Big Book Weekend welcomes 30 authors for a fascinating series of free-to-watch events.
The festival continues on Sunday, with five fantastic live sessions starting at midday.
Read the Line-up article and plan your Big Book Weekend.
Not convinced that city living is for you? Cameron Laux finds out why some writers are continually drawn by the wilder parts of the planet:
Quote MessageLosing yourself to find yourself is an age-old topos of writing. It involves accepting the risk that you might remain forever lost.
Cameron Laux
Why do we need to find wilderness?
Image source, AlamyWhy are so many writers drawn to the wilderness?
For more thoughts on city living, why not check out Cath Pound's guide to New York Culture:
Quote MessageA city and the cultural works it inspires are inextricably linked. Over time they become integral to that city’s identity, part of its fabric and how it is perceived in the popular imagination.
Cath Pound
Her recommendations feature skyscraper art, a small-town girl made good, and a transformational Harlem tale.
Which works of culture does Cath recommend for evoking a sense of life in the Big Apple, external?
Discover big reads about the Big Apple
Join Ayisha Malik as she make a case for Big City living when she takes a Culture Cab tour of literary London with Nikki Bedi.
Nikki is joined by author Ayisha Malik for a tour of the secret places of literary London.
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Our first session of the day is over, but there's more from our panellists on the BBC website.
Amanda Craig revealed how a famous treasury note left by the last Labour government inspired her novel The Lie of the Land in an interview with Front Row in 2017. (Interview begins 19'55'')
Amanda Craig
Quote MessageJust as the countryside is an escape for city dwellers, you have to remember that the city is also often an escape for country dwellers.
Amanda Craig
Quote MessageI hope that literary fiction, as well as popular fiction, has passed this kind of ghettoisation that you can only be funny or you can only be serious, and we're getting back... to the things that make Victorian writers like Dickens or Trollope so enormously popular.
Amanda Craig
Quote MessageThe poverty of income, the poverty of opportunity, in truly rural Britain is really quite astounding.
Amanda Craig
Quote MessageThere is nowhere in the UK that is not within driving distance of a Chinese takeaway, or an Indian takeaway, or a large general hospital staffed by people from many nations.
Julie Ma
Quote MessageIt's not surprising that we start with families. People are the crux of each book.
Ayisha Malik
Quote MessageIt's as if the whole city, apart from the suburbs, has gone like sleeping beauty into a kind of eternal slumber... apart from Hampstead Heath which is heaving
Amanda Craig
You can watch the session live by clicking on the play button at the top of the page
Joining Alex Clark to talk about life in the country:
Ayisha Malik is a writer and editor, living in South London. She holds a BA in English Literature and a First Class MA in Creative Writing. Her novels Sofia Khan is Not Obliged and The Other Half of Happiness, starring ‘the Muslim Bridget Jones’, were met with great critical acclaim, and Sofia Khan is Not Obliged was chosen as 2019’s Cityread’s book. Ayisha was a WHSmith Fresh Talent Pick, shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Award and Marie Claire’s Future Shapers Awards. Ayisha is also the ghost writer for The Great British Bake Off winner, Nadiya Hussain.
Julie Ma was born and bred in west Wales, where her grandfather settled in the 1930s. As a child she always had her nose in book, and went on to study drama at Aberystwyth University. When her job as a Royal Mail postal sorter was taken over by a postcode-reading machine, she tried her hand at a variety of jobs. Realising there was no niche that would ever fit her perfectly, she began writing fiction, and achieved early success as a runner-up in the Orange short story prize. At around the same time, she took over her family’s take-away business, and came across dozens of interesting stories by getting to know her customers. Now at age 51 she is finally a debut writer, with her first novel Happy Families published this February.
Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in South Africa in 1959, she grew up in Italy, where her parents worked for the UN. Amanda was educated in the UK, finishing her studies at Clare College, Cambridge. After a brief time in advertising and PR, she became a journalist for newspapers such as the Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Telegraph and Independent, winning both the Young Journalist of the Year and the Catherine Pakenham Award. She was the children's critic for the Independent on Sunday and The Times. She still reviews children's books for the New Statesman, and literary fiction for the Observer, but is mostly a full-time novelist. Her novel Hearts and Minds was longlisted for the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction.
British Country LIfe: Heaven or Hell? Sunday 12 Noon.
While we're waiting for our Big Book Weeked escape to the country, find which books Sara Cox and her guests recommended for creating a vivid sense of place, in this clip from last year's Between The Covers
Alan Davies and Anita Rani talk about the books that have taken them to India.
Our next session begins at 12 noon.
Covid-19 has seen thousands of urbanites flee from our cities in search of a country idyll. But does country life live up to the hype? Is it a truly green and pleasant land where happy families raise prize-winning organic veg - or a hotbed of petty resentments populated by small-minded racists in wellington boots?
Ayisha Malik (This Green and Pleasant Land), Julie Ma (Happy Families) and Amanda Craig (Lie of the Land) have all written novels set in rural Britain, and will discuss the realities of modern country living at 12.
Image source, Image: Sigmund / UnsplashA countryside scene - but is it idyllic?
You can find more clips from yesterday's sessions in the carousel at the top of the page.
It doesn't bother me if people work out on page one who the killer is.
If you missed our chat with Val last night, you can now watch the whole session on catch-up. Val discussed her childhood reading habits, her love of walking in cemeteries during lockdown, and how crime fiction can hold a mirror to our world.
That was almost a lightbulb going on in my head... you could use the crime novel as a lens to look at the world you lived in.
We're back for another day of sparkling literary discussion. On the menu today, How Food Shapes our Lives, British Country Life, and Bibliotherapy.
We also have Big Book Chats with Douglas Stuart, and Sir Lenny Henry.
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We're back tomorrow at noon, when we'll be talking about the joys and perils of country living. We'll also be chatting to Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart, and to Sir Lenny Henry later in the day.
See the full line-up for more details. In the meantime, here's a quick reminder of what we've been talking about so far.
Alex Wheatle on Masculinity
Frank Gardner on heroism
Adele Parks on liars in fiction
Once again - we're really sorry that we couldn't bring you our Big Book Chat with Val this evening. We've recorded the session and you'll be able to see it tomorrow.
You can watch our chat with Val on Sunday
We're sorry - we can't bring you our live Big Book Chat with Val McDermid right now. We'll have it for you as soon as we can.
In the meantime, you can find out what happened when Val joined James Naughtie to discuss her novel The Mermaids Singing on Radio 4's Bookclub.
Quote Message"Crime fiction... has increasingly become the novel of character. It's much less about whodunnit these days."
Val McDermid
Val McDermid joins readers to discuss The Mermaids Singing, the story of a serial killer.