麻豆社

The scholarly, monocle wearing second son of a Duke, who solves bizarre murders ably assisted by his manservant Bunter might seem an anomaly among the Wallenders and Rebus's of today's detective fiction but against unlikely odds Lord Peter Wimsey, created by Dorothy L Sayers, continues to delight readers. Despite her death in 1957 her character lives on not least thanks to Jill Paton Walsh who has taken on the task of continuing Wimsey's adventures, beginning with Sayer's unfinished manuscript Thrones, Dominations. She's just published her fourth Peter Wimsey book The Late Scholar and joins Mariella Frostrup and lifelong Sayers' fan, Sarah Crown, to discuss his, and the books', enduring appeal.

We continue our series on the book you would never lend for fear of never getting it back. Today is the turn of the best-selling author and co-founder of the Women's Prize for Fiction Kate Mosse.

For the last fifteen years, John Freeman has had his finger firmly on the literary pulse. Until recently, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Granta, and part of the panel that put together their most recent, much discussed, once a decade list, Best of Young British Novelists. He's reviewed thousands of books and profiled some of the world's most influential writers from Doris Lessing to John Updike. These encounters have now been collected in his latest book How To Read A Novelist.

Producer: Andrea Kidd.