Concern maybe younger people who are concerned. Maybe, authority would expect it would be the older people who would be more concerned. But it is one explanation as to why the tory poll lead is narrowing quite substantially, although it still suggests that Theresa May Is En Route for a fairly large overall majority. But it does not look quite as secure as majority. But it does not look quite as secure as it looked a fortnight ago. It does not. Lets leave it there for now. You will be back later. Dont forget all the front pages are online on the bbc news website, where you can read a detailed review of the papers. Its all there for you seven days a week at bbc. Co. Uk papers, and you can see us there too, with each nights edition of the papers being posted on the page shortly after weve finished. Ruthis ruth is so polite, always saying, may i say you may now its time for meet the author. This week on meet the Authorjim Naughtie talks to ann patchett about her new novel commonwealth. Ann patchett is a novelist who spins her stories without letting the effort show. They race along with the complexities and their rich subtleties subsumed into a narrative that never seems to flag. Commonwealth is a story of American Life told over nearly five decades, from the early 60s, when a gate crasher at a christening sets in train a series of Chance Events that change two families forever. Welcome. Why do you think it is that so many readers want to come back so often to Family Stories . It is the universal, after all. It is the one thing that we all have. We were all a baby, we will all die, we all had parents, and it is irresistible, it is what we know. And this begins, as i was saying, at a christening, with a gate crasher. It is quite a thing to gate crash a christening. And then Chance Events unfold over quite a long period which determine the fate, really, of a couple of families and all sorts of people. You are fascinated by the business of chance, arent you . Lam. I think that chance propels plot. A chance is the nature of story. Of course, it is something that i am always going to come back to. It is hard to write a really compelling novel when everything is nailed down, when there are no loose bits. To look at it from the other angle, readers are willing to forgive quite a lot of chance and coincidence, arent they, in the interests of a good story . I think they are, but also it has to be plausible chance and coincidence, or it has to be reckless. I remember a paul auster novel called Moon Palace Years and years ago where everything was crazy coincidence but it was so crazy and so consistent that the novel was really brilliant. Yes. People always talk about thomas hardy, who was the master of coincidence, and who drove his plot by some of the most unlikely devices. The letter going under the carpet. Angel clares carpet. Yeah, that is fabulous. Are you a hardy person . I am a hardy person. I like the way that sounds. Are you a hardy person . Yes, lam. Who else do you read for pleasure among the great novelists . Where does your taste take you . It is an interesting thing. I was a big henryjames person, and somebody who would reread james over and over again. Loved dickens, loved austen, but i own a bookshop now, and i have for going on six years, and those days are over for me. Now ijust read not only things that are just out, the things i read are the things that will be coming out in six months. This is a confession. Henryjames, once you get stuck into henryjames, he is impossible to abandon, isnt he . No, i will never abandon henry james. I will always go back every few years and reread the awkward age. That is the thing. It is not that i want to read more james. I want to just keep rereading the ones that i love. It is interesting to look at that in respect of your own narrative, because as i said, your narrative has the feeling of it has a Pulse Thatjust seems to keep going. You are a great one for concealing the inevitable artifice of writing. Good. Whereas james was a great one for putting the inevitable artifice of writing. Absolutely. I wasnt influenced by him, ijust love him. I suspectjust reading your prose that youre one of these people, once you start a story, although you work at it very hard, and i have no doubt you are very meticulous, it seems to just rattle along. The reason is that i make it all up in my head for a year or two in advance and really work out all of the pieces. In your head rather than on a piece of paper . In my head. Dont take notes. Then i sit down and i actually start to write, and its miserable and its hard, but i get it all fixed as i go along, so i write a chapter and then work on that chapter for two months. Then i go onto the next chapter. The book takes place just over 50 years. A lot of people, there are 11 main characters in this book. A lot of different locations. So i had to know what all of the moving parts were and where i was going. Quite a balancing act. Yes. And thats something that i love. When i read a novel or when i write a novel, it isjuggling, and if you throw those balls up in the air, i want to see you catch them. When you talk about in the past having read a lot of dickens, and of course in those great books of his, that is what its all about. Yes. This extraordinary balancing of different plotlines, different characters. Yes. But all somehow being kept in balance in some almost magical way. And thats very important, because you have to have a balance and an equality in the tension of the narrative or what happens is the reader is interested in one plot line more than the other, so theyll read the part they dont like very quickly so they can get back to the character they are interested