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| | | OPEN BOOK
Spotlights new fiction and non-fiction, picks out the best of the paperbacks, talks to authors and publishers, and unearths lost masterpieces. | | | | | LISTEN AGAIN | | | |
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| | PRESENTER | | | |
|  | | | | Defying any attempt to pigeonhole her skills and talents Mariella combines her television and radio career with that of a prolific journalist.
Over a fifteen-year TV career she has continued to impress both audiences and critics with her friendly, accessible and intelligent screen presence. Her projects run the gamut from current affairs to movies and the arts.
As a journalist she is currently the film critic for Harpers And Queen and has a weekly dilemma column in The Observer Magazine, while her book reviews and travel pieces appear regularly in the press. She has also been a member of the Booker-Mann Prize panel.
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|  | | Cover of Demented by Jacky Fleming.
View Jacky Fleming's cartoons
Listen to Jacky Fleming interview
Nominate the book that has changed your life:
Open Book would like to hear from listeners about books that have had a life changing impact on you. And we mean life changing – books that have in some fundamental way altered your outlook and affected the way you live your life. Follow this link to find out more...
Scroll down for latest programme information.
The Reading Clinic:
Do you have a problem that concerns books? If so, Open Book's Reading Clinic wants to hear from you.
For instance, do you have a partner who never reads and want some suggestions as to what might entice them in to the world of literature?
Are there some books or genres that you have never managed to get your head round and to which you'd like an introduction?
What book do you give to the person who has read everything?
Where do I start with Proust?
What book should I take on a long train journey?
How do you get teenage boys to read?
If you want a full and frank discussion of your particular literary conundrum, then Open Book's Reading Clinic can prescribe the right book for you.
Please contact Open Book here with your literary ailment, giving as many details as you can including a daytime contact number if possible.
This week's programme:
In this week’s Open Book, cartoonist Jacky Fleming explains why she hopes that her latest book Demented – a cartoon narrative about mid-life crisis and the frustrations of contemporary life – will make it out of the of the smallest room and onto the bookshelf. Listeners nominate life-changing books, and explain why they’ve made such an impact. Plus, airport fiction: Open Book explores the evolution of the book to be read in the air, and the use that writers make of the airport as a setting.
List of Books:
Jacky Fleming’s book is Demented (Bloomsbury)
Life Changing Books:
Karl Bjarnhof – The Stars Grow Pale (Random House)
Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird (Arrow)
Primo Levi – If This is a Man (Abacus) and The Drowned and the Saved (Abacus)
John Buchan – The Island of Sheep (Wordsworth Classics)
Airplane Books:
Changing Planes: Armchair Travel For The Mind by Ursula Le Guin (Gollanz)
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (Vintage)
Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan (Penguin)
A Good Wife by Elizabeth Buchan (Penguin)
Airport by Arthur Hailey (Bantam)
Crash by J. G. Ballard (Vintage)
Mathematics Books:
Rob Eastaway has written Why Do Buses Come In Threes?: The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life and How Long is a Piece of String?: More Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life (Robson).
Other books mentioned:
Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Singh (Fourth Estate)
The Millennium Problems by Keith Devlin (Granta)
The Joy of Pi by David Blatner (Penguin)
The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy (Fourth Estate)
Does God Play Dice? by Ian Stewart (Penguin)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Vintage)
E-mail Open Book here with your comments and views.
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