In the quiet Jura region of France, a physician goes completely haywire in a series of crimes that are hard for his friends and acquaintances to grasp. But then their grasp loosens further. And disappears altogether. Because the man at the centre, the man they thought they knew, turns out to be a dangerous and violent stranger. And now I know what it feels like to write a Dateline teaser. Non-fiction.
Hartmann and Fibitch arrived in England as refugees on the Kindertransport and then they had had wives and children and those children had families and – what was the point of this story again? Served (saved?) with a side of Sebald (how can you not) plus the flavour of Rushforth, which is the name of an author.
The real life murder mystery of a CBS reporter is foreground and backdrop for a modern day high school student trying to figure out why the wrong man was put down. Also a love story. Salonic.
His origins were humble; a working-class boy from a small military town in northern Sweden, not far from the Arctic Circle. Today, he is one of the most influential figures in the world of literature, because Peter Englund is Permanent Secretary to the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature.
For someone who has within his power the making or breaking of international writing careers, Peter, as you'll hear, is remarkably unassuming. Perhaps one reason for this is that he's still a writer himself; he understands the writing process profoundly, and his own books have been both bestsellers and widely acclaimed. His most recent, just launched in London, is a stunning new approach to the history of the First World War. Subtitled "an intimate history", The Beauty and the Sorrow explores the personal aspects of war: not the grand strategies concocted in the cabinets of Europe, but the experiences of "ordinary" people from around the world, all now unknown - were it not for Peter's deeply moving book.
What with Benedict Cumberbatch’s radical new television interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, and the recent big-screen Guy Ritchie / Robert Downey / Jude Law action movies, the Baker Street seven per-center is enjoying a major revival of interest.
How appropriate, then, that the master scriptwriter of the entire Holmes canon should join us for tonight's Litopia After Dark. Bert Coules is nearly as legendary as his protagonist in Holmesian circles. He’s a man who’s had more experience of Sherlock Holmes than almost anyone else, apart from Conan Doyle. Not only was he head writer on the BBC’s project to dramatise the entire Holmes canon, but he then went on to write The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – original plots based on passing references from Conan Doyle’s oeuvre.
Bert has also adapted several Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novels, starring Philip Madoc as Cadfael, and has dramatised works by Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Isaac Asimov and other best-selling genre authors.
Whether you're a Holmes fan, an aspiring scriptwriter, or simply interested in great drama, you'll love this show - pass it on to your friends!
When we asked John Simopoulos, Founding Fellow and Dean of Degrees at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, to read Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner last year, we had an overwhelming response from listeners wanting to hear more from him.
We're thrilled to welcome John back to present this special new year's "mixed bag of prose, poetry and century" that is certain to delight and inspire you... happy new year!
John reads and discusses:
Music in the programme is available for purchase from magnatune.com
It's our last discussion for a while with John Simopoulos and again, we're focusing on our series entitled Books That Matter. Galsworthy and Proust? Not worthy to hold a candle to today's featured author, Mahfouz - says John. Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian novelist who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, and is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature. The trilogy of books - Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street - are collectively titled the Cairo Trilogy, an immense monumental work of 1,500 pages or so - "and every character in them is repulsive," says John, "but do read it - if you've got the stomach for it!".
Tonight's show is a real-life thriller: featuring espionage, double-dealing, murder and even a dash of Hollywood. And a British ambassador who sees things he shouldn't - and decides to tell the world. Sounds like the plot of a movie? Craig Murray's amazing story has already been optioned by producers - if you can't wait to see the big-screen version, you can hear him on Litopia After Dark - you'll be riveted!
From The Two Ronnies to Blackadder…from Benny Hill to Marty Feldman… the golden years of British television comedy produced some of the funniest shows and larger-than-life characters the world has ever seen.
Garry’s guest tonight COLIN EDMONDS has dominated British television comedy writing for four decades – and he knew them all… the stars, the monsters, the legends and the lunatics!
If names such as Les Dawson, Lilly Savage, Paul Daniels, Julian Clary, Barbara Windsor and – of course – Bob Monkhouse – evoke fond memories… then you’re going to love tonight’s show!
Of course, the tradition of bawdy British comedy goes right back to the world of the music hall… from which Colin draws his inspiration for his new novel, Steam, Smoke & Mirrors: with insights and extracts from the secret journals of Professor Artemus More PhD (Cantab) FRS. Set in a Steampunk vision of Victorian Britain Steam, Smoke & Mirrors is “Victorian science fiction”, says Colin: “It’s so sexy! Men in top hats and women in thigh-length boots! Steampunk is on a roll!”
