :35:21. | |
extremely violent and not for me. I think it is a superbly written book. | :35:21. | :35:25. | |
I entirely agree, there is the unusual combination of a very well | :35:25. | :35:30. | |
put together story, but there is also this incredible sense of place, | :35:30. | :35:36. | |
and outstanding dialogue, I would say. The sense of poor Dublin. For | :35:36. | :35:40. | |
me, what made it work particularly was, oddly with the books we have | :35:40. | :35:44. | |
in this programme, it was how do you get out of a life that you | :35:44. | :35:47. | |
don't want to live. How do you get away from the violence that is | :35:47. | :35:53. | |
endemic and all around you? How do you carve yourself a tiny bit of | :35:53. | :35:56. | |
space? Almost like The Facts Of Love, and I thought this was, for | :35:56. | :36:03. | |
me I went and bought her other books because I wanted to read them. | :36:03. | :36:10. | |
I don't think it is a Booker Prize winner, but it is exceptionally | :36:10. | :36:13. | |
good dialogue. You had read Ian Rankin and converted to crime | :36:13. | :36:18. | |
novels, did this do it? I found myself shouting out "he's behind | :36:19. | :36:23. | |
you" from page 40, it was obvious who done it. For 300 pages you are | :36:23. | :36:29. | |
thinking why on earth. To me it was bizarrely, badly-plodded, it was | :36:29. | :36:34. | |
obvious who the killer was. I have to disagree with that. I had no | :36:34. | :36:44. | |
clue who the killer was. Don't say who it is? I won't, absolutely not. | :36:44. | :36:50. | |
I'm not the Grinch! I think it is interesting, the fact that you say | :36:50. | :36:54. | |
you don't read a lot of crime. I think if you read as much crime as | :36:55. | :36:59. | |
I do, you would know that Frank, the central character in this, he's | :36:59. | :37:07. | |
not like all the other cops. He's a maverick hard-drinking cop divorced. | :37:07. | :37:12. | |
Seeing his children on the weekends. He's fighting to get back on the | :37:12. | :37:20. | |
case, I recognise all the cliches. You are looking at the CV points, | :37:20. | :37:24. | |
you are right inside his mind, I promise you, he is far more | :37:24. | :37:29. | |
lovingly described and fleshed out and psychalogically complex than | :37:29. | :37:34. | |
almost any detective I have read. Led's move on to the second choice | :37:34. | :37:39. | |
-- let's move on to the second choice, Jeanette Winterson 's, what | :37:39. | :37:43. | |
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit was to fiction, this is the story of | :37:43. | :37:47. | |
Jeanette Winterson, I found it a deeply, deeply sad book. I found it | :37:48. | :37:54. | |
a very sad book, but a superb book. It is neither a memoir or biography. | :37:54. | :37:58. | |
For me, it was actually, how do you, the same point, working-class men | :37:58. | :38:03. | |
and women, particularly in the context of this show, working-class | :38:03. | :38:06. | |
girls, how do you get out of the path that you have been put on. | :38:06. | :38:10. | |
Whether it is the Caitlin Moran in a totally different way, and the | :38:10. | :38:14. | |
Jeanette Winterson, that is why I suppose I found the Factory Girls, | :38:14. | :38:18. | |
something depressing for me, doing it through the make-up and the | :38:18. | :38:21. | |
selling. Here you have Jeanette Winterson, books saved her loif, | :38:21. | :38:25. | |
she just made the decision she could -- life, she just made the | :38:25. | :38:31. | |
decision that she could not be this person, this pretty abusive | :38:31. | :38:36. | |
childhood, she started with A, B, in the library, she made herself so | :38:36. | :38:38. | |
powerful she didn't needing to through the alphabet in order. It | :38:38. | :38:43. | |
was sad in some ways, but it is an incredibly uplifting book about the | :38:43. | :38:51. | |
power of words. She is unflinching about herself? She doesn't come | :38:51. | :38:56. | |
across amazing. The other figure in the book, the mum, Mrs Winterson, | :38:56. | :39:01. | |
her adoptive mother. One of the things I took away with the book, | :39:01. | :39:05. | |
the sense her mum is her muse, I know it was a miserable childhood, | :39:05. | :39:09. | |
you wouldn't wish it on anyone, this is what made her a writer. | :39:09. | :39:16. | |
This is her Dickens in the factory experience. As strange as her mum | :39:16. | :39:21. | |
was, her mum has huge respect for words, she burns books. Of the ones | :39:21. | :39:27. | |
we have read, this was a stand-up book i thought it was incredible. | :39:27. | :39:30. | |
Although Jeanette Winterson's story in some ways is so peculiar, it is | :39:30. | :39:34. | |
all our stories, it is about reconciling yourself to your | :39:34. | :39:37. | |
relationship with your parent, whatever that parent might be. She | :39:37. | :39:41. | |
