Episodes
Saturday Nov 18, 2023
Saturday Nov 18, 2023
The Beatles are chart toppers again. In this episode David Freeman talks to Beatles Historian Mark Lewisohn about his mammoth history of the Fab Four.
Thomasina Lowe talks about her fathers photographs of the Kennedy presidential years and science writer Marcus Chown talks about his book "What a Wonderful World". that endeavours to explain almost everything.
Monday Nov 13, 2023
Clementine Taylor - Something About Her
Monday Nov 13, 2023
Monday Nov 13, 2023
A brand new novel by first time author Clementine Taylor.
It is the story of two young women Aisling and Maya and their love. Of course it isn't a simple story. The complications and obstacles are engagingly told. The book is a real page turner.
Both women are charismatic characters and as a reader you are supporting both of them ...... so how does it end?
Thursday Nov 09, 2023
Sir Stanley Wells, Ellen Apsten.
Thursday Nov 09, 2023
Thursday Nov 09, 2023
The Shakespeare First Folio was published 400 years ago.
In this interview recorded in 2003 the Shakespeare scholar Sir Stanley Wells talks to David Freeman about Shakespeare the man and Shakespeare the writer.
Russian history is all too relevant. Ellen Apsten tells David Freeman about the second novel in her series telling the stories of the powerful Russian women who lived remarkable lives in the 18th century.
The Tsarina's Daughter is about Elizabeth the beautiful daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine. This is the couple that Putin has studied and have influenced his world view.
Monday Nov 06, 2023
Jilly Cooper : Pandora
Monday Nov 06, 2023
Monday Nov 06, 2023
Jilly Cooper has every reason to be very jolly.
Her football novel is out for Christmas and Disney have made a movie of one of her stories.
I met Jilly when her novel Pandora was first published. She was jolly then too!!
Thursday Nov 02, 2023
Helen Dunmore - The Siege
Thursday Nov 02, 2023
Thursday Nov 02, 2023
This is a brilliant novel set in Leningrad in September 1941. It tells of love in a time of unimaginable hardship.
The horrific reality of a siege is being played out again in the Middle East and Russian history is relevant to the war in Ukraine.
Helen Dunmore was a major literary talent.
Helen died of cancer in 2017.
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Patricia Scanlan - Francesca’s Party
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Monday Oct 30, 2023
'Revenge - God's gift to women!'
That's the message printed on the cover of this book.
So does the author know what the desire for revenge feels like?
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
Sarah Waters : Fingersmith
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
Sarah Waters burst onto the literary scene at the very end of the last century with her novel 'Tipping the Velvet'
The story centered on the love between two women in Victorian England.
Her next novel Affinity was again set in Victorian times and centres on the spiritualism beliefs of the time.
In this interview Sarah talked to me about her novel Fingersmith.
In Victorian slang what was a Fingersmith? And how did a collector of contempory pornography have a place in the story?
Saturday Oct 07, 2023
Maggie Gee : The White Family
Saturday Oct 07, 2023
Saturday Oct 07, 2023
This novel was nominated for award when it was first published over 20 years ago.
It has a message of acceptance and tolerance which, sadly, is still totally relevant.
The novel was republished last year.
Thursday Sep 28, 2023
Simon Kuper - Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK
Thursday Sep 28, 2023
Thursday Sep 28, 2023
There is a thought that UK politics is still suffering from 'long Boris'. His attitudes and behaviour still cast a long shadow.
How did it all come to pass in the first place? How did Johnson and his coterie ever make it to the top of the pyramid?
In this detailed and depressing book FT journalist Simon Kuper traces the idea of Brexit back to toffs in the Oxford Union in the late 1980s.
As the UK government enters a death spiral in 2023 and the Conservative party fractures yet again the events covered in this book must surely be the base cause of the malaise.
2023 marks 50 years since the UK realised it no longer had an empire and joined Europe. And then catastrophically 52% of the electorate were persuaded that their lives would be better if we left. How wrong can you be?
Sunday Sep 24, 2023
Henry Sanderson - Volt Rush : electric cars and the race to go green
Sunday Sep 24, 2023
Sunday Sep 24, 2023
Once again transport is in the news. Is high speed rail the way forward? Should petrol and diesel cars be removed from sale by 2030?
I moved over to an EV 8 years ago and have never been tempted to go back. In my experience the cars keep improving and much more slowly the charging infrastructure is getting marginally better.
In Volt Rush Henry Sanderson tells the story of the electric car from the early 19th century to the current challenges facing the global industry.
Although an electric vehicle doesn't emit carbon dioxide and is thus 'clean' the raw materials in the battery have to be mined somewhere. There is big money to be made.
Who is winning the Volt Rush?