Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club on Monday 17 November.
The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK.
Leaving Time
Jenna Metcalf was with her mother the night she disappeared in tragic and mysterious circumstances, but she remembers nothing.
Over ten years have passed, and still Jenna reads and rereads her mother’s journals, hoping to find some clue hidden there, in the meticulous recording of her scientific research with elephants. Desperate for answers, Jenna uses all her savings to recruit the aid of a private detective – and a psychic.
Jenna knows her mother loved her. She knows she would not leave her. And she will not rest until she finds out what happened that night…
Selection panel review
Our panel really enjoyed this title – here’s what one of them thought:
“Jenna, age 13, is looking for her mother who disappeared when she was 3. She lives with her grandmother who does not want to talk about the past, so Jenna saves up and hires a failed psychic and a drunken Private Investigator to help her. They agree and so begins the story of the book. Each chapter is in the voice of one of the characters – including the missing mother Alice. It is fast paced, emotive, and obsessive about elephants. The ending is a huge shock and surprise – I did not see it coming!”
About the author
Jodi Picoult is the bestselling author of twenty-three novels, the first of which, Songs of the Humpback Whale, was published in 1992. Her last eight novels have debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
Jodi studied creative writing at Princeton, and had two short stories published in Seventeen magazine while still a student. Realism – and a profound desire to be able to pay the rent – led her to a series of different jobs following her graduation: as a technical writer for a Wall Street brokerage firm, as a copywriter at an ad agency, as an editor at a textbook publisher, and as an 8th grade English teacher. She married Tim Van Leer, whom she had known at Princeton, and it was while she was pregnant with her first child that she wrote her debut novel. Jodi, Tim and their three children live in Hanover, New Hampshire with two Springer spaniels, two rescue puppies, two donkeys, two geese, ten chickens, a smattering of ducks, and the occasional Holstein.
A word from Jodi: “It is so delightful to be included in the Radio 2 Book Club – and such a pleasure to be part of a programme that celebrates reading in all its shapes and forms. I look forward to talking to all the listeners.”
Get involved
Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 17 November to hear a live interview with Jodi Picoult talking about her book.
Have you read Leaving Time? You can share your thoughts on Twitter, or by posting a comment in the space below. Want to find out more? The Radio 2 Book Club now has a dedicated Twitter feed, and you can also follow Jodi Picoult.
Don’t miss your chance to listen to a fantastic livestream of Jodi talking about her book to school groups in Wimbledon on Wednesday 5 November.
