As we come to the end of the first full year of the Guardian books podcast we take a look back at some of the highlights.
We talk comic writing with Booker winner Howard Jacobson, put the novelist and essayist Will Self on the psychiatrist's couch, and hear from the poet Simon Armitage, who tells us what what the elf said to Kevin in his latest collection.
As part of an occasional series, The Books that Made Me, we also find out about the surrealist artist who made an indelible impression on the teenage China Miéville, now one of the UK's leading science fiction writers. We also delve into theatre anecdote with Simon Callow, and venture out to South London to find out what the potter Edmund de Waal has to say about his "hidden inheritance" of Japanese netsuke.
Reading list
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, by Edmund de Waal (Chatto & Windus)
The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson (Bloomsbury)
My Life in Pieces, by Simon Callow (Nick Hern)
Walking to Hollywood, by Will Self (Bloomsbury)
Seeing Stars, by Simon Armitage (Faber)
