The B&n Podcast

Kate Atkinson is the internationally bestselling author of eleven books including the award-winning international bestseller Life After Life, the Whitbread-award winning Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and four sublime novels featuring the cases of private investigator Jackson Brodie.  Atkinson's storytelling abilities are like no other writer's — her novels combine curl-up-in-an-armchair transporting pleasure with a penchant for unexpected revelations and disjunctions that keep the reader ever more transfixedly wondering what new shift in perspective is coming.  Her latest novel, Transcription, is an almost perfect marriage of writer and subject,  a story of spies and teacups, Nazi traitors and double agents, sexism in the workplace and secrets that lie dormant for decades before returning to life.  The result is an exploration of loyalty and identity, a meditation on the stories we tell ourselves about who we are — and a great deal of fun.  We sat down with Kate Atkinson to talk about Transcription, her d