Take Four Books

The award-winning Irish writer, Donal Ryan, speaks about his latest novel, Where Are The Kings, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its connections to three other books. Set in rural Ireland, Where Are The Kings, follows the character of Jack between the ages of twelve and fourteen as he attempts to deal with his mother's sudden death for which he feels a measure of guilt.
Donal has won Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards three times. In 2025 he won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and he has twice been longlisted for the Booker Prize.
For his three influences Donal chose: Emma Donoghue’s Room (2010) which was later turned into a film five years later directed by Lenny Abrahamson; Frank McCourt’s best-selling memoir Angela’s Ashes (1996); and Kent Haruf’s Plainsong (1999).
Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.

The award-winning Irish writer Sebastian Barry speaks to Take Four Books about his latest novel, The Newer World, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its connections to three other books.
The Newer World takes us back into post-civil war America as we follow the character of Tennyson Bouguereau, a formerly enslaved man, and nascent singer as it turns out, who is forced to leave his home for fear of being killed, and heads to Nashville, until a surprising trip to Victorian England changes things.
Sebastian Barry was the laureate for Irish Fiction from 2018 to 2021 and is a two-time winner of both the Costa Book of the Year and the Walter Scott prize for historical fiction. For his three influences he chose: The American Spelling Book by Noah Webster (1783); Army Life in a Black Regiment by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1869); and A Journey in the Back Country by Frederik Law Olmstead (1860).
Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.

The New York writer and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Colson Whitehead, speaks to Take Four Books about his latest novel, Cool Machine, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its connections to three other books. In three interlinking stories, Cool Machine - the final instalment in Colson's Harlem Trilogy - showcases the grit and grandeur of 1980s New York through its underground wheeler-dealer protagonist, Ray Carney, who runs a furniture business on 125th Street with a lucrative side hustle.
For his three influences Colson chose: Junky by William Burroughs (1953); One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967); and The Hunter by Richard Stark (1962). Richard Stark was the pen name of Donald Edwin Westlake.
This episode was recorded at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was an BBC Audio Scotland production.

Presenter James Crawford speaks to award-winning Mexican American novelist and essayist Valeria Luiselli about her latest novel, Beginning Middle End, and its three key literary influences.
In the novel, a mother and her twelve-year-old daughter travel across a wildfire-stricken Sicily in search of family history, archaeology, and the inner-workings of story itself. Along the way, the mother remains in contact with her own mother in Mexico, who may be beginning to experience dementia.
Valeria’s three influences are Natural History by Pliny the Elder (1st century AD), Dart by Alice Oswald (2002), and On Nature by Empedocles (c.450 BC).
The audio extract comes from the audiobook of Beginning Middle End.
Producer: Rachael O'Neill
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.

The writer M. John Harrison speaks to Take Four Books about his latest novel, The End of Everything, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its connections to three other works. The End of Everything follows the characters of Phillip Tennent and his elderly aunt Marnie. A crisis has happened. The exact nature of which remains obscure, but government barely functions, the seas are full of new creatures and Europe has been mislaid. Is this the end?
For his three influences M. John Harrison chose: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham which was published in 1961 and released as a film two years later; Drought by J. G. Ballard from 1965; and a short story called The Same Dog by Robert Aickman from 1974.
Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.