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Our pick of BBC Books on air now - July 2017

19 July 2017

The BBC Books team picks a juicy highlights selection from the many literary programmes on offer each week - from BBC Radio 4, and around the BBC.

This edition features a brand new Book of the Week with Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell. In Radio 4's Open Book we're Stopping Time with Matt Haig, chatting with Elizabeth Day and enjoying a tour of the recent Bradford Literary Festival. We're also Swimming Home with Deborah Levy courtesy of Bookclub - and there's plenty more besides. Plus BBC Arts is celebrating Jane Austen with the latest #LoveToRead campaign - with book recommendations to inspire!

Book of the Week / Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight

David Mitchell translates the astonishing follow-up to the ground-breaking The Reason I Jump. Naoki Higashida wrote his debut when he was 13 years old - all the more extraordinary since his autism is so severe that his condition is classed as 'non-verbal'. He finds it difficult to speak, and wrote the entire book using a low-tech Alphabet Grid of Japanese syllables, which he points at one at a time to painstakingly build words. Naoki still uses the same method today.

Open Book

Elizabeth Day

Mariella Frostrup talks to writer Elizabeth Day about her novel The Party, a state of the nation story set in the heart of the British Establishment. And we've got a behind the scenes tour of the recent Bradford Literary Festival, courtesy of Abir Mukherjee, who talks to fellow crime writer A A Dhand and writer and one of the event's founders, Zeina Hashem Beck.

I got very used to being cast in the role of observer - and it's a role that I rather enjoy
Elizabeth Day

As part of Gay Britannia on the BBC - marking fifty years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality - we're talking to authors including Val McDermid and Patrick Ness about their choice of Queer Icon. LGBTQ guests champion queer artworks which are special to them.

Matt Haig: How To Stop Time

Matt Haig's How To Stop Time takes on big questions of life, death and mortality. He talks to Mariella Frostrup about his varied writing career.

I felt like my head was on fire, but no one could see the flames
Matt Haig

Book at Bedtime / The Music Shop

1988. Frank owns a music shop. It's jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk - as long as it's vinyl he sells it. Day after day Frank finds his customers the music they need. Then into his life walks Ilse Brauchmann...

Rachel Joyce is the award-winning writer of over 30 original afternoon plays and classic adaptations for BBC Radio 4.

Bookclub / Deborah Levy - Swimming Home

Deborah Levy discusses her novel Swimming Home with James Naughtie and a group of readers.

There were very many versions of that fairy tale that I read and researched for Swimming Home
Deborah Levy

Swimming Home was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and is about a famous British poet on holiday with family and friends on the French Riviera when an unstable young woman, Kitty Finch, turns up out of the blue. At the beginning of the novel she emerges naked from the villa's swimming pool as the group return from a day trip.

Swimming Home is also available as a Book at Bedtime

World Book Club / Tim Winton

Author Tim Winton

From BBC World Service, World Book Club is talking to chart-topping Australian writer Tim Winton about his novel Cloudstreet. Tim shares his unforgettable set of characters, and talks with humour, self-deprecation and honesty about notions of family and Australian identity. It's a joyous chat with host Harriet Gilbert and gathered fans, and one not to miss!

#LoveToRead - Jane Austen

Meera Syal

Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen remains one of the most widely read authors in English literature. As we celebrate her life and work, #LoveToRead recommends more books for fans of Austen's seminal novels.

Available on BBC iPlayer / My Friend Jane

Jane Austen may have died 200 years ago but the Pride and Prejudice author's legacy lives on to this day. Prepare to be dazzled and charmed in equal measure by the writer's modern-day superfans - 'Janeites', who live, read and breathe the Regency period - as they reveal what a vicar's daughter from Hampshire means to them. Hold on to your bonnets folks, there's bound to be a Mr Darcy somewhere close by causing hearts to skip a beat.

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