Front Row: Archive 2014

With John Wilson. Based on the bestselling novel by Markus Zusak, the film of The Book Thief - starring Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson - tells the story of a spirited young girl Liesel in World War II Germany. Liesel finds solace from the war by stealing books and sharing them with others. Novelist Meg Rosoff reviews. Professor Joseph Rykwert is one of the few critics to win the prestigious Royal Gold Medal for architecture for a body of work that includes the ground-breaking book The Idea Of a Town. Written in 1963, it warned of the problems of traffic congestion in cities and the rise of the high-rise building. He tells John if anything has improved over the last 50 years. The comedian and actress Isy Suttie, from the TV series Peep Show, discusses her new stage role in a 'musical fable' The A-Z of Mrs P, about Phyllis Pearsall, the woman who set out to map an entire city in 1936, resulting in the classic A-Z map of London. Two books of monologues for black actors have been published to provide young pe