Jonathan Lethem; Sylvia Townsend Warner; Edna O'Brien

Available for over a year

Chris Power talks to Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, about his latest novel The Arrest. Set in the near future, a mysterious event - The Arrest - has caused all modern technology to stop working and daily life has returned to a model of quiet self sufficiency. Journeyman, the book’s main character and a Hollywood screenwriter before the apocalypse, find his life turned upside down when his old friend Peter Todbaum, rolls into town in an impregnable nuclear-powered car! Sylvia Townsend Warner published her first novel Lolly Willowes in 1926, and went on to write poetry, music and shorts stories, over 150 of which appeared in the New Yorker between 1930s and 1970s. Now, a reissue of Lolly Willowes and a new anthology of short stories English Climate: Wartime Stories offer the chance to modern readers to get to know her work better. Chris is joined by Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk, and editor at Persephone, Lydia Fellgett to explore her life and writing. And this week Dame Edna O'Brien turns 90, and to mark the occasion shares the Book She'd Never Lend.