This week, the Listener finally turns its attention to the current chick lit favourite, The Bride Stripped Bare. Published by an Australian novelist, Nikki Gemmell, the book is given a distinctly lukewarm review by Jolisa Gracewood: "There's a saucy novella buried somewhere inside this book ... but it's sadly thwarted, like an inquisitive Victorian bride fighting her way out from under a too-sensible flannel nightie."

Other fiction reviewed includes What I Loved (Siri Hustvedt), Special (Bella Bathurst), and Isabel and Rocco (Anna Stothard). Paul Buchanan reviews the non-fiction: The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (Tariq Ali), Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions (Clyde Prestowitz), The Making of a Terrorist (Abd Samad Moussaoui) and 30 days: A Month at the Heart of Blair's War (Peter Stothard).