Val McDermid and Roisin O'Donnell - Live from Radio 2 In The Park

The Radio 2 Book Club

Host Sara Cox conducts a live episode of The Radio 2 Book Club from Stirling at the Radio 2 In The Park event. She interviews acclaimed crim

Key takeaways

• Roisin O'larDonnell is the inaugural winner of the Radio 2 Book Club Award for her novel Nesting.
• Val McDermid attributes the success of the crime genre in Scotland to the long, dark winter nights and a specific sense of dark humor.

Main topics

• Radio 2 Book Club Award
• Scottish crime fiction settings

Notable quotes

The library is like a ticket to worlds beyond anything that you might experience.

Conclusion

An engaging deep dive into the minds of two successful authors, highli

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) This BBC podcast is supported by ads Speaker 1 (0:02) outside the UK. Speaker 6 (0:09) Welcome to the Haunted Library. Have you come in search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From gothic masterpieces to pulpy penny dreadfuls, join me, Colin Morgan, with new episodes twice a week. Find The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (0:40) Now, this is The Radio 2 Book Club with Sarah Cox. Speaker 5 (0:47) Hello and welcome to this very special edition of The Radio 2 Book Club live in Stirling. Speaker 5 (1:03) I did make them do that, by the way. I did brief them. There was no rehearsal and it was very impressive. We are at Radio 2 in the Park on the BBC Soundstage and very shortly I'm going to be talking to two completely brilliant authors. But first, hi to Derry, who's emailed in, radio2bookclub at bbc.co.uk. Hi, Sarah and the BCG, the book club gang. I love your books podcast. Can I get a shout out, please, for the new book group that I joined recently? We are the Braille Book Club, based in Dublin. All of our members are Braille readers. We have just read The Coroner's Daughter by Andrew Hughes. Very good historical fiction, set in Dublin, no less. And please keep up the super podcast. Thanks for your energy in the mornings as well. You're a pleasure to wake up to. Oh, Terry, I didn't mean to read that bit out. Speaker 5 (1:52) Another email's come in very quickly. Kerry, hi, Kerry. Hi, Sarah in the BCG. Loving the podcast. It's very inspiring and entertaining. Have you read The Emperor of Gladness by the incredibly talented writer Ocean Vuong? The book explores themes of addiction, grief and found family, but it's such a funny, tender and beautifully written novel. If you haven't ever read it, I can wholeheartedly recommend. Keep up the great work, says Kerry, who I'm sure isn't a blood relative to Ocean Vuong, but who knows? Remember, if you want to get in touch with us, we'd love to hear from you, please. Radio2BookClub at bbc.co.uk is the address. If it's about books, we want it. Let's pretend that's a catchphrase. If it's about books... We want it! You're so good, thank you. Right, let's get going then. Time now to welcome two brilliant authors joining us for this episode. My first guest is a debut author whose brilliant novel Nesting won our very first Radio 2 Book Club Award. It's been described as one of the best and most important novels of our time. It is now a Sunday Times bestseller. Please welcome all the way from Dublin, Roisin O'Donnell. Speaker 5 (3:05) Hello. Speaker 2 (3:06) Hi Sarah, it's lovely to be here. It's very different for me, yeah, it's very like out of my comfort zone a little bit here, but it's exciting. Well normally Speaker 5 (3:16) you're hunched over a laptop, Speaker 2 (3:17) mainlining Speaker 5 (3:19) coffee I imagine, writing books. Normally Speaker 2 (3:21) surrounded by fictional characters, so being in front of this many like real life people is a bit of a shock, but sure, we'll manage. Speaker 5 (3:29) You may get inspo for some future characters from some people in the crowd today. If there's a few weirdos knocking around, knock over on there. Oh, his wife's pointing out to him. That's rude, isn't it? My second guest is one of the UK's most respected and accomplished novelists. She has written five series, which have been translated into more than 40 languages. She has sold over 19 million books and has won multiple international awards for her writing. