The TV Book Club

The TV Book Club: Ten books that are set to become must-read favourites have been selected as the first titles in a new series of The TV Book Club, starting January 2010.

Funded by Specsavers, the ten part series screens weekly on More4, with repeats on Channel 4. The new panel of presenters critiquing each week’s chosen title consists of TV personalities Jo Brand, Gok Wan, Laila Rouass, Dave Spikey and Nathaniel Parker.

The show launches with Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger, the rest of the selected titles in transmission order are: Blacklands, by Belinda Bauer, Sacred Hearts, by Sarah Dunant, Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, The Rapture by Liz Jensen, Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne, The Way Home by George Pelecanos, Wedlock by Wendy Moore, and The Silver Linings Play Book by Matthew Quick.

The authors, a combination of established writers and emerging talents, include Nick Hornby, who features with his latest work Juliet, Naked. Nick is no stranger to literary success, having won global recognition for his award-winning books Fever Pitch and About a Boy, which along with High Fidelity have all been made into high-grossing movies. Meanwhile, The Way Home author, George Pelecanos is a TV and film producer and has written and produced extensively for the cult hit crime-fighting drama, The Wire. Sarah Waters, who has written The Little Stranger, has previously enjoyed success with her books Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, winning the South Bank Award for Literature and being named as Author of the Year at the 2003 British Book Awards.

Each week the revived TV Book Club will also feature a major celebrity interview and an author who has been previously selected discussing how the programme impacted on their success. Previous writers that have benefited from featuring on the TV Book Club include Kate Mosse, Victoria Hislop and Cecilia Aherne.

Testament to its undeniable success, previous Book Club entries (from Richard & Judy’s daytime show) have been made into high-grossing movies. Alice Sebold’s best-seller The Lovely Bones is about to go on nationwide cinematic release on 29 January 2010 starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz and Susan Sarandon and directed by the Oscar winning director of The Lord of The Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson, while Cecilia Aherne’s PS I Love You, was released as a motion picture in 2007 starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler.

As well as working with the TV production company Cactus TV to select the books, Agile Marketing has created an instore promotion for retailers, supermarkets and libraries throughout the UK and Ireland to support the titles.

Visit The TV Book Club website at www.channel4.com/tvbookclub