You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.

I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.

I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,

relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.

So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,

and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience, and maybe that's you.

So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Hello, Grettertenberg told us that no one is too small to make a difference.

So today we're looking ahead to the UN's Conference on Climate Change,

with books offering big inspiration for individual action.

But first, 20 years after his novel The Corrections became a global bestseller,

Jonathan Franzen has returned with a new sweeping epic, Crossroads.

Like The Corrections and his subsequent novels, Freedom and Purity, Crossroads returns to complicated and combustible family dynamics.

But in a departure from his usual style, this time Franzen has written a period piece.

The book opens in the run-up to Christmas 1971 and follows the fortunes of the Hildebrand family over three eventful years.

Russ, the Patafamilias, is a pastor in New Prospect, who once marched in the civil rights movement,

but who now finds himself somewhat out of step with the times.

He's disillusioned by his marriage and unaware that three of his four children are undergoing a series of personal crises.

As his church becomes swept up in the winds of social change, Russ finds himself on the precipice of a moral conundrum.

On his office walls were posters of Charlie Parker in his sacks, Dylan Thomas and his fag,

a smaller picture of Paul Robeson framed alongside a handbill for Robson's appearance at the Judson Church in 1952.

...