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Desert Island Discs
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MISSED A PROGRAMME?
Go to the Listen Again page |
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This Week's Guest:
Brian Aldiss
28 January 2007
Repeated
2 February 2007 |
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Brian's Choice |
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Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the author, Brian Aldiss.
He is best known for pioneering, alongside JG Ballard, a new wave of British science fiction writing in the 1960s. He says science fiction is not so much a prediction of the future as a metaphor for the human condition; and for him, at least, writing it offered an escape route and a filter through which to view his own extraordinary upbringing.
He grew up in a small Norfolk village in a very devout and austere home. While his father was distant, his mother was still suffering from the grief after her first child, a daughter, was still-born. He was the second child and even when he was very small, remembers feeling a strong sense of his mother's disappointment in him.
The army finally offered a way out for him and it was on his return to England that he started writing seriously while also working in a bookshop. One of his early works was a short story describing the sadness felt by a boy who was never able to please his parents, which was turned into a film by Stanley Kubrick.
While he remains best known for his science fiction writing - and has won every major award in the field - he has also written novels, poetry and biographies and short stories. Now, he says, he aims not for high sales but to become a better and better writer. |
1.Old Rivers
Performer Walter Brennan with the Johnny Mann Singers
Composer Cliff Crofford
CD Title Old Rivers/Family Reunion
Track Side 1 trk 1
Label United Artists
Rec No :UP 35747
2.Opening movement of Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Performer Susan Gritton with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yuri Simonov
Composer Górecki
CD Title Górecki: Symphony No 3…
Track 1
Label Tring International
Rec No: TRP084
3.Cow-Cow Boogie
Performer Ella Fitzgerald with the Ink Spots
Composer Don Raye-Gene De Paul-Benny Carter
CD Title The Best of Ella Fitzgerald Vol 11
Track Side 4 Trk 2
Label MCA records
Rec No: MCA2 4016
4.In the Steppes of Central Asia
Performer The Kirov Orchestra
Composer Alexander Borodin
CD Title Rimsky Korsakov: Sheherazade…
Track 5
Label PHILIPS
Rec No: 4708402
5.King of the Boeotians
Performer Sadlers Wells Theatre – 1960
Composer Offenbach
CD Title Orpheus in the Underworld
Track Side 2 trk 2
Label EMI
Rec No:CSD 1316
6. Oj Lolo Moja or Oh My Darling
Performer The Choir and Tambouritza Ensemble of Radio Osijek
Composer Trad
CD Title Songs and Dances of Yugoslavia
Track Side 1 trk 2
Label Concert Hall Records
Rec No:SM 2229
7.So Long Mom or a Song for World War 111
Performer Tom Lehrer
Composer Tom Lehrer
D Title Tom Lehrer: That was the Year that Was
Track 8
Label Reprise
Rec No:61792
8.Saturn:The Bringer of Old Age
Performer The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
Composer Holst
D Title Holst: the Planets
Track 5
Label PRT
Rec No:PVCD8381
Record: Old Rivers
Book: John Halpern’s biography of John Osborne
Luxury: A banjo
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