Listen now to my BBC Radio4 #TakeFourBooks chat with Andrew Michael Hurley about new novel SALTWASH and three influences including Philip Larkin's 'Aubade', 'Free Will' by Sam Harris, and Shirley Jackson's chilling 'The Summer People' 🎧📚📻👇 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Christmas fantasy reading inspired by @jdcrawf.bsky.social Take Four Books episode with Katherine Rundell. Starting with the first in Rundell’s ‘Impossible Creatures’ series and then a re-read of the wonderful ‘Wizard of Earthsea’

Salman Rushdie was the latest guest on Take Four Books - talking to @jdcrawf.bsky.social about his new short story collection - The Eleventh Hour….catch up here…. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... #books

Listen now to my BBC R4 chat with Salman Rushdie about new work THE ELEVENTH HOUR and his 3 picks of influences, including E.M. Forster, Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika & the Pied Piper of Hamelin! #TakeFourBooks www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This - Take Four Books - always worth listening to.

Listen now to my BBCR4 chat with Jo Nesbø about latest novel WOLF HOUR, “saving the cat” vs “killing the cat”, taxidermy, & 3 influences including Jim Thompson, Knut Hamsun and Brett Easton Ellis #TakeFourBooks www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Listen now to my BBC R4 chat with @mccallsmith.bsky.social about new novel THE PRIVATE SIDE OF FRIENDSHIP and 3 influences, including W.H. Auden on unrequited love, Robin Dunbar’s “Friends”, and Madeline Miller’s “The Song of Achilles” www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Today on #TakeFourBooks on BBCR4 I was talking to Karl Ove Knausgaard about new novel THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT and 3 ‘Faustian’ influences incl Thomas Mann & the memoir of @willsergeant.com from @bunnymen.com! Listen now! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I was very restrained at the bookshop this morning but excited to read both of these. One inspired by last week’s conversation between Katherine Randell and @jdcrawf.bsky.social and the other a delightful discovery ready for Advent.

Loved having brill @olgaravn.bsky.social on BBCR4’s #TakeFourBooks today - talking about her new novel THE WAX CHILD & 3 influences inc M.R. James and a book of southern Italian spells! 📚📻🎧https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002m96r

Listen again to this year’s Booker Prize winning author, David Szalay, on Take Four Books on #BBCRadio4 - talking about Flesh and the three other books that inspired its creation! @thebookerprizes.com #BookerPrize2025 #DavidSzalay

This week in Books on Podcasts, a special Waterstones episode featured Rebecca Kuang and Samantha Shannon, while Take Four Books featured its first children’s book with Katherine Rundell’s The Poisoned King 👇 #BookSky

Loved this episode exploring the importance of fantasy, storytelling an imagination. ‘The Prince Caspian’ choice reminded me of Jem Bloomfield’s book ‘Gold on the Horizon’ which follows the Take Four books USP by tracing Lewis’ literary influences in Caspian and Dawn Treader.

love this series a relief to have focus on one book and its origins poking behind the scenes is great

If you are interested in books, reading and the power of story, then listen to this BBC R4 chat I had with the brilliant Katherine Rundell. We're talking about her new @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social novel The Poisoned King, but much more too, from Hamlet to Le Guin! 📚👇🎧 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I read The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller after listening to Take Four Books presented by @jdcrawf.bsky.social & I’ve listened again. TFB is an excellent concept & excellent in reality! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Listen now to my BBC Radio 4 chat with Chris Kraus on her new “true-crime” novel THE FOUR SPENT THE DAY TOGETHER & her 3 influences including Norman Mailer & Phil Neel 📚🎧👇 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I was on Radio4's Front Row last night with @nationalgalleries.bsky.social Louise Pearson talking about NGS exhibition of Alfred Buckham's aerial photography & my own experience of taking to the sky in open cockpit (I also wrote intro to the exhibition catalogue!) 🎧👇 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Today on #TakeFourBooks Booker-winner John Banville is talking about his new @faberbooks.bsky.social novel 'Venetian Vespers' & 3 haunting, Venice-based influences, including (stories & films) Don't Look Now & Death in Venice! Listen now!👇🎧📚 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Thank you, @jdcrawf.bsky.social ! Listen again to this episode, the Start The Week ep James mentions, and all the other excellent radio Picks of the Week on @bbcsounds.bsky.social

