Book of the Week

Book of the Week


xx/xx/xx 1 Point of Departure by James Cameron (abstract) - part 1 of 5 - Bikini Bomb (15 min.) Key moments of the 20th Century, as recorded by journalist James Cameron. 1st of 5: The extraordinary spectacle of the Atom bomb test at Bikini Atoll. Read by Nigel Cooke and abridged by Polly Coles. xx/xx/xx 2 Point of Departure by James Cameron (abstract) - part 2 of 5 - Himalaya Hotel (15 min.) An astonishing night in the Himalaya Hotel in Tibet. A bizarre evening with the Tibetan aristocracy, rum and a lesson in how to execute Samba. xx/xx/xx 3 Point of Departure by James Cameron (abstract) - part 3 of 5 - Inchon (15 min.) A disturbing account of how journalist James Cameron was at the forefront of a blistering attack at Inchon during a major offensive of the Korean war. For some reason that no one could explain, the armed boat containing the journalists was the first to hit the shoreline under a deafening barrage. xx/xx/xx 4 Point of Departure by James Cameron (abstract) - part 4 of 5 - Lord Beaverbrooke (15 min.) After a ten-year estrangement, journalist James Cameron is summoned by Lord Beaverbrook to Monte Carlo. His curiosity overwhelms his antipathy and he finds himself at dinner with two unexpected guests -- Aristotle Onassis and Sir Winston Churchill. xx/xx/xx 5 Point of Departure by James Cameron (abstract) - part 5 of 5 - Albania (15 min.) A trip to Albania, formerly closed to tourists and journalists alike. Posing as a tourist, Cameron makes the mistake of wiring a brief message to his editor, after which, every moment of his stay is scrutinised by the Albanian Secret Police. Read by Nigel Cooke and abridged by Polly Coles. xx/xx/xx 6 The Fringes of Power by John Colville (abstract) - part 1 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 7 The Fringes of Power by John Colville (abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 8 The Fringes of Power by John Colville (abstract) - part 3 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 9 The Fringes of Power by John Colville (abstract) - part 4 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 10 The Fringes of Power by John Colville (abstract) - part 5 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 11 The Caliph's House, A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah (abstract) - part 1 of 4 (15 min.) When Shah, his pregnant wife and their small daughter move from England to Morocco, where he'd vacationed as a child, he enters a realm of "invisible spirits and their parallel world." Shah buys the Caliph's House, once a palatial compound, now heavy with algae, cobwebs and termites. Unoccupied for a decade, the place harbors a willful jinni (invisible spirit), who Shah, the rational Westerner, reluctantly grasps must be exorcised by traditional means. xx/xx/xx 12 The Caliph's House, A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah (abstract) - part 2 of 4 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 13 The Caliph's House, A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah (abstract) - part 3 of 4 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 14 The Caliph's House, A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah (abstract) - part 4 of 4 (15 min.)
xx/xx/xx 15 Summer of a Dormouse by John Mortimer (abstract) - part 1 of 5 (15 min.) The Summer of a Dormouse: a year of growing old disgracefully. Mortimer, a retired barrister and creator of Rumpole, retains his high good humor in this third charming autobiographical volume (whose title comes from Byron's Journals), even if, as he confesses at the start, he's reached an age when he can no longer put on his socks. ("The situation is, in minor ways, humiliating and comical.") A superb raconteur, the author never forgets that his first duty is to entertain. In a series of short, conversational chapters, which proceed in an artfully haphazard way to cover recent experiences (such as selecting a coat of arms) as well as childhood memories (mainly of his blind father, a judge), he recounts one amusing anecdote after another. These can be racy, as in the priceless transcript of a lurid sex case tried with straight face before the very proper House of Lords. xx/xx/xx 16 Summer of a Dormouse by John Mortimer (abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 17 Summer of a Dormouse by John Mortimer (abstract) - part 3 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 18 Summer of a Dormouse by John Mortimer (abstract) - part 4 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 19 Summer of a Dormouse by John Mortimer (abstract) - part 5 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 20 The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette Jones (abstract) - part 1 of 5) (15 min.) "Once there was a cause that stirred a nation, nearly dislodged a prime minister and has since saved hundreds of thousands of lives. It was taken up by parliamentarians, journalists, businessmen, trade unionists, novelists, playwrights, clergymen, caricaturists and music-hall performers. Its supporters flocked to meetings, where they cheered its advocates, and demonstrated in the streets, condemning its opponents as friends of villainy. It involved all classes, and men and women alike. Florence Nightingale contributed money, Queen Victoria expressed sympathy and the mother-in-law of one of the monarch’s daughters lent her time and the cachet of her titles. It gave the poor a platform to speak out in their own defence. It is still commemorated in English idiom, in names of streets and ships, in statues and plaques, in the logo of London Transport and in the gym shoes of British school children. And yet we hardly remember what it was all about". Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898) was a nineteenth-century hero whose determined campaigning blew the whistle on scandalous shipping malpractices and saved thousands of sailors' lives. Before the introduction of the 'Plimsoll Line', avaricious ship-owners would send dangerously overladen cargo ships to sea in order to make as much profit as possible while villainous merchants were believed deliberately to over-insure their unseaworthy vessels, sending sailors to their deaths in ‘coffin ships’ and profiting from the tragedy. While The Board of Trade acknowledged that lives were being unnecessarily lost, it took Plimsoll's load line and almost a decade of tireless nationwide activism to end the practice. The story of maritime safety campaigner Samuel Plimsoll. Plimsoll's cause to end the scandalous shipping malpractices of the Victorian era runs in to trouble as he faces the wrath of some powerful shipowning MPs. But public opinion is beginning to swing behind him.Five years after the beginning of his campaign to put a stop to the scandalous overloading of merchant ships, the long anticipated bill is talked out of Parliament in a cynical attempt not to upset the powerful ship owning MPs. Samuel Plimsoll spectacularly loses his temper in the House of Commons. Read by Paul Copley. xx/xx/xx 21 The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette Jones (abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 22 The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette Jones (abstract) - part 3 of 5) (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 23 The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette Jones (abstract) - part 4 of 5) (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 24 The Plimsoll Sensation by Nicolette Jones (abstract) - part 5 of 5) (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 26 William Pitt the Younger by William Hague (Abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) James Naughtie and an audience of readers are joined by William Hague to discuss his biography of William Pitt the Younger, who became the youngest ever prime minister in 1783 at the age of 24. Hague's book offers many insights into the life of an extraordinary man who dominated politics in his time, but died when he was just 46. xx/xx/xx 27 William Pitt the Younger by William Hague (Abstract) - part 3 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 28 William Pitt the Younger by William Hague (Abstract) - part 4 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 29 William Pitt the Younger by William Hague (Abstract) - part 5 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 30 Raw Spirit by Iain Banks (abstract) - part 1 of 5 (15 min.) The book is about whisky, or finding the perfect dram while travelling in Scotland. Other recurring themes in the book are George W. Bush, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Banks's love for motor vehicles. xx/xx/xx 31 Raw Spirit by Iain Banks (abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 32 Raw Spirit by Iain Banks (abstract) - part 3 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 34 Raw Spirit by Iain Banks (abstract) - part 4 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 35 Raw Spirit by Iain Banks (abstract) - part 5 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 36 I Didn't Get Where I Am Today by David Nobbs (abstract) - part 1 of 5 (15 min.) Timeout: 'He is the leanest, meanest comic novelist since Evelyn Waugh, though far warmer.' The Telegraph: 'The marvellously matter-of-fact memoir of a genius of suburban angst' xx/xx/xx 37 I Didn't Get Where I Am Today by David Nobbs (abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 38 I Didn't Get Where I Am Today by David Nobbs (abstract) - part 3 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 39 I Didn't Get Where I Am Today by David Nobbs (abstract) - part 4 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 40 I Didn't Get Where I Am Today by David Nobbs (abstract) - part 5 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 41 John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love by Bevis Hillier (abstract) - part 1 of 5 (15 min.) The much-loved poet is brought to life in an account of the years in which he made his name. With recordings of Betjeman reading his own work. Eighteen years after his death as Poet Laureate, Betjeman's charm still endures. Maybe it's because no one else has been able to capture the idiosyncrasies of English 20th Century life better than he... and there's no one better equipped to recall Betjeman than Hillier. xx/xx/xx 42 John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love by Bevis Hillier (abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 43 John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love by Bevis Hillier (abstract) - part 3 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 44 John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love by Bevis Hillier (abstract) - part 4 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 45 John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love by Bevis Hillier (abstract) - part 5 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 46 The Crucible in History by Arthur Miller (abstract) - part 1 of 5 (15 min.) Playwright Arthur Miller reads from The Crucible In History, his memoir of the Cold War years and the political repression, cowardice and moral turmoil he observed. Arthur Miller reads his essay in which he places his play about the witch trials of Salem in the context of the era of the Red-hunting years of Joe McCarthy and the US Congress.Miller said of 'The Crucible' in History: 'It is really my most ambitious attempt at a history of the period from one person's experience'. The essay takes in the House Committee on Un-American Activities' obsession with Miller's wife Marilyn Monroe, to the more sinister efforts to ban him from travel and work. xx/xx/xx 47 The Crucible in History by Arthur Miller (abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 48 The Crucible in History by Arthur Miller (abstract) - part 3 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 49 The Crucible in History by Arthur Miller (abstract) - part 4 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 50 The Crucible in History by Arthur Miller (abstract) - part 5 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 51 The Lost King Of France by Debra Cadbury (abstract) - part 1 of 5 (15 min.): Revolution, Revenge and the Search for Louis XVII xx/xx/xx 52 The Lost King Of France by Debra Cadbury (abstract) - part 2 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 53 The Lost King Of France by Debra Cadbury (abstract) - part 3 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 54 The Lost King Of France by Debra Cadbury (abstract) - part 4 of 5 (15 min.) xx/xx/xx 55 The Lost King Of France by Debra Cadbury (abstract) - part 5 of 5 (15 min.)