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This Week's Guest:
Margaret Atwood
Sunday 18 July
Repeated
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| Margaret's choice |  | |
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the writer Margaret Atwood.
Born just after the outbreak of the Second World War, Margaret Atwood spent much of her childhood in the Canadian outback where her father’s work involved studying insects. She grew up mostly without television, cinema, mains electricity or even a proper road to civilisation. For company she had only her parents and her brother, with whom she wrote ‘serials, mainly about space travel’.
It wasn’t until her teens that the urge to write struck seriously, an event she describes as ‘a large, invisible thumb descended from the sky and pressed down on the top of my head. A poem formed.’ After University, a spell in England and a period teaching early morning classes to engineering students she had her first novel , The Edible Woman, published.
Since then she has written nine more novels, four of which were Booker nominated with The Blind Assassin finally winning in 2000. Three of those novels have been made into films: Surfacing,The Handmaid’s Tale and The Blind Assassin. She has also published some dozen books of poetry, five collections of short stories, four books for children and assorted non-fiction titles. Her latest novel, Oryx and Crake, set in a genetically engineered, post-apocalyptic landscape is published on May 5 this year.
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1. 'The Great Pretender'
Performer The Platters
Composer B. Ram
Publisher Polygram records
CD Title The Platters Golden Hits
Track 7
Label MERCURY
Rec No 826 447-2
2. 'Shepherd's Hymn from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony'
Performer London Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Klaus Tennstedt
Composer Beethoven
Publisher Emi Records
CD Title Beethoven: Symphonies 6 (Pastoral) & No 8
Track 5
Label EMI
Rec No CDC 747459
3. 'La ci darem la mano'
Performer Bo Skovhus as Don Giovanni & Nuccia Focile as Zerlina
Composer Mozart
Publisher Telarc
CD Title Don Giovanni
Track 16
Label TELARC
Rec No CD80420
4. 'Mary Hamilton'
Performer Cynthia Gooding
Composer Trad
Publisher Elektra records
CD Title Queen of Hearts
Track Side b track 8
Label ELEKTRA
Rec No EKL.131
5. 'Opening Aria of Goldberg Variations'
Performer Glenn Gould
Composer Bach
Publisher Sony
CD Title Glenn Could Edition
Track 1
Label SONY CLASSICAL
Rec No SMK 52594
6. 'Alabama song'
Performer Lotte Lenya
Composer Bertolt Brecht - words Kurt Weill
Publisher Delta Music
CD Title O Moon of Alabama
Track 11
Label CAPRICCIO
Rec No 10347
7. 'Here comes the Night'
Performer Van Morrison with Them
Composer Berns
Publisher Decca records
CD Title Them featuring Van Morrison
Track 7
Label LONDON
Rec No 810 165-2
8. 'Talk to Me of Mendocino'
Performer Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Composer Kate McGarrigle
Publisher Warner Bros
CD Title Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Track 6
Label HANNIBAL
Rec No HNCD 4401
Record: 'Shepherd's Hymn'
Book: Stories from 1001 Arabian Nights - traditional
Luxury: A big huge vat of Culpepers Rose Geranium bath salts
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