4th Estate Books

In 4 Books, we ask an author to answer 4 questions on the books that made them — on those books that made a significant impact at distinct junctures of their lives. It might be the book that guided them through a break up, the one that they press urgently into a friends’ hand, the book that best articulates love, or the book that opened up the world in a startling new way. Reading has a unique power to universalise the most private of experiences, and the books we turn to can reveal more about ourselves than we think. In 4 Books, we use literature to glimpse the inner life of our authors. Today, in the studio, we have Niven Govinden, author of 'All the Days and Nights', and on the phone we have Nikesh Shukla, author of 'Meatspace'. Both of these fantastic novels are out now, published by The Friday Project. Niven and Nikesh are interviewed by Candice Carty-Williams