Open Book - 14/03/2010

This week Mariella talks to the novelist Maggie Gee. In a new memoir she writes about her upbringing and her often difficult relationship with her parents. Maggie Gee talks about dealing with a father who struggled to control his temper, and how childhood fear has permeated her fiction. There’s Reading Clinic advice for a marathon runner who wants suitable fiction to take her mind off hours of gruelling training - the novelist and fanatical runner Bidisha has some recommendations. As new evidence emerges that more and more people are choosing to read books on their mobile phones, Tom Tivnan of the Bookseller tells Mariella how publishers are reacting to this trend. And as the crime writer Elmore Leonard publishes a book of tips for would-be writers, Mariella looks back at the novelists who’ve revealed their own trade secrets.