Open Book

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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

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Open Book: Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan

BBC Radio 4 - Open Book, Ian McEwan

Chris Power talks to Ian McEwan about his new book, Lessons.

In an extended interview, the novelist Ian McEwan talks to Chris Power about his new book Lessons.

Chris Power talks to the novelist Ian Mc Ewan.  Over the course of his 18 novels from The Cement Garden and Black Dogs to Amsterdam and Atonement, McEwan has always been a chronicler of modern Britain, however his new novel Lessons takes on a much larger canvas. 

Lessons begins at a boarding school in the late 1950s when a female piano teacher pinches the leg of an 11-year-old boy, Roland, and follows that with a kiss. These abusive acts send ripples through Roland's life over the next 60 years.  The novel studies how Roland’s life is shaped both by personal ordeals and the currents of history; from World War 2, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Chernobyl disaster and the coronavirus pandemic. Lessons is the longest novel McEwan’s ever written, but it's also his most autobiographical,  he talks to Chris about the difficult truths within his own family's history and the rewards of weaving fact and fiction.

Book List – Sunday 11 September and Thursday 15 September

Lessons: A Novel by Ian McEwan 
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
Nutshell by Ian McEwan
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan 
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan 
Solar by Ian McEwan
Saturday by Ian McEwan 
Atonement by Ian McEwan 
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan 
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan 
The Day Dreamer by Ian McEwan
Black Dogs by Ian McEwan 
The Innocent by Ian McEwan
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan 
The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan

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