Radio 4 Collections: Author Interviews

Jane Austen - Woman's Hour

Jane Garvey marks the beginning of Jane Austen's bicentenary decade by discussing the permanent exhibition celebrating her life at Winchester Cathedral.

Iain M Banks - Open Book

Mariella Frostrup talks to Iain M Banks, author of The Player of Games who caused a sensation with his debut The Wasp Factory in 1983.

Mark Billingham - Open Book

Kwame Kwei-Armah talks to thriller writer Mark Billingham about his novel, From The Dead.

Bill Bryson - Bookclub

James Naughtie talks to author Bill Bryson about his book A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Paulo Coelho - Desert Island Discs

Paulo Coelho talks to Sue Lawley about his book The Alchemist, a tale of a shepherd boy who risked everything to pursue his dreams.

Martina Cole - Front Row

Martina Cole and Dreda Say Mitchell discuss portraying East End communities and the responses their books get when they visit prisons.

Bernard Cornwell - Desert Island Discs

Sue Lawley's castaway is one of Britain's most popular writers of historical fiction Bernard Cornwell.

Roald Dahl - Desert Island Discs

Roy Plomley's castaway is children's writer Roald Dahl.

Charles Dickens - In Our Time

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the achievements of the 19th century literary giant, Charles Dickens.

Emma Donoghue - Front Row

An interview with the novelist Emma Donoghue on her novel Room (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2010), inspired by the Josef Fritzl case.

Daphne Du Maurier - Desert Island Discs

Roy Plomley's castaway is writer Dame Daphne Du Maurier.

Neil Gaiman - The Film Programme

Best-selling author Neil Gaiman talks about the adaptation of his novel Stardust and his own film adaptation of Beowulf.

Kazuo Ishiguro - Bookclub

A group of readers join James Naughtie to talk to Kazuo Ishiguro about his acclaimed novel The Remains of The Day, about life above and below stairs in the years leading up to World War II.

Stephen King - Desert Island Discs

Kirsty Young's castaway is the author Stephen King who has written more than 40 novels, won 23 major awards and sold hundreds of millions of books worldwide.

Sophie Kinsella - Open Book

Sophie Kinsella has sold over two million copies of her Shopaholic series - she talks to Mariella Frostrup about her admiration for Becky, and why she chooses to write under a pseudonym.

Andrea Levy - Bookclub

Andrea Levy, who won the 2004 Orange Prize and Whitbread Prize for her novel Small Island joins readers to discuss the book.

John Ajvide Lindqvist - Saturday Review

Tom Sutcliffe discusses the film Let the Right One In, based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Cormac McCarthy - Saturday Review

Tom Sutcliffe and guests review the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's book, The Road.

Audrey Niffenegger - Front Row

Audrey Niffenegger takes John Wilson on a tour of North London's celebrated Highgate Cemetery, to mark the 150th anniversary of the first ever burial in the cemetery's East Side. Some of her novels were inspired by the cemetery.

Maggie O'Farrell - Open Book

Maggie O'Farrell, author of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox talks to Mariella Frostrup about why dead lovers haunt the pages of her books, as well as the back catalogue of English literature.

David Peace - Saturday Live

David Peace gives his Inheritance Tracks on Saturday Live - 'The Enigma Variations' by Elgar and 'Interlude' by Jan Dek.

Meg Rosoff - Open Book

Meg Rosoff, author of How I Live Now talks to Mariella Frostrup about her book There is no Dogwhich imagines what the world would be like if God was a petulant teenage boy called Bob.

Joe Simpson - Bookclub

James Naughtie meets mountaineer Joe Simpson to talk about his nail-biting, prize-winning book Touching the Void.

Dodie Smith - Desert Island Discs

Roy Plomley's castaway is playwright Dodie Smith, best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmations.

Markus Zusak - Saturday Review

Discussion on the The Book Thief, the number one New York Times best seller by prize winning children's author Markus Zusak.