You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.

My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.

The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.

With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to

helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all

put together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your

life, check out BBC Sounds. This is the BBC. Hello again. Today we're

celebrating the joys of childhood reading, hearing about a 12-year-old who adored horror and a teenage

writer whose creation is still haunting us 200 years on. But first, James Wood has been hailed as the world's foremost literary critic,

cutting his teeth at The Guardian in the 90s before emigrating to the US to become one of an elite crew of staff writers for the New Yorker.

With a string of awards to his name and a reputation that other lesser critics can only dream of,

it must have taken great courage or foolhardiness

to put his pen to the service of his own creativity rather than dissecting the work of others.

His debut novel, The Book Against God, published in 2003, predictably received enormous attention from his

contemporaries, who seemed intent on outwooding James Wood in their reviews.

Now, 15 years later, he's back with his second foray into fiction, Upstate, a meditation on why we become the people we do, and how much or how little can be done to nurture that path.

In it, a widow Geordie property developer, Alan, joins his daughter Helen,

on a trip to the US to check on the well-being of her sibling Vanessa,

who it's been intimated, has had a breakdown.

Here's Alan describing his feelings for his girls.

Every time he saw his daughters, he experienced such hunger for them,

and the hunger was so simply satisfied that he was freshly amazed that he didn't see them more.

...