Revisiting the 1990s

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Remember the 1990s? A decade in which literary authors briefly rivalled rock stars - Martin Amis netting a half million pound advance for The Information - political scientists proclaimed the end of history, and we first heard about a technological curiosity called the World Wide Web. In this week's programme, Chris Power is joined by two writers whose books are set during this moment of change in 1994. James Cahill’s debut novel, Tiepolo Blue, explores the cultural revolution in the British art scene, and sexual adventures on the streets of Soho. Author of Big Girl, Small Town, Michelle Gallen, pitches us into a group of teenage friends growing up in a Northern Ireland caught between sectarian violence and the emerging promise of the Peace Process in her new novel, Factory Girls. And Alexandra Pringle, Executive Publisher at Bloomsbury, talks us through how publishing changed and the popular books everyone was reading during the decade. Book List – Sunday 26 June and Thursday 30 June Tiepolo Blue by James Cahill Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje Reef by Romesh Gunesekera Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif The Secret History by Donna Tartt Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker The Beach by Alex Garland High Fidelity by Nick Hornby Are You Experienced? by William Sutcliffe Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk