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Bite Sized Classics, Anne Enright, Unusual Narrators and Pulitzer Prize

Open Book spotlights new fiction and non-fiction, picks out the best of the paperbacks, talks to authors and publishers, and unearths lost masterpieces.

Bite Sized Classics
A selection of classic novels have just been re-published by Orion, all edited down to under 400 pages.

Are these compact editions butchery of works of art, or in a country where 98% of adults don't read the classics at all, a good way of making these books more accessible?

Mariella is joined by the Deputy Chief Executive Officer and publisher at Orion, Malcolm Edwards, and John Bowen, Professor of Literature at York University.

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Publisher: Orion

David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Publisher: Orion

Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Publisher: Orion

The Mill On The Floss – George Eliot
Publisher: Orion

Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
Publisher: Orion

Wives and Daughters – Elizabeth Gaskell
Publisher: Orion

Anne Enright
As her new book, The Gathering, is published, Mariella talks to Anne Enright about large families, materialism and whether knowledge traps you or sets you free.

The Gathering – Anne Enright
Publisher: Jonathan Cape

The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch – Anne Enright
Publisher: Vintage

What Are You Like – Anne Enright
Publisher: Vintage

Unusual Narrators
Authors have often turned to unorthodox narrators, so Mariella hears from Francis Spufford, Leonie Swann and Joshua Ferris about the benefits of speaking through bananas, sheep and toasters.

Three Bags Full – Leonie Swann
Publisher: Black Swan

Then We Came To The End – Joshua Ferris
Publisher: Viking

Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Publisher: Penguin

Then We Came To The End – Joshua Ferris
Publisher: Viking

The Child That Books Built - Francis Spufford
Publisher: Faber and Faber

I May Be Some Time: Ice And The English Imagination - Francis Spufford
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

The Vintage Book Of The Devil - Francis Spufford
Publisher: Vintage

The Last Witch Finder - James Morrow
Publisher: Phoenix

The Brave Little Toaster - Thomas M Disch
Publisher: Doubleday

A Rose For Emily - William Faulkner
Publisher: Dramatic

Pulitzer Prize
This year see's the 90th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize, named after the media baron and philanthropist Joseph Pulitzer. To hear more about the prize, and this year's winner Cormac McCarthy, Mariella is joined by Sig Gissler, administrator of the prize since 2002.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy
Publisher: Picador

March - Geraldine Brooks
Publisher: HarperPerennial

For Whom The Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: Arrow

The Old Man And The Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: Arrow

Available now

30 minutes

Chapters

  • Open Book

    • Pulitzer Prize

      This year see's the 90th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize.

      Duration: 06:50

Broadcasts

  • Sun 22 Apr 2007 16:00
  • Thu 26 Apr 2007 16:00

This Week's Book List

Read along with us - a list of books discussed in each programme

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