Jim Crace, Jay Rayner, Ali Smith on Katherine Mansfield, and finishing Vernon God Little

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Katherine Mansfield Katherine Mansfield died young in 1923 aged just 34, but despite her short career she is acclaimed as one of the great short story writers. Virginia Woolf said hers was 'the only writing I've ever been jealous of'. As a new collection of her stories is published, novelist Ali Smith joins Mariella to explain why she too is passionate about Mansfield's work. Jim Crace Jim Crace won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1998 for his book Quarantine. His latest book, The Pesthouse, depicts a dystopian vision of an America without technology, where even metal is treated with suspicion and the population is heading east to flee. Vernon God Little Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre has topped a survey of books which we buy, but never finish reading. Francine Stock, novelist and presenter of Radio 4's The Film Programme, who was a Booker judge the year the novel won the prize, offers some advice on how to get to the last page. Time in the novel Jay Rayner's new book The Oyster House Siege is set over the course of a tense four days, while masked gunmen hold chefs and customers hostage in a restaurant kitchen. He joins Mariella to discuss ratcheting up the tension in a book with such a specific timeframe while Peter Kemp, fiction editor of the Sunday Times discusses other novels where time plays an important role.