Rabih Alameddine on his new novel An Unnecessary Woman

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Rabih Alameddine's new novel An Unnecessary Woman was shortlisted for a National Book Award. One reviewer called it 'succulent fiction'. He talks to Mariella about his cantankerous heroine, her obsession with translation and why we all turn into our mothers. Actor David Duchovny, perhaps best known as Fox Mulder in The X-Files, has written his first novel: Holy Cow. As well as discussing how he created his bovine narrator, he also reveals that a volume of William Blake's poetry is the Book He'd Never Lend. And in our Reading Clinic critic and writer John Freeman suggests books for a listener who is off to Las Vegas to celebrate his birthday - a city, Freeman says, of 'second chances', so does its literature reflect that?