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Please welcome, all the way from Edinburgh, Val McDermott. Speaker 5 (4:10) Welcome both to the Radio 2 Book Club pod. Val, how are you doing? Speaker 4 (4:15) Doing very well, thank you. It's nice to be here in Stirling. Yeah, Speaker 5 (4:18) how lovely. Do you know this area well? Speaker 4 (4:20) Yeah, because they have a book festival here, Bloody Scotland, which is about crime fiction and it takes place in the castle and in the town. I thought Speaker 5 (4:27) we'd Speaker 4 (4:28) upset you for a moment there, but it's called Bloody Scotland. Very nice. In Speaker 5 (4:31) the imposing shadow there is Stirling Castle. It's quite impressive, isn't it? It is. Mind Speaker 4 (4:37) you, in Stirling, everything's up a hill. So by the time you get there, you're just grateful to be there. To still be alive. Now, Val, let's address the Speaker 5 (4:44) elephant in the room. Book clubs can be very dangerous places. As some may find to their peril in your latest novel, it unveils a very elite book club. Tell us more, please. Speaker 4 (4:54) Well, it's a very elite book club in Edinburgh and it's male only, a limit of 12 members, and you don't get to join until somebody leaves or dies. And it's a group of people who... support each other, shall we say, in their working lives, in their financial lives. A bit of a cabal, really. And in the course of the book, some people do die. Wow. Speaker 5 (5:17) That's a rule for air today, by the way, to people in the queue. You can't get in unless someone leaves or dies. So, again, sir, looking at you, are you all right? You look a bit pale and sweaty, I'm joking. Cheeky, I'm being cheeky, aren't I? She pointed to you, she started it. So we're huge fans of libraries on this podcast. Super librarians from across the land form basically the backbone of our selection process for the Radio 2 Book Club. Growing up, were you a fan of your local library? Were you in there a lot? How important was it to you? Speaker 2 (5:54) Oh, definitely. No, the local library was so important. My mum was a real book lover. She had me enrolled in the local library when I was about three weeks old, honestly. She just rocked up and was like, I need a card for my baby, you know. And we obviously started off with baby books and progressed to chapter books and then, you know, all the way through. And, you know, look, it's brilliant, you know, just that everyone can access, you know, anything they want to read and you've that choice there. And yeah, yeah, it's so important. When Speaker 4 (6:24) I was six years old, my parents moved house to live opposite the Central Library in Kirkcaldy, where I grew up. And that was like paradise to me. I mean, the library is like a ticket to worlds beyond anything that you might experience, anything you might have the chance to see firsthand or live in firsthand. And for me, as an only child, it was where my imagination lived. And I'd go there every day after school and change my library books because I could read a book a day. And that's how I became a writer. I read, I read, I read. And when I was about nine years old, I discovered Agatha Christie. Because my grandparents had a copy of an Agatha Christie book for reasons no one's ever been able to explain to me. It was the only book they had in the house apart from the Bible. But I wanted to read more Agatha Christie. And they were all in the adult library. And it's not like it is now, you know, where you go into the library and everything's on open shelves. Back when I was young, in the mists of time, the children's library was separated by a wall. from the adult library and frankly in the 1960s in Kirkcaldy it would have been easier to get over the Berlin Wall than to get over that wall. But I did a bad thing, I stole one of my mum's library tickets and went over and I said, I have to get a book for my mum, she's not well. And that opened the adult library to me and the crime novels to me and that's what made me the woman I am today. Well, thank heavens Speaker 5 (7:40) for that. I mean, for your fans, they'll be thrilled that you managed to read the Agatha Christie and not the Bible. We could have lost you to the church. You could have been a vicar. It would have been no use for the podcast at all. I'm sorry. So we're absolutely thrilled that Nessing won the first ever Radio 2 Book Club Award. Producer Jo mentioned that you attempted to bring the award with you. Did it fit in your hand? Look, your Jory's did it at home when your dad says hello. No, Speaker 4 (8:04) I