Open Book - 26/07/2009

Chris Patten joins Mariella Frostrup to choose his Five of the Best. The former Cabinet minister, last Governor of Hong Kong and now Chancellor of Oxford and Newcastle Universities talks about his diverse reading tastes. He explains how his predilection for foreign fiction reflects a career which has often involved huge amounts of travel. He chooses the five books which mean the most to him. Mariella also talks to Adam Thirlwell, who was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists at the age of 24 before his debut, Politics, had even been published. He discusses his long-awaited second novel, The Escape. Suzi Feay picks some recent paperbacks, both fiction and non-fiction, ideal for taking on holiday this summer.