BBC2's Between the Covers book choices unveiled

Matt Haig's latest novel The Midnight Library (Canongate) and Bolu Babalola's story collection Love in Colour (Headline) are among the seven books that will be featured on the new BBC2 book club programme "Between the Covers", hosted by Sara Cox.

The show will launch on Friday 9th October and will run as seven 30-minute episodes.

Four celebrity guests—identities still to be unveiled—will join Cox each week to discuss the chosen book of the week, with an introduction via a recorded clip featuring an interview with the author.

As well as Haig and Babalola, the list comprises 1950s-set novel Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers (W&N), thriller Fifty-Fifty by Steve Cavanagh (Orion), Ingrid Persaud's tale of a Trinidadian family Love After Love (Faber), historical debut This Lovely City by Louise Hare (HQ), and mind-bending mystery The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton (Raven Books). 

All the featured books will be stickered and available in bookshops, libraries and online with viewers encouraged to join in the discussion using #betweenthecovers.

"Between the Covers" is a Cactus TV production commissioned for BBC Arts and BBC Two by Emma Cahusac, with Amanda Ross as executive producer. 

Ross said: "Using TV to get more people to read has long been my mission, and I’m incredibly grateful to BBC Two for giving us the opportunity to do this in a peak time slot. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to choose the books we’re featuring and I think they’re a wonderful selection that I am proud to champion, let’s hope it works!"

The series producer is Pollyanne Conway.