07.07.2025 - ‚Cry, The Beloved Country‘ by Alan Paton The novel we are introducing this month is a classic of 20th Century literature, and one of the best known South African novels. Cry, the Beloved Country, the first novel by Alan Paton, (1948)...
07.07.2025 - Bournville by Jonathan Coe This month we are introducing a state-of the-nation novel, Bournville, by Jonathan Coe, published in 2022. What’s the book about? The description on the back of the novel says: In Bournville, a placid suburb of...
07.07.2025 - Maurice Ravel (2) Playlist: texts read & music played 1. Ravel: Introduction and Allegro 2. Ravel: Le Cygne, from Histoires Naturelles 3. Ravel: Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques – Le Réveil 4. Ravel: Rapsodie Espagnole – Prélude...
02.06.2025 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë This month we are introducing a classic of English literature, Jane Eyre, An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë, first published under her pen name of `Currer Bell´, in October 1847. What‘s the book about? The...
02.06.2025 - Maurice Ravel: 150 Years on…. Playlist: texts read & music played 1. Ravel: Boléro 2. Ravel on Boléro 3. Ravel: Menuet Antique 4. Ravel: Ouverture de Féérie 5. Ravel: Deux Epigrammes de Clément Marot 6. Ravel: Pavane pour une Infante...
22.04.2025 - Texts read & music played Rudyard Kipling: ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ Leonard Woolf: ‘Growing’ Bizet: Au Fond du Temple Saint (from Les Pêcheurs de Perles) George Bernard Shaw on Ceylon in the 1930s Mathew Arnold: film...
07.04.2025 - Trust by Hernan Diaz This month‘s novel is Trust by Hernan Diaz, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 and was a Sunday Times Top Ten Best-Seller. Hernan Diaz is an Argentinian/American writer. His first novel In The Distance, was a finalist for...
24.03.2025 - Texts read & music played 1. Bizet: Les Pêcheurs de Perles – Prélude 2. V. Ganeshananthan: Hole-in-the-Heart 3. Advert for Brides, Sunday Observer, March 2 2025 4. ‘Colonel Bogey’ whistled (from The Bridge on the River Kwai) 5. Dire...
24.03.2025 - King Arthur (Purcell/ Dryden) Playlist (texts read & music played) 1. Leslie Alcock: ‘Arthur’s Britain’ (1971 & 1989) 2. John Dryden/ Henry Purcell: ‘King Arthur’ – ‘Fairest Isle’ 3. Act 1: Overture, Air, Overture 4. Act...
05.02.2025 - Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang This month‘s novel is Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang, an American novelist, who has a degree in international economics and graduate degrees in Sinology from Magdalene College, Cambridge and University College,...
