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This week Kirsty Wark is joined by authors Ian Rankin, Kate Mosse and Sarah Churchwell to discuss the swathe of books in this season's library. We will be reviewing Sebastian Faulks' novelistic comment on the state of the nation, the latest works from Man Booker contenders William Trevor and JM Coetzee, Nick Cave's tale of the sex-crazed Bunny Munro and Audrey Niffenegger's keenly anticipated novel Her Fearful Symmetry.
A Week in December
Sebastian Faulks' latest novel is set in London
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Sebastian Faulks' latest work takes in multiple strains of modern life in London, including banking, reality television, terrorism and drug abuse. The plot follows the lives of seven characters over the course of seven days. All are inextricably bound up in the realities of modern day society as their lives are played out within the circumference of London Underground's Circle line. The panel will consider the novel as a critique of the state of the nation and ask whether there can be a big British novel in the same sense that we talk about the big American novel. A Week in December is published by Random House
'Love and Summer' and 'Summertime'
With the Man Booker shortlist to be announced next week, we'll be asking what the longlist tells us about contemporary fiction and reviewing the final two books from the list to be published, by established names William Trevor and JM Coetzee. Trevor's Love and Summer follows the relationship in an Irish town in the 1950s between Ellie, a young married woman, and Florian Kilderry, a young man intent on leaving Ireland and the house of his dead parents. Summertime is the third in Coetzee's fictionalised autobiography series. A biographer investigates the life of the dead writer "JM Coetzee", using passages from his journals and interviewing people who know him to paint a picture of the struggling lonely author throughout his 30s. Are they the works of two literary giants at the height of their powers? Love and Summer is published by Viking. Summertime is published by Harvill Secker
The Death of Bunny Munro
The second book by musician Nick Cave is published 20 years after his first novel, And The Ass Saw The Angel. The novel's protagonist is Bunny Munro, a beauty products salesman who, after his wife's sudden death, takes his son on the road with him to sell products door-to-door. Bunny's obsession with sex and women clouds his mind and he soon begins to mentally unravel. The idea for the novel first came when Cave was asked to write a screenplay that had to include the elements - a door-to-door salesman, Butlins and an after-death experience. Cave has also recorded a reading of the novel and worked with Warren Ellis to compose music for an audio book. The Death of Bunny Munro is published by Cannongate and the audio book is available at http://www.thedeathofbunnymunro.com/
Her Fearful Symmetry
Can Audrey Niffenegger reprise the success of her first best-selling novel The Time Traveller's Wife, and justify her $5m advance, with this latest supernatural tale? American twins Valentina and Julia inherit a flat in Highgate, London, from an aunt they have never met. The young girls arrive to find a building inhabited by eccentric neighbours, their aunt's mysterious lover and - more alarmingly - the numinous presence of their recently departed relative. Much of the action revolves around Highgate Cemetery. Audrey Niffenegger became a guide during her research for the book and she read for us in situ. Access to the Western Cemetery at Highgate Cemetery is by guided tour only. Her Fearful Symmetry is published by Jonathan Cape on 1 October
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