On the centenary of her birth another chance to hear much-loved author Judith Kerr discussing her memorable young adults' novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit with Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world. Set during the Second World War, this semi-autobiographical novel traces the story of a young Jewish girl and her family who flee Berlin just as the Nazis come to power. The journey of a family splintered by conflict, driven by fear and eventually rewarded with reunion is seen through the eyes of the nine-year-old Anna. Judith Kerr’s novel, by turns heart-lifting and heart-rending has stood the test of time and continues to be enjoyed by readers of all ages to this day. (Picture: Judith Kerr. Credit: Eliz Huseyin)

Best-selling American author Curtis Sittenfeld discusses her acclaimed debut novel, Prep. Set in an exclusive boarding school in north-eastern America, Prep is an insightful, caustic and funny coming-of-age story and a savage dissection of class, race, and gender. Clever, aspirational Lee Fiora is fourteen years old when her father drops her at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts that she has won a scholarship to. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, she becomes a shrewd observer of, and ultimately a participant in, their snobby culture and rituals. She forms intense friendships with other girls; complicated relationships with teachers and an all-consuming infatuation with a boy from the cool crowd, all of which leads to conflicts with her parents back home in the mid-West, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant. Other novels about boarding schools mentioned in this programme include Make your Home among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet, Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School by Kendra James and Black Ice by Lorene Cary. (Photo: Curtis Sittenfeld. Credit: Jenn Ackerman)

Presenter Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world talk to acclaimed American author Paul Theroux about his bestselling travel book Deep South. After fifty years crossing the globe, seeking adventure and stories to tell about places far from home, Theroux travels deep into the heart of his native country and discovers a land as profoundly foreign as anything he has previously experienced abroad. He finds in the deep south a place of contradiction, full of unforgettable characters, landscapes, music, and sense of community, but also some of the nation’s worst schools, housing, and unemployment rates. On four road trips across four seasons, wending along rural highways, Theroux visits small-town churches and gun shows, meets mayors and social workers, writers and reverends. The spectre of racism and the history slavery is never far away, but more often than not Theroux is met with the warmest of welcomes and a willingness to engage in deep and wide-ranging conversations. (Picture: Paul Theroux. Photo credit: Steve McCurry.)

World Book Café travels to Paris to meet some of the French capital’s newest writers. Authors Mahir Guven, Blandine Rinkel, Laurent Petitmangin and Capucine Delattre discuss taking on the literary establishment and finding new ways to express themselves. Like many places in the world, questions of equality, diversity and freedom of expression are top of the agenda in France. But it is complicated; the ideal of universalism - meaning every citizen is considered to be the same regardless of class or ethnicity - is at the heart of the French republic. Does this 'universalism' leave space for the 21st Century desire to celebrate difference, and how can writing help reconcile these complex ideas? Image: The skyline of Paris, 9 December 2022 (Credit: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)

This month World Book Club visits Paris, France to be guests of the iconic bookshop on the Left Bank of the River Seine, Shakespeare & Co. There Harriett Gilbert and a bookshop audience talk to acclaimed French writer Marie Darrieussecq about her extraordinary novel Pig Tales. Pig Tales is the story of a young woman who works at a shady Parisian massage parlour, becoming a favourite with her lustful clients until, that is, she slowly and alarmingly metamorphoses into a pig. A dark feminist fable of political and sexual corruption, and a grim warning of what can happen in a society without a soul, Pig Tales scandalised its readers when it first came out and became the most popular first novel published in decades. (Picture: Marie Darrieussecq. Photo credit: Charles Freger.)