大象传媒

Michael Palin's second novel, The Truth, has just been published, seventeen years after his first. Given his long career in television and film, Clare English asks him what it is about writing fiction that made him want to do it all over again.

Jasper Fforde's multi-layered, genre-twisting, postmodern fiction has inspired deep loyalty in his fans but meant that his first novel, The Eyre Affair, was rejected 76 times before one publisher finally saw his potential. He'll be talking about being somewhat of an acquired literary taste and, of course, about his new book, The Woman Who Died a Lot.

Clare meets Whitbread Award winner Diana Hendry, whose novel The Seeing makes a gripping tale for young readers out of the trauma experienced by the children who lived through World War II.

And: we're used to the idea of literature drawing on science in our favourite sci-fi and crime thrillers - but what about the other way round? Clare hears about the What Scientists Read project and finds out how, say, physicists' page-turners have shaped their work- and even their decision to become scientists in the first place.

Producer: Serena Field.