06.06.2023 - We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo Today’s book, We Need New Names, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Man Booker Prize. It was published in 2013 and was the first novel for NoViolet Bulawayo, a pen name, belonging...
22.03.2023 - Catriona Price: ‘Hert’ Playlist (texts read and music played): Dedication to Catriona Price’s Oma, Jutta Helfritz ‘Hert’: Interlude Catriona on ‘Hert’ ‘Swans’ (George Mackay Brown), set to music by Catriona ‘No Such Thing as...
22.03.2023 - Furious Hours by Casey Cep (2019) This month‘s book is about a famous American writer and her struggle to write a second book after a very successful first one. Here’s the blurb from the back cover: ‘Reverend Willie Maxwell, a rural...
27.02.2023 - George Mackay Brown (1921 – 1996) Playlist (texts read, music played and references): Dark Island’, The Lone Piper Mackay Brown: ‘The first house…’, ‘An early memory…’ From ‘The Road Home’ (1946) From ‘Skara Brae: a Time of...
27.02.2023 - ‘To be,…’ (Hamlet) Playlist (texts read, music played, references): 1. Hamlet, III/ 1 (‘To be, …’) ll. 1-5, with John Gielgud 2. Hamlet, III/ 1 (‘To be, …’) ll. 1-5, with John Gielgud (later recording) 3. Susan Sontag:...
14.02.2023 - Lessons, Ian McEwan (2022) This month we introduce Lessons by Ian McEwan, published in 2022. This is McEwan’s 17th novel, which he wrote during the pandemic lockdown. The blurb on the cover of the book reads: “When the world is still...
23.01.2023 - The Hours, Michael Cunningham (1998) In 1920s London, Virginia Woolf is fighting against her rebellious spirit as she attempts to make a start on her new novel. A young wife and mother, broiling in a suburb of late 1940s Los Angeles, yearns to...
15.12.2022 - St. Andrews (2): Castle, the Reformation and University Playlist: texts read and music played Pavane et Galliarde (mid-16thc.) Words attibuted to George Wishart Ian Rankin on his childhood holidays in St Andrews Thomas Morley: ‘Now is the month...
15.12.2022 - Elif Shafak’s ‘The Island of Missing Trees’ (2021) Blurb on back cover: “In 1974 , two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided Cyprus, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home, Nicosia. The tavern is the only place that Kostas,...
22.11.2022 - St Andrews (1): History, Ghosts and Witches Playlist: texts read & music played 1. Andrew Lang: St Andrews by the Northern Sea 2. Robert Crawford: I love how…. 3. John Johnstoun: from ‘Poemata’ 4. Tacitus, from...
