Sunday 16:00-16:30, repeated Thursday 16:00-16:30, except first Sunday in the month when it is replaced by Book Club.
Open Book spotlights new fiction and non-fiction, picks out the best of the paperbacks, talks to authors and publishers, and unearths lost masterpieces.
This week
Sunday 13th May 2007
John Preston talks to Mariella about his novel, The Dig, based on the 1939 archaeological excavations at Sutton Hoo.
The Dig Recently John Preston discovered his aunt was one of the archaeologists who dug up the Anglo Saxon ship at Sutton Hoo in 1939.
He's now written a novel based on events at that dig, narrated in part by his aunt, whose voice he created using her old diaries.
He's joined by Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology, to talk about his book and the advantages of using archaeology in fiction.
The Dig - John Preston
Publisher: Viking (3 May 2007)
Peter Ackroyd - The Fall of Troy
Publisher: Chatto and Windus
Peter Ackroyd - First Light
Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing
The Great American Novel
As Don DeLillo publishes a new work, hot on the heels of new books from those American literary behemoths Norman Mailer and Thomas Pynchon, Professor Diane Roberts joins Mariella to discuss the notion of the Great American Novel.
Falling Man - Don DeLillo
Publisher: Picador (18 May 2007)
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
The Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
The Known World - Edward Jones
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Helen Oyeyemi
The novelist Helen Oyeyemi wrote her first book, The Icarus Girl, when she was doing her A-Levels.
She is now publishing her second, The Opposite House, written while she was studying at University. She talks to Mariella about being so successful so young.
Helen Oyeyemi - The Opposite House here.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (7 May 2007)
Helen Oyeyemi - The Icarus Girl
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Bogota Bogota is 2007's World Books Capital. Mariella talks to Martha Senn, director of the project, about the city's plans for the coming year and Catherine Lockerbie from Edinburgh's City of Literature explains what they've learnt about being a centre of literary life.
