Battle of the Books Episode Guide

Episode Guide

Battle of the Books: Season 1 (2004)

• Season 1 Episode 10: Unbearable Lightness of Being v Under the Frog

  James Naughtie presides as Kevin Day and Mariella Frostrup travel to Eastern Europe to discuss politics, philosophy and sex as they debate the merits of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Tibor Fischer's Under the Frog

• Season 1 Episode 9: The Da Vinci Code v The Name of the Rose

  Mariella Frostrup and Kevin Day debate the relative merits of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code and Umberto Eco's medieval mystery The Name of the Rose

• Season 1 Episode 8: A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush v Between the Woods and Water

  James Naughtie presides as Mariella Frostrup and Jack Klaff debate the merits of Eric Newby's journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan in A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, and Patrick Leigh Fermor's trip from Holland to Constantinople in the two-volume memoir A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water

• Season 1 Episode 7: Trainspotting v Lanark

  John Sergeant presides as Mariella Frostrup and Kevin Day debate the merits of Alasdair Gray's Lanark: A Life in Four Books, set in the fictional city of Unthank and Glasgow, and Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, a story of lives gone off the rails in Edinburgh

• Season 1 Episode 6: Madame Bovary v Brick Lane

  James Naughtie chairs as guests debate the merits of Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Monica Ali's Brick Lane

• Season 1 Episode 5: EPISODE: 5

  Debating the merits of the books 'The Wind in the Willows' and 'Swallows and Amazons.'

• Season 1 Episode 4: The Europeans v The Age of Innocence

  James Naughtie chairs as Mariella Frostrup and Jack Klaff debate the merits of Henry James's The Europeans and Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence

• Season 1 Episode 3: A Clockwork Orange v A Kind of Loving

  James Naughtie presides as Mariella Frostrup and Kevin Day argue the merits of Anthony Burgess's nightmarish A Clockwork Orange and Stan Barstow's bleak coming-of-age tale, A Kind of Loving

• Season 1 Episode 2: The Talented Mr Ripley v The Shipping News

  James Naughtie chairs the literary debate, as Kevin Day and Mariella Frostrup debate the merits of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley and Annie Proulx's The Shipping News

• Season 1 Episode 1: Maus vs Schindler

  James Naughtie presides as Mariella Frostrup and Kevin Day debate the relative merits of two novels which explore the horrors of World War Two Europe. Up for discussion are Thomas Keneally's tale Schindler's Ark, a fictionalised account of the industrialist who saved thousands of Jews from the gas chamber, and The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman's graphic novel based on his parents' attempts to hide from the Nazis

Battle of the Books:

• 100 Years of Solitude v Midnight's Children

  Debate comparing the merits of two classic novels

• Agatha Christie's Murder at the Vicarage v Alexander McCall Smith's No 1 Ladies Detective Agency

  James Naughtie presides as Jack Klaff and Mariella Frostrup debate the merits of Agatha Christie's Murder at the Vicarage and Alexander McCall Smith's The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency

• American Pastoral v USA

  James Naughtie is joined by Mariella Frostrup and Jack Klaff for a discussion on the merits of Philip Roth's acclaimed novel American Pastoral and John Dos Passos's epic trilogy USA

• Brave New World v Valis

  John Sergeant chairs a literary debate on two groundbreaking science fiction novels, as Mariella Frostrup and Jack Klaff debate the relative merits of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Phillip K Dick's Valis

• The Catcher in the Rye v On the Road

  Sandi Toksvig chairs as John Walsh and Ian MacMillan pit the merits of JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Jack Kerouac's On the Road against each other

• DBC Pierre v Mark Haddon

  James Naughtie chairs a debate between Mariella Frostrup and Jack Klaff, comparing the merits of this year's Booker and Whitbread prize winners : Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre, the satirical story of an American teenager caught up in the aftermath of a Columbine-style massacre and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, Mark Haddon's novel about an autistic 15-year-old obsessed with the death of a dog

• English Passengers v Heart of Darkness

  John Sergeant presides as Mariella Frostrup and Jack Klaff debate the merits of Matthew Kneale's English Passengers and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

• Hindu Kush v Patrick Leigh Fermor

  Debate comparing the merits of two classic novels

• Hollywood's Deco Diva

  Debate comparing the merits of two classic novels

• Touching the Void v White Spider

  John Sergeant chairs a literary debate between Mariella Frostrup and Jack Klaff, as they argue the merits of two acclaimed non-fiction books recounting mountaineers' stories - Heinrich Harrer's The White Spider, which pulls together the accounts of the many attempts to climb the North face of the Eiger, and Touching the Void, Joe Simpson's book describing his miraculous survival story, after he was left for dead in a crevasse on a remote mountain in Peru