Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Open Book

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books

Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books, talking to authors and publishers and unearthing lost classics

BBC Radio 4 LW

Mariella Frostrup

Ben Watt

Rachel Cooke

Jonathan Gibbs

Mike Nicol

Andrea Kidd

Open Book: Ben Watt, Mike Nicol, Rachel Cooke and Jonathan Gibbs

16/02/2014

Ben Watt, Mike Nicol, Rachel Cooke and Jonathan Gibbs

BBC Radio 4 - Open Book, Ben Watt, Mike Nicol, Rachel Cooke and Jonathan Gibbs

Ben Watt on his memoir about his parents, and literary reviews - do women get a fair deal?

Literary reviews - do women get a fair deal? Musician Ben Watt on his memoir about his parents, and South African crime writer Mike Nicol on his latest book Of Cops and Robbers.

DJ and presenter Ben Watt, also known as one half of Everything But the Girl, has written his memoir. His first, Patient, dealt with his harrowing experience of a life-threatening illness in the 1990s. Now, Romany and Tom, focuses on his parents' lives, looking back on their younger, glamorous days in 1950s London in an attempt to understand who the frail but obstinate and infuriating elderly couple relying on him for care now, really are.

In our special programme broadcast over Christmas, Mariella Frostrup explored how 2013 had been the year of the women writer, with women scooping up the majority of last year's major literary prizes. Female writers and their work may have emphatically been acknowledged on the awards front, but it seems there's still room for improvement when it comes to the reviews. A study out last year found a continuing bias towards books written by men, with male novelists getting far more column inches than their female counterparts and more men reviewing those books than women. So with more women buying books than men, are they being catered for when it comes to book reviews? Observer journalist Rachel Cooke and reviewer Jonathan Gibbs discuss the issue.

South African crime writer Mike Nicol's Revenge trilogy saw him crowned the King of South African crime fiction. A onetime journalist who also penned the authorized Mandela biography, Nicol now uses his native Cape Town and its surrounding tourist hot spots to great effect as the backdrop for stories that expose the shady underside to this sunny place. His latest Of Cops and Robbers is no exception revealing the corruption and violence that permeates so much of modern life in this once optimistic nation.

Producer: Andrea Kidd.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Open Book

Ben Watt, Mike Nicol, Rachel Cooke and Jonathan Gibbs

Contributors

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4