At an event in central London last night [24th January] the broadcaster revealed that the live, late Friday night show "Newsnight Review" is to devote one programme a month entirely to coverage of books and authors. The strand will begin in the late summer.

It also divulged more details on the Anne Robinson-fronted daytime show "My Life in Books", which will run for two weeks leading up to World Book Night, with two celebrities discussing the books which have affected them each day.  BBC Radio 3 will run a week of "The Essay" on "The Book that Changed Me", starting with journalist Alan Johnston on George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.

BBC2's night of programming on World Book Night on 5th March will include three "Culture Show" specials: one will focus on the scheme, while a second "New Novelists: Twelve of the Best" will concentrate on a dozen debut authors, as-yet unnamed. The final show will be a special on "the books we really read" fronted by comedian Sue Perkins, featuring Agatha Christie, Dick and Felix Francis, Lee Child and Anthony Horowitz.

World Book Night will also be accompanied by programming on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 7 and online, including a selection of interviews with the 25 WBN authors.

BBC1 will also host a two-part "Imagine" documentary on "The Trouble with Tolstoy" plus a BBC2 "Culture Show" special on Man Booker-winner Hilary Mantel. Children's author Michael Morpurgo is also to deliver the Richard Dimbleby Lecture.

The year will be rounded off with a Dickens season including BBC2 documentary "Armando Iannucci on Dickens", a BBC Four Arena special, a BBC1 adaptation of "Great Expectations" and a BBC4 production of "Edwin Drood" which will complete Dickens' famously unfinished novel.

Further dramas lined up for this year include a two-part BBC1 adaptation of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong; a six-part BBC1 version of Kate Atkinson's Case Histories, Women in Love for BBC Four plus showings of BBC Films' "Brideshead Revisited" and Dylan Thomas biopic "The Edge of Love".

The year will kick off with Sebastian Faulks' much-anticipated "Faulks on Fiction" with tie-in from BBC Books.

Souce: The BBC