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49 posts about Books on this blog
Wednesday 3 April 2013, 15:38
Turkey's leading female novelist Elif Shafak discusses her novel The Forty Rules of Love on BBC Radio 4's Bookclub.
Read more about Elif Shafak on The Forty Rules of Love
Monday 4 March 2013, 10:28
"Very rarely do you see actors taking photos on their phones before a table read starts." Actress Natalie Dormer recounts the star-studded read-through for the radio adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
Read more about "Urmm – That's Sir Christopher Lee": Natalie Dormer on the making of Neverwhere
Friday 1 March 2013, 15:09
Tracey Thorn describes why she wrote her memoir, 'Bedsit Disco Queen' which takes in teenage diaries and punk, the resilience of her 30-year relationship with Ben Watt, pop star success, and giving it all up for motherhood.
Wednesday 27 February 2013, 14:34
Jim Naughtie talks to the author Andrew Miller about his book Pure - winner of the 2011 Costa Prize.
Monday 11 February 2013, 14:19
Writer Jonathan Holloway explains the difficulties of adapting George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.
Read more about The Trouble with adapting Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
Wednesday 6 February 2013, 17:05
Radio 4 producer Phil Tinline discusses mining the BBC Archives in search of material on George Orwell for Archive on 4: The Road to Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Monday 4 February 2013, 17:37
Di Speirs discusses the first ever broadcast version of Sylvia Plath's book 'The Bell Jar', which is Radio 4's Book at Bedtime 11-15th February 2013.
Monday 28 January 2013, 10:15
Joan Bakewell discusses George Orwell's influence on her work.
Tuesday 22 January 2013, 15:09
Armistead Maupin blogs about Tales of the City, his saga of San Francisco life and culture which started as a newspaper serial in the San Francisco Chronicle, became a literary sensation and is now a 15 minute Drama on Radio 4.
Wednesday 2 January 2013, 13:58
Ben Macintyre discusses Agent Zigzag - his bestselling book on the true story of a professional criminal named Eddie Chapman, a successful British double agent who infiltrated the Nazi intelligence services during World War II.
Thursday 6 December 2012, 16:39
If a woman can be a general in the real world then there’s no reason she can’t be one on stage - unless, perhaps, you want to put on the kind of in-period production you rarely see these days.
Read more about Saturday Review: Julius Caesar at the Donmar Theatre and The Hunger Angel
Friday 30 November 2012, 16:15
I’ve noticed before that the journey to Stratford is rarely the same distance coming back as it is going. It’s the productions themselves that bring about this distortion of space-time.
Read more about Saturday Review: Pushkin's Boris Godunov at the RSC and Sightseers
Friday 2 November 2012, 10:40
Editor's note: Radio 4's Bookclub is on at 4pm on Sunday 4 November and is repeated on Thursday 8 November at 3.30pm. You can also listen online after broadcast or download the programme. Here, Jim Naughtie talks about the themes that are discussed in David Almond's novel, Skellig. - PMcD
Bookclub...
Thursday 4 October 2012, 17:06
Editor's note: Radio 4's Bookclub is on at 4pm this Sunday 7 October and is repeated on Thursday 11 October at 3.30pm. You can also listen online after broadcast or download the podcast. Here, Jim Naughtie talks about the themes that are discussed in Bookclub this week with Marilynne Robinson discussing...
Friday 31 August 2012, 10:00
Editor's note: Radio 4's Bookclub is on at 4pm this Sunday 2 September and is repeated on Thursday 6 September at 3.30pm. You can also listen online after broadcast or download the podcast. Here, Jim Naughtie talks about the themes that are discussed in Bookclub this week about The Island by Victoria...
Friday 3 August 2012, 17:00
Editor's note: Radio 4's Bookclub is on at 4pm this Sunday 5th August and is repeated on Thursday 9th August at 3.30pm. You can also listen online after broadcast or download the podcast - AI
The point about The English Patient is that the patient isn't English. He is a Hungarian count, but his...
Sunday 1 July 2012, 17:00
Editor's note: Radio 4's Bookclub is on at 4pm this Sunday 1st July and is repeated on Thursday 5th July at 3.30pm. You can also listen online after broadcast or download the podcast - CM
I confess that until I read Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont for this month's programme, I hadn't opened a book...
Friday 1 June 2012, 17:21
We really can't get enough of the Tudors, it seems.
It's hard not to believe that at some stage readers will feel that they would like a break… but there is no sign of it. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies whizzed up the best-seller list the moment it left the warehouses three weeks ago, and...
Read more about Bookclub: Philippa Gregory and The Other Boleyn Girl
Sunday 6 May 2012, 16:30
Ed's note: Radio 4's Bookclub is on at 4pm this Sunday 6 May and is repeated on Thursday 10 May at 3.30pm. You can also listen online after broadcast or download the podcast - CM
I hadn't read Ross Raisin until we chose God's Own Country for this month's Bookclub...
Wednesday 18 April 2012, 15:25
Radio 4's Bookclub is celebrating the centenary of the novelist Elizabeth Taylor. When an author is no longer with us, the programme invites a writer who's a fan to come and champion the chosen book. Previous programmes in this vein include Andrew Davies on Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Michèle Roberts...
Read more about Bookclub free tickets: David Baddiel on the novelist Elizabeth Taylor