UR TV CAST

The World Service’s recommendation of a book is sure to carry considerable weight with her And that’s why I’m thrilled to be part of the book club. It isn’t easy to impress my wife.”The new forum, part of the World Service’s strand of arts programmes called Meridian, could prove lucrative to chosen authors. Although Oprah Winfrey recently wound up her television book club, saying it was difficult to find a worthwhile book to talk about every month, it was responsible for millions of sales at its peak. Publishers estimated that the insignia “Oprah’s Book Club” on the cover would typically inflate tenfold sales of any book and her recommendations routinely became enormous hits.The effect has been similar to that generated by literary prizes; even well-reviewed books have languished on book store shelves until they won the Booker, the Orange or the Whitbread prize.Bel Canto, written by Ann Patchett, had sold only 3,000 copies before it was shortlisted for the Orange prize for women’s fiction. But it has notched up an extra 26,000 sales since winning the award in June.After Keillor, the World Service has lined up Martin Amis to discuss Money, his novel of 1980s excess, with Arundhati Roy next in line to talk about The God of Small Things, her Booker prize-winning novel.The format of a discussion chaired by Harriett Gilbert in front of a live audience restricts the choices to works by living authors. In its initial run, the programme’s producers have opted for the best-known or most significant books by the chosen authors.Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days is a humorous portrait of small-town American life in a mythical Minnesota town called Lake Wobegon. The book began life as part of Keillor’s live Saturday afternoon variety show on public radio.A World Service spokeswoman said the station hoped each month’s discussion programme would prove entertaining even to those who had not read the book..

There is a famous wartime photo of a group of writers huddled around a BBC World Service mike, poised to trounce the Nazis with the overwhelming force of open debate. The group includes T S Eliot, the Indian novelist Mulk Raj Anand, the poet William Empson and, brooding over his charges like a tall, gaunt mother hen, the programme’s producer – George Orwell. Literary discussion on the World Service has a formidable past, an impressive present and – if its new Book Club succeeds – a promising future. Most of the BBC’s 150 million overseas listeners do not live near a well-stocked English-language bookshop.

Will the club recommendations offer a gift to the loss-making American owners of Amazon ?Book clubs thrive on a sense of community and connection, existing not simply to shift novels but to encourage the creation of reading groups. Somehow Oprah Winfrey, who closed her own television version this April after 47 selections, managed that trick in a country of 280 million. Not only did Oprah’s picks turn obscure writers into household names, she also helped spawn hundreds of local groups.The BBC Book Club starts with the boon of the World Service reputation for free judgment. It can also boast, in the Meridian presenter Harriett Gilbert, one of the most consistently excellent arts journalists in any corner of the BBC. Yet it somehow needs to achieve the impossible: to forge a neighbourhood feeling of shared concerns among an audience that stretches across six continents.In Oprah’s case, this intimacy came about because she stamped her troubled background on every choice.

The Southern experience, the black experience and the experience of family dysfunction – her signature was on selections as varied as Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader.With its opening choice of Garrison Keillor, the World Service probably aims to foster a sense of small-town, feel-good warmth among listeners from Tokyo to Trinidad. Martin Amis and Arundhati Roy look more ambitious options, but both portray the drama of movement and dislocation, of migration and discovery, that shapes the lives of millions. The literary editor’s top 10 club choicesIsabel Allende: Portrait in SepiaPeter Carey: Oscar and LucindaVikram Chandra: Red Earth and Pouring RainAnita Desai: Fasting, FeastingChang-Rae Lee: Native SpeakerShena Mackay: DunedinAlistair MacLeod: No Great MischiefMarcel M?g: In BabylonPhilip Roth: American PastoralAhdaf Soueif: The Map of Love. “It was a big decision to make but I’m sure it is the right one. He will also sample European football for the second consecutive season – Ipswich were knocked out of the Uefa Cup in the third round by Internazionale last season – and has no thoughts about moving before the transfer window closes on 31 August.”I am not thinking about anything other than playing football,” he said. Hermann Hreidarsson is set to play for Ipswich in tonight’s Uefa Cup qualifying round tie in Luxembourg.
The Icelandic defender was due to fly out with the rest of the squad yesterday for the first-leg match with Avenir Beggen. But certainly we would hope to have him back for the Italy game.”.