is rawly honest about herself, but it is a much bigger story than her | :39:41. | :39:45. | |
own story. This whole experience of a working-class culture that | :39:45. | :39:50. | |
educates you, and finally she goes back to the library, and the | :39:50. | :39:57. | |
literature A-Z section is take Anne way and it is devastating. It is | :39:57. | :40:05. | |
wonderful to the way to describe adoption, culling through part way | :40:05. | :40:09. | |
through the story. -- coming through part the way through the | :40:09. | :40:14. | |
story. Going to find her birth mother, confession about how she | :40:14. | :40:19. | |
has felt low in her own story. identity crisis is brilliantly | :40:19. | :40:23. | |
paralleled. The adoptive family and the birth mother, that is | :40:23. | :40:26. | |
paralleled by the reference she maids to her public persona as a | :40:27. | :40:30. | |
writer, in brackets she mentioned her critical reception, some people | :40:30. | :40:38. | |
say she's brilliant, and some say she's rubbish, that is mentioned in | :40:38. | :40:42. | |
passing. Even as a writer she doesn't know who she is. So much I | :40:42. | :40:46. | |
had reading the book, where Jeanette Winterson became a loved | :40:46. | :40:51. | |
public figure like Alan Bennett, Victoria Wood, like a warm, cuddly | :40:51. | :40:56. | |
northerner, then she says something so sharp like "I could murder | :40:57. | :41:01. | |
someone", then you think she won't be that character, she will always | :41:01. | :41:05. | |
be edgey. The thing I loved about it, she really is one of the stand- | :41:05. | :41:09. | |
out writers, whatever the books you might like or dislike. The fact | :41:09. | :41:13. | |
there is a bravery, to say, you know what, these 20 years inbetween, | :41:13. | :41:16. | |
I won't tell but those, they are not your business at the moment. | :41:16. | :41:21. | |
That takes a writer of real genius to go, you know what, it is my book. | :41:21. | :41:26. | |
The line by line is great, it is so easy, it is like someone chatting, | :41:26. | :41:30. | |
she will turn a phrase, you think this is not someone chatting, this | :41:30. | :41:34. | |
is honed prose. Buy it for Christmas, at least for one person. | :41:34. | :41:40. | |
Do not regift. If one thing enthuses people more than Christmas | :41:40. | :41:47. | |
books it is Santa-size-sackfuls of sex, next week's literary awards | :41:47. | :41:52. | |
will capture the imagination. As an extra treat, or not, we asked each | :41:52. | :41:56. | |
of the panel to raet their favourite nominee. Going first with | :41:56. | :42:03. | |
his -- rate their favourite nominee. Going first is Marcel. | :42:03. | :42:11. | |
The Land Of The Painted Caves, "he went lower, found the entrance of | :42:11. | :42:17. | |
her warm, wet cave, she spread her legs to give more access, he got up | :42:17. | :42:22. | |
and lowered himself". Kate? Mortgagefying, I'm reading Lee | :42:22. | :42:28. | |
Child for The Affair. "we stood up again, and kissed again, by that | :42:28. | :42:32. | |
point in my life I had kissed hundreds of girls, I was ready to | :42:32. | :42:37. | |
admit this was the finest of them all. She was spectacular. She moved | :42:37. | :42:41. | |
and quiffered and trembled, she was strong but gentle, passionate but | :42:41. | :42:46. | |
not aggressive, hungry but not demanding. The clock in my head | :42:46. | :42:50. | |
took a break, we had all the time in the world. We were going to use | :42:50. | :42:57. | |
every last minute of it. This is Sebastian Barry, "we got | :42:57. | :43:00. | |
rid of our dammed clothes, and clung, he was in me when, they were | :43:00. | :43:05. | |
happy, lapy, young n that room by the water, and in those -- happy, | :43:05. | :43:09. | |
happy and young, in that room by the water, and in those moments we | :43:09. | :43:19. | |
knew we would marry and not a word would be spoke about it ". This is | :43:19. | :43:25. | |
Stephen King, 1/11/63. "is that all of it, or is there more? I haven't | :43:25. | :43:29. | |
been with a woman in such a long time. It turned out a lot more, in | :43:29. | :43:36. | |
the end she began to gasp, oh my dear, oh my dear, oh my dear God, | :43:36. | :43:42. | |
oh sugar!" Luckily we have run right out of time before mine! On | :43:42. | :43:47. | |
that salacious note, that is all for this week, thanks to my little | :43:47. | :43:50. | |
helpers, Kate Mosse, Sophie Hannah, Marcel Theroux and Mark Ravenhill. | :43:50. | :43:54. | |
You can find out more about tonight's items on the website. | :43:54. | :43:58. | |
Don't forget Twitter, he will look at your comments in a few moments. | :43:58. | :44:04. | |
Next week matter that has a are you adaptation of Great He can peck | :44:04. | :44:12. |