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Open Book: Maggie O'Farrell, obesity in fiction & WH Smith

Mariella Frostrup talks to Maggie O'Farrell about her new novel Instructions For A Heatwave, set during the drought of 1976 when it didn't rain in the UK for 16 weeks.

Mariella Frostrup talks to Maggie O'Farrell about her new novel Instructions For A Heatwave, set during the drought of 1976 when it didn't rain in the UK for 16 weeks. With over a quarter of adults in the UK officially classed as obese, writers Jami Attenberg and Michael Kimball discuss the way in which fiction is responding to a world of fast food, compulsive eating and morbid obesity. And journalist and ex-editor of The Bookseller Neill Denny looks at how one of the UK's most iconic retailers, WH Smiths - over a quarter of whose sales are books - is surviving the the recession.

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28 minutes

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