The digested read podcast: The Unbearabl...

John Crace whips through the lastest instalment of EL James’s sado-masochistic bestseller, Grey, and asks if it’s time to apply the safe word 

John Crace squashes Houellebecq’s Submission and asks whether the sacred monster of French fiction is just making trouble for its own sake 

John Crace puts the annotated editon of the Nobel laureate’s poetical works through the wringer and assesses the stature of the modernist master 

Jorge Luis Borges’s combination of the anecdotal, philosophical and the literary showed Will Self how to achieve the ‘truly veridical’. He gets his coordinates from ‘On Exactitude in Science’ 

Philip Pullman opens our podcast series of authors reading their favourite short stories with Chekhov’s ‘masterpiece of minimalism’, ‘The Beauties’ 

Following the success of his previous novel All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr's latest book is an ambitious epic about the power and immortality of stories. He discusses it all with NPR's Scott Simon here. If you're in the market for a novel written by someone who genuin ... Show More

The nameless narrator in author Claire-Louise Bennett's new novel, Checkout 19, absolutely loves books. Their mere presence puts her at ease. But her lifelong love of reading is, in part, because she feels let down by the people around her. Bennett told NPR's Scott Simon that lov ... Show More

Harold Bloom called Persuasion "the perfect novel." Virginia Woolf said "In Persuasion, Jane Austen is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more romantic than she supposed." In this episode, the first of three parts, Jacke takes a look at Jane Aust ... Show More

"Mère décédée. Enterrement demain. Sentiments distingués." Voici le télégramme que reçoit Meursault, lui annonçant que sa mère, placée à l’hospice de Marengo, vient de mourir. C'est ainsi que commence ce roman d'Albert Camus, le premier du célèbre auteur, publié en 1942. "L'Étran ... Show More

In this episode, WBUR's Robin Young talks with author Andrew Sean Greer about his new novel Less is Lost, the sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Less. This time, Greer's protagonist Arthur Less takes a tour of America in a van, and in the process learns about what it means to b ... Show More