Dear diary: Tony Benn. Photograph: Martin Godwin
In today's show, Tony Benn tells Sarfraz Manzoor what inspired him to keep a lifetime's worth of diaries. Benn retired from Parliament in 2001 to "devote more time to politics" and he has since thrown himself into anti-war campaigning, all of which he has carefully chronicled.
AL Kennedy's latest novel Day is the darkly humorous story of a tail gunner in the second world war who ends up as an extra in a war movie. Kennedy explains how she went about researching the book.
Tim Dowling tells us about compiling the festival diary from the top deck of the Guardian's promo bus in the heart of the tented village. We also hear from Javier Cercas about appearing in your own fiction. Plus what makes scores of bookworms queue for up to an hour in the rain at the book-signing tent?
Listen now on your computer (22:33)
Subscribe to the books podcasts, via iTunes