My PICK OF THE WEEK! Mexican gothic, railways, distortion, immortalists, unfolding landscapes & JMW Turner ft @petroc.bsky.social, @silviamg.bsky.social, @kermodemovie.bsky.social, @johnrobbofficial.bsky.social, @alekskrotoski.bsky.social, @adamrutherford.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This week on #TakeFourBooks on BBC Radio 4 I was talking to William Boyd about his new spy novel 'The Predicament' and 3 influences Lawrence Durrell, Len Deighton and John Le Carre - also with guest @louisewelsh00.bsky.social - listen now! 👇🎧📚 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Coming up later today on BBC Radio 4 I'm talking to Graham Norton on #TakeFourBooks about his latest novel Frankie, along with 3 influences - Elizabeth Bowen, Armistead Maupin & Gabrielle Zevin (and bonus influence Charlie Brown!) - at 4pm 👇🎧📚 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Take Four Books @jdcrawf.bsky.social on R4 Sundays 4pm, always worth listening to. Sunday 14th Sept on Ian McEwan with @damedenisemina.bsky.social on Sounds particularly so.

Loved talking to Ian McEwan (& @damedenisemina.bsky.social!) on BBCRadio4 #TakeFourBooks about climate, memory & the way the past haunts the present in his new @jonathancape.bsky.social novel WHAT WE CAN KNOW with 3 influences incl the epic Footsteps by Richard Holmes www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Thanks to Radio 4's Take Four Books I'm re-reading The Bone People (Keri Hulme) about forty years after the first (and second) time. And it's still absolutely brilliant, so thank you for reminding me, Melissa Lucashenko and @jdcrawf.bsky.social

Listen now to my chat with Melissa Lucashenko on Radio4's #TakeFourBooks about her latest @oneworldbooks.bsky.social novel 'Edenglassie' and 3 influences incl Keri Hulme & Sebastian Barry (recorded with @rodgeglass.bsky.social & live audience at @edbookfest.bsky.social) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Listen to my chat with Sarah Hall on #TakeFourBooks on BBC Radio4 discussing new @faberbooks.bsky.social novel HELM (the first book to have a wind as its main character?) & 3 influences incl George Saunders & Angela Carter. With Alan McMunnigall of @thiwurd.bsky.social! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Listen now on BBC Radio4 to my chat with Rachel Kushner and live audience @edbookfest.bsky.social for #TakeFourBooks - talking about Creation Lake and 3 influences including Nabokov's Pale Fire and radical 1970s French crime noir! Also with @andrewmeehanesq.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Listen now to @irvinewelsh.bsky.social on #TakeFourBooks on BBC Radio 4 - talking Trainspotting sequel 'Men In Love' and his 3 influences, no less than James Joyce, Marcel Proust and Bill Shakespeare! Also with guest @kirstininnes.bsky.social 🎧📚👇 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Come and be part of a live Take Four Books audience this Saturday at Edinburgh International Book Festival - I’m talking to Rachel Kushner about her Booker-shortlisted Creation Lake and 3 influences! Book your FREE tickets here 👇 www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...

A joy to commission this from Graeme Macrae Burnet - and fantastic to now see it making its way out into the world…

This was great fun and includes a short history of the great journalist Dorothy Thompson (‘Who Goes Nazi’) who was the 1st journalist expelled from Germany by Hitler

Listen now to our Radio4 #TakeFourBooks chat with @damedenisemina.bsky.social about new novel ‘The Good Liar’, and 3 influences - 1984, Obedience to Authority and the Dorothy Thompson’s essay ‘Who Goes Nazi?’ - also with Kim Sherwood! 👇🎧📻📚 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

We are excited to be partnering with the @edbookfest.bsky.social to bring a super panel of international publishers together, chaired by the fabulous @jdcrawf.bsky.social to discuss 'Books that Travel'. www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival... part of the Global Ink Industry series, Tuesday 12 August.

