Talking Of Books

14/09/2019: You Don’t Own Me by Lesley Gore is our soundtrack. Find out what connects it to The Testaments by Margaret Atwood and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

14/09/2019: It’s all about The Testaments by Margaret Atwood! The wait is over and we cannot wait to delve into the highly-anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale with bookworm writer and editor Allison K Williams.

14/09/2019: Sara Hamdan is joined by Louise Edensor, senior lecturer at Middlesex University to review Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick, it has been described as a painfully beautiful first novel set in the 1960s in a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. 

14/09/2019: Former New York Times journalist, blogger at Holidays in Heels and part time editor at Google, Sara Hamdan, joined us in the studio to tell us what books she’s read over Summer – the good, the bad, and the ugly including psychological thriller The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, non-fiction work My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, and The Man Who Didn’t Call by Rosie Walsh.

06/07/2019: A former British police officer, Clare Mackintosh is now a Sunday Times bestselling author. Her debut novel I Let You Go was a Richard & Judy book club pick and won Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award in 2016. In 2017, it was announced that she had sold over one million copies worldwide. Her second novel I See You reached number 1 in the Sunday Times original fiction list and was shortlisted for Crime and Thriller Book of the Year in the British Book Awards. Her latest novel Let Me Lie also became a number one Sunday Times bestseller and garnered a lot of praise from readers and other thriller writers.

06/07/2019: What would you do if you could live stream your emotions? Fiona Du Vivier reviews taut psychological thriller, Heartstream by Tom Pollock, about obsession, fame and betrayal follows the lives of Cat and Amy who are about to discover how far true obsession can go. She also talks about what makes a story unfilmable. This one is for the Black Mirror fans.

06/07/2019: Ahh, first love. Butterflies in your stomach, the ‘how-long-should-I-wait-to-text-him?’ debate, the cute inside jokes. We all love a meet-cute story. Festival Director of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature Ahlam Bolooki reviews Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls, the must anticipated new novel from the author of One Day and Us. It’s a bittersweet coming-of-age tale about the heart-stopping thrill over first love and how just one summer can forever change a life.

29/06/2019: What connects Creep by Radiohead, and the Harry Potter series? Find out on this week’s literary soundtrack.

29/06/2019: Anita Vachharajani author of Amrita Sher-Gil: Rebel with a Paintbrush, speaks to us from India about the short life of the incredible Hungarian-Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gil. A story about a girl who loved a bit of mischief and adventure, she defied headmistresses, teachers, art critics and royalty to make her own way in a patriarchal society.

29/06/2019: What was that last book that made you laugh out loud? Co-founder of Dubomedy Mina Liccione reviews Reasons to Be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe, a hilarious and moving story of a young woman figuring out how to adult. The novel won the 2019 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction - does it live up to the hype? Plus the books and writers that make the Dubai Eye team chuckle.  

29/06/2019: What was the last book that moved you to tears? Jamal Al Mawed reviews ‘War Doctor – Surgery on the Front Line’, a brave and compassionate memoir of David Nott’s time volunteering as a trauma surgeon in some of the most dangerous war zones in the world.

29/06/2019: Staying in Dubai this summer? We have a couple of things you can do during the hot months in the safety of your AC. From literary events to attend in the city, competitions for aspiring novelists and poets, to the pros and cons of movie tie-in novels – it’s your weekly roundup!

29/06/2019: Speaking from the heart is not always easy, but LionHeart has chosen to be vulnerable to the world and share his trials through performance poetry. Award-winning spoken word artist Rhael Cape tells the 30-year-old's real-life experience of overcoming social anxiety and selective mutism to become an internationally-renowned performance poet.

15/06/2019: A debate with a number of different guests about the shortlist for one of the UK’s oldest and most prestigious children’s book awards. Which are the best and who will win? The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards is now on its 82nd year and The Carnegie features eight books that explore universal ideas of loss and finding your way and purpose in a complicated world. Mary Rose Grieve, Rehan Khan, Rachel Hamilton discuss Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nichols, Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge and The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson.

15/06/2019: A debate with a number of different guests about the shortlist for one of the UK’s oldest and most prestigious children’s book awards. Which are the best and who will win? The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards is now on its 82nd year and The Carnegie features eight books that explore universal ideas of loss and finding your way and purpose in a complicated world. Mary Rose Grieve, Rachel Hamilton, Nick Reynolds and Jamil Abuwardeh discuss The Land of Neverendings by Kate Saunders, Rebound by Kwame Dadson Bone Talk by Candy Gourlay, The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.

15/06/2019: Mary Rose Grieve, librarian at Hartland International School and Winner of the School Librarian of the Year Award 2019, joins us to run through the illustrated books shortlisted for the The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards which is now on its 82nd year.

15/06/2019: We chat to award-winning Filipino author Candy Gourlay whose book, Bone Talk, has been shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards. She talks about cultural appropriation, the research process and how she came up with the idea for this incredible story set in The Philippines in 1899.

01/06/2019: How you develop a title for a writers festival in the Maori language, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s favourite books growing up, a chance for young people to enter some great writing competitions here in the UAE, and Stephen Fry’s hilarious audiobook mishap.

01/06/2019: Veterinarians Dr. Michaela Gradinger and Dr. Russell Malton review the memoir Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer, the youngest ever champion of the wildest horse race in the World: the grueling Mongol Derby. Michaela also shared her experiences of riding in the race herself and placing third in 2012.

01/06/2019: Hananah Zaheer, short story writer, Pushcart Prize nominee and founder of Dubai Literary Salon, bids farewell to the city, tells us what we can expect from Literary Salon events going forward, and shares insights on editing submissions for literary magazines. She also has some fantastic book recommendations for the upcoming Eid break: Phantoms by Christian Kiefer, Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor, Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer, Wet Places at Noon by Lee K. Abbott, and All Things All At Once also by Lee K. Abbott.