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Howard Jacobson
Bookclub
English - January 05, 2011 13:21 - 27 minutes - 25.1 MB - ★★★★ - 208 ratingsSociety & Culture books culture news productivity health business entrepreneurship interview comedy politics Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
James Naughtie and readers talk to this year's Man Booker prize winner - Howard Jacobson. The chosen book for this edition of Bookclub is the one he says he wants people to read : The Mighty Walzer, first published in 1999.
Peculiarly, it is a comic novel about the joy and despair of table tennis.
It's also a portrait of a Jewish boyhood in Manchester, showing how the main character - Oliver Walzer - comes to terms with the demands of puberty and his sporting genius; as well as the attentions of his mother, grandmother and assorted aunties.
Back in the 1950s Jacobson, like his alter-ego Oliver Walzer, was one of the top 10 junior table tennis players in the country. This is a heavily autobiographical novel from a writer who's has been called 'the master of confessional humour'.
As always on Bookclub, a group of readers join the author in the discussion and James Naughtie chairs the programme.
February's Bookclub choice : 'Blood River' by Tim Butcher.
Producer : Dymphna Flynn.