Open Book

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BBC Radio 4 LW

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

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Open Book: Andrew O'Hagan and Helen Garner

31/03/2024

Andrew O'Hagan and Helen Garner

BBC Radio 4 - Open Book, Andrew O'Hagan and Helen Garner

Alex Clark talks to Andrew O'Hagan about his new novel, Caledonian Road.

Alex Clark talks to Andrew O'Hagan about his new novel, Caledonian Road, and to the Australian writer Helen Garner as her books are republished in the UK.

Alex Clark talks to Andrew O’Hagan about his new book Caledonian Road. Told over the course of a year, Caledonian Road follows art historian and public intellectual Campbell Flynn as a friendship with a young student calls into question the complacency of his much-cherished liberal credentials.  With an epic Dickensian cast from drill artists to the wealthy Russian oligarchs in bed with British politicians, the book spools out to encompass a wide canvas of contemporary British life. 

Alex also talks to the Australian writer Helen Garner as three books from her back catalogue have been reissued: The Monkey Grip, chronicling a young mother’s life in bohemian Melbourne in the 1970s; This House of Grief, a true crime story of a murderous father; and her most widely renowned novel, The Children’s Bach, which takes us into the lives of a family turned upside down by the forces of sexual desire and the impulse toward freedom. 

And, DJ turned novelist, Annie Macmanus shares the Book She'd Never Lend

Book List – Sunday 31 March and Sunday 7 April

Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan
Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
Down All the Days by Christy Brown
The Mess We’re In by Annie Macmanus
The Monkey Grip by Helen Garner
This House of Grief by Helen Garner
The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner
The Season by Helen Garner (coming late 2024)

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