The Radio 2 Book Club

BBC Radio 2

The Radio 2 Book club celebrates the best in new fiction and recommends great reads. Sara will be interviewing top authors about their latest novels, and she’ll be catching up with librarians and reading groups from across the UK. Whether you’re after a summer blockbuster, a twist-filled thriller, or want to curl up with a heart-warming love story, Sara has you covered!

  1. ١٦ سبتمبر

    'A Splintering' by Dur e Aziz Amna

    Author Dur e Aziz Amna joins Sara for the Radio 2 Book Club to chat about her new novel, 'A Splintering'. Dur e got the idea for the novel from a walk with her husband, after which the character of Tara came fully formed. She talks to Sara about her inspirations for this story, how important hope is in a book, no matter how serious the themes and also recommends us what she has been reading and enjoying recently. Here's a little more about 'A Splintering': In a village in rural Pakistan, Tara is waiting and watching. The smell of dung and dust hangs over her world. She is desperate to leave the petty life of the village and escape the iron grip of her violent, unpredictable brother. Marrying a middle-class accountant allows her to escape to the capital, but she soon finds that life as a respectable housewife is not sufficient either. She wants what the rich mothers at her children’s school have. She wants what their husbands have. Her desire for wealth and freedom becomes an obsession. But can she truly shake her past? And what of the menacing spectre of her brother, a reminder of the threads that tie her to the life she left behind? Set against a hypnotic, oppressive backdrop of political violence and natural disaster, A Splintering traces the class struggle of a woman stuck between province and metropolis, between motherhood and ambition. Disquieting and utterly gripping, it is an extraordinary achievement by Dur e Aziz Amna, an exploration of a complex and unforgettable character who will risk everything to carve out a life of her own.

    ٩ من الدقائق
  2. ٢ سبتمبر

    'The Two Roberts' by Damian Barr

    Sara welcomes author and broadcaster Damian Barr to the Book Club, to chat about his new novel 'The Two Roberts'. They discuss how he first discovered the real-life characters (artists Bobby MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun) and what drew him to them. He was actually writing something else but had to stop and turn his attention to their story, because he was so taken with the love between them and how brave they both were. There's a bit of ceramics chat (Damian reveals that his husband has a second love - his kiln!) and there's a bit of hazy recollection of them both being in 'Soho in the 90s' too. Damian also gives us a couple of cracking book recommendations - and - we hear a little clip from the audiobook of The Two Roberts as well. Here's a little more about the book: Scotland, 1933. Bobby MacBryde is on his way. After years grafting at Lees Boot Factory, he's off to the Glasgow School of Art, to his future. On his first day he will meet another Robert, a quiet man with loose dark curls - and never leave his side. Together they will spend every penny and every minute devouring Glasgow - its botanical gardens, the Barras market, a whole hidden city - all the while loving each other behind closed doors. With the world on the brink of war, their unrivalled talent will take them to Paris, Rome, London. They will become stars as the bombs fall, hosting wild parties with the likes of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Elizabeth Smart. But the brightest stars burn fastest. Stunningly reimagined, The Two Roberts is a profoundly moving story of devotion and obsession, art and class. It is a love letter to MacBryde and Colquhoun, the almost-forgotten artists who tried to change the way the world sees - and paid a devastating price.

    ٢٠ من الدقائق
  3. ١٣ أغسطس

    'Dead Lucky' by Connor Hutchinson

    Debut novelist, Connor Hutchinson, joins Sara for the Book Club to tell us all about his new book - 'Dead Lucky'. Connor is originally from the North of England, and it was very important to him that the book was set near where he's from, and that he told a working class story. When he was growing up, he didn't see many characters in books that reflected his own upbringing. He tells Sara about getting a quote from legendary director Mike Leigh, working with his writing idol Douglas Stuart, the inspiration behind an undertakers setting - and - recommends us a brilliant book as well. Here's the blurb for Dead Lucky: Jamie Fletcher should be the luckiest man in Manchester. His girlfriend Rebecca is out of his league, he has a best mate and drinking buddy in Trick, and he loves his job at a busy funeral home. Preparing the dead is not something Jamie takes lightly - whether it's choosing the right stockings for his old dinner lady, or playing the local butcher's favourite album to him before cremation. But beneath his seemingly perfect life, Jamie has been keeping a big secret - one he reveals only to the dead. His gambling addiction has left him in eye-watering debt, and he's running out of ways to keep it hidden. When Rebecca decides it's time for them to buy their first home together, he knows he has to do something to cover his tracks. Desperate, Jamie does what he knows best - he walks up to the bookies and places the biggest bet of his life. How far will he go until his luck runs out?

    ١٧ من الدقائق

حول

The Radio 2 Book club celebrates the best in new fiction and recommends great reads. Sara will be interviewing top authors about their latest novels, and she’ll be catching up with librarians and reading groups from across the UK. Whether you’re after a summer blockbuster, a twist-filled thriller, or want to curl up with a heart-warming love story, Sara has you covered!

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