in. You have to make sure that all of the characters are in a way equally compelling, so that the reader is reading at the same rate. Youve made an added difficulty for yourself in this book, because it covers about half a century. It begins in 1964. Actually a difficult time in your country. It was the transition to a new presidency, you had just had a president assassinated, which most people had never known before. It was a very sharp time in american history. Was it easy to get yourself back to that period . It was because it is not about that per se. No. Certainly these people are living in that time, and in 1964 its probably the end of this world that you see at the opening of the novel, the family, strong catholicism, strong neighbour relations. The end of innocence . The end of innocence. Then one character breaking off and kind of spinning out into the unknown world. In a way its a sort of harbinger of whats to come, because the process that americans went through in, lets say, the 20 years after the opening date of this novel was a tumultuous time in terms of social change, attitudes, all sorts of things were unrecognisable from the America Of The 50s by the time it was over. It is interesting to me that you say 20 years. Because i think of it almost like ten years. Basically to the end of the vietnam war. Yes. To the middle of the 70s. By the time we had carter and then reagan in office, we were heading back to the 50s. We were really tamping down. What really fascinates me, we could talk about this all day, what fascinates me about this is the way that you have found it possible, and very elegantly, to take us from that period right forward to a much more contemporary age without it ever intruding. Characters have different attitudes to the world because they grow up in different times, but the fundamentals of family do not change. Correct. And our responsibilities to family. Even as we get tired of them, even as we want them to go away, our responsibility, or pull backwards, is always going to be there. I dont want to ask you an embarrassing question. You couldnt possibly why do you think that so many readers have found you irresistible and continue to do so . What is it, do you think, about the way that you cast a story on the potters wheel that makes it readable . I had no idea that so many readers did find me irresistible. I am glad to hear it. Who knows . The way i look at it is everybody has their own little chip of colour in the larger picture. Their voice. And their own voice, and what their interest is personally, so no matter how much i try to get away from it, im always going to be Writing Books about class, about family, poverty and wealth. Things that i keep coming back to even if i dont want to. Thats my voice. Its a calm and kind sort of voice, i think. If readers know it is authentic, they will listen to it. I hope so. Ann patchett, author of commonwealth, thank you very much. Some of you may wonder why i have this sphere behind me. It was a decent day, until we started thickening of the cloud across the channel, eventually into the southern counties. We have seen the odd worst of rain here, the odd rumble of thunder. We will continue that process through the evening and overnight, pushing the rain towards Northern Ireland, through the north of england and the midlands, and following on behind, it may be that we see the return of thunderstorms across central and southern england, towards east anglia and the south east. Notice how sticky it is again across the south. Much fresher further north, where it stays dry for the first part of bank holiday monday. That will not be the way of it, because we pushed the cloud and rain further north, until it becomes extensive or stop you have to be a long way north in scotland to stay dry until this point in the day. The odd burst of rain getting in across the western side of scotland, dank and grisly, the cloud sits low in across the eastern side of the pennines. Not without the chance of a rumble of thunder. There is the possibility of the day goes on of furthermore gm moving in towards east anglia and the south east, increasing the chance of the odd rumble of thunder. Quiet perhaps towards wales and the south west, perhaps a bit of brightness coming on through here. It will help to lift the current temperatures somewhat. The cloud and rain keeps its progress going further towards the north. It will be late in the day before we see any brightness across Northern Ireland and the north of england. Into tuesday, noticed the isobars around a vigorous area of low pressure, it swings the Weather Front through us. From tuesday into wednesday, a fresh start to the day. But at least with the High Pressure becoming dominant for the latter pa rt becoming dominant for the latter part of tuesday, through wednesday the first part of thursday, things turned dry, and there will be sunshine. This is bbc news. Police investigating the Suicide Bombing in manchester on monday have made further arrests 13 people are now in custody in connection with the attack. Remembering the 22 victims of mondays bombing. The city came together for the Great Northern run, to show it wont be defeated by terror. It has been an exceptionally difficult week for everybody. What manchester is saying this place will get through it and go forward together. Vigils and services of remembrance have been taking place today in memory of people who lost their lives in the attack in manchester. More than a third of ba flights were cancelled at heathrow today, with travellers complaining about a lack of information from the company. And back to winning ways for the former wimbledon champion petra kvitova, after surviving a knife