Listen now to my chat on Radio4 with Gurnaik Johal on his debut @serpents-tail.bsky.social novel Saraswati on #TakeFourBooks: where a lost river re-emerges in contemporary India. His 3 influences include @amitav.bsky.social, Joseph Conrad and poet Natalie Diaz! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

A long train journey means starting another pick from Take Four Books with @jdcrawf.bsky.social Looking forward to this one.

Listen now to my chat with Colm Toibin on #TakeFourBooks on Radio 4 - talking about Long Island (his first sequel!) and three influences, Hardy, Conrad & Wharton - also with @jancarsonwrites.bsky.social! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Listen now to my chat on Radio 4's #TakeFourBooks with Madeleine Thien about her new, time-warping @grantabooks.bsky.social novel of war, exile and refugees, 'The Book of Records' - and her three influences, including the evergreen 'Invisible Cities' by Italo Calvino... www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

A joy to talk to @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social about her new, polyphonic novel 'The Benefactors' on #TakeFourBooks, along with 3 influences Chernobyl Prayer, The Slap and @larapawson.bsky.social's This Is The Place to Be - listen now on Radio 4 & BBC Sounds! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This Sunday at 4.00pm on BBC Radio 4, Take Four Books focuses on The Benefactors. I’m joined by my brill pal Emma Warren and I talk about, among other books This is the Place to Be by @larapawson.bsky.social, published by @cbeditions.bsky.social. I love this programme so was made up to be on it.

I loved this episode, an exploration of what sounds like a beautiful book about storytelling & interconnection The comment “the same water we might have shed as tears yesterday may be the same drop that fell on the head of a mighty king in Ancient Assyria” may have led to a few tears itself.

Listen to us chat to Elif Shafak behind the scenes at @hayfestival.bsky.social on R4 #TakeFourBooks: talking 'There Are Rivers in the Sky' & 3 influences including the earliest recorded poem The Epic of Gilgamesh - along with first national poet of Wales, Gwyneth Lewis! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Congratulations to Andrew Miller on winning the Walter Scott Prize for The Land in Winter. He spoke to Take Four Books about the novel and his influences at the Hay festival on #BBCRadio4 @walterscottprize.bsky.social @hayfestival.bsky.social 🎧: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Listen now to latest #TakeFourBooks recorded at @hayfestival.bsky.social - Andrew Miller talking about his latest novel 'The Land in Winter' & influences including a book about a mad, 300-page party - with excellent @joannechocolat.bsky.social as guest! 👇🎧 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

#TakeFourBooks has been at the Hay Festival for the past few days - including a show in front of live audience for the first time with Andrew Miller & @joannechocolat.bsky.social and lovely interview today with @elifsafak.bsky.social and poet Gwyneth Lewis - look out for Radio 4 broadcasts v soon! 🎧

On latest #TakeFourBooks I’m talking to poet and memoirist Sean Hewitt about his debut novel ‘Open Heaven’ & 3 influences including E M Forster’s Maurice, LP Hartley’s The Go-Between and Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls! Listen now 🎧📻📚 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Take Four Books is at Hay! @hayfestival.bsky.social We’re talking to Andrew Miller about his novel, The Land in Winter, with Joanne Harris joining in the conversation. @jdcrawf.bsky.social

I talked to Ocean Vuong on #TakeFourBooks on BBC Radio 4 about his new @vintagebooks.bsky.social novel “The Emperor of Gladness” and his three influences, including The Brothers Karamazov and Jack Kerouac - listen now! 📚🎧👇 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I'm talking to Sir Ben Okri about new book 'Madame Sosostris & The Festival for the Broken-Hearted' (@headofzeus.bsky.social) on BBC Radio4's #TakeFourBooks, with influences 'The Waste Land', 'The Outsider', Shakespeare & bonus book we both love: Les Grand Meaulnes!🎧👇 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...