John Updike

Sue Lawley's castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the celebrated American writer John Updike. His novels include Rabbit Run (and three Rabbit follow-ups), Couples and The Witches of Eastwick.

He is both poet and historian, famous for charting the changes in post-war American society such as increasing marital breakdown and changing attitudes to death. He started his writing career by selling stories to the New Yorker magazine - something his mother had tried for years but had never succeeded. And he'll be telling Sue Lawley about how he overcame a bad stutter, how he has learnt to control his psoriasis and how now, aged 63, he finally feels normal; part of the gang he never was as a teenager.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Choices

1.

Fats Waller

You're Not The Only Oyster In The Stew

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2.

Castaway's favourite

Benny Goodman and His Orchestra

Sing, Sing, Sing

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3.

Doris Day

With A Song In My Heart

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4.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - Fugue in C major

Soloist: Blandine Verlet

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5.

Original Trinidad Steel Band

Yellow Bird

6.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major

Soloist: Vladimir Ashkenazy Orchestra: The London Philharmonic Orchestra

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7.

The Beatles

Hey Jude

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8.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 5 in C minor

Orchestra: The Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus Conductor: Otto Klemperer

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Book

Complete Works by Marcel Proust

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Luxury item

Silken tent (for luxury, not survival)

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