"I wanted to know what went on -what really went on - inside Viacom/CBS... about the collaboration between very big business and very big government." So says television legend Dan Rather in this special edition of The Debriefer. "I knew that a lot had gone on behind the scenes [in CBS News] that wasn't right. As a reporter, I tried to dig into that story."
The scandal that Dan and his team at CBS had unearthed concerned no less a person than George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States. At the time of the Viet Nam war, Bush's father had used his influence to get him a posting in the Texas Air National Guard, thus ensuing he would never risk active service in the battlefield. "That's a fact", says Dan. "The president didn't deny it: he's never denied it."
Even more scandalously, after being posted to this "champagne unit" for the sons of privileged and well-connected people, Bush countermanded orders and disappeared for a year! "[Those facts] were true when we reported them", says Dan. "And they're true now."
Listen to this Debriefer special as Dan tells us what happened next to him and his team: it will shock you. If you enjoyed this show, buy Dan's new book, Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News, just out from Grand Central Publishing.
How do you go about writing a book about one of the most powerful dynasties on earth?
That's the challenge special guest Russ Baker faced when he first considered writing about the Bush family; one which encompasses two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, two Presidents and innumerable bankers and businessmen. The book took five years to write and is a meticulous piece of research (there are over a thousand footnotes).
According to the late Gore Vidal, Family of Secrets is "one of the most important books of the past ten years". Dan Rather - who you can hear right here on Radio Litopia's Debriefer show - called it "a tour de force. " "It's made me rethink", he says, "even those events I witnessed with my own eyes".
You'll recognize him as one of Britain's leading thriller writers, author of the multi-million seller A Quiet Belief In Angels and ten other award-winner novels. But you may not know much about the extraordinary personal story of tonight's guest R.J. Ellory - a life that is just as thrilling and moving as anything in his bestsellers.
Inspiring, revealing and searingly honest... we think tonight's show is quite simply one of our best.
Where do your most brilliant ideas come from? What's the most extreme thing you've done when researching your book? What's the worst book you've ever bought? Litopia After Dark this week begins to wind down for the summer holidays with a writers' quiz. It all gets completely out of hand as the panelists give each other marks and the bickering reaches a crescendo as they try to outdo each other in the race to the finish line... tune in to see who wins.
Geoff Dyer is the consummate writer’s writer: winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize, the US National Book Critics Circle Award the E. M. Forster Award, and more. The Daily Telegraph newspaper has called him “the best living writer in Britain”. Zadie Smith believes he is “a national treasure.”
This is a specially extended Litopia After Dark - we hope you enjoy this opportunity to get to know one of the finest writers in the world today.
At the age of 43, a few weeks after he secured British citizenship, former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was murdered: the world's first victim of polonium 210 poisoning. The Litvinenko killing revealed that London has quietly become not only the single greatest centre of Russian capital outside Moscow, but also a turbulent seat of Russian opposition.
Our special guest tonight is Alan Cowell, senior correspondent for the New York Times, based in London and Paris. Few people know more about this extraordinary subject than Alan; his book “The Terminal Spy” is the definitive work on the topic, and he continues to report on the story as it unfolds for NYTimes.com.
Alan typifies old-school journalism at its best. He was the last Reuters correspondent to file dispatches by carrier pigeon, and has covered stories in over 90 countries. He won a George Polk Award for his coverage of the broadening turmoil in South Africa that led to the end of apartheid. He was expelled from the country by the government of P.W. Botha in early 1987.
Since then, he has headed The New York Times’s bureaus in Greece, Egypt, Italy, Germany and London, where he the Nathaniel Nash Award.
Alan has written three other books: an African memoir, “Killing the Wizards”; and two novels, “A Walking Guide” and its sequel, “The Paris Correspondent”, which deals in part with the challenges of the new digital era in news gathering and reporting.
It was supposed to be "the war that will end war" - according to the misplaced optimism of British author H.G. Wells, and countless others like him who cheerfully expected "our boys" to be home by Christmas 1914. Involving all the world's great powers, more than 70 million combatants, and over 9 million fatalities, it became one of the largest wars in history.
And perhaps most tragically, those who died in the trenches, or on the shores of Gallipoli, had no inkling of the underlying causes, quarrels and agendas for which they were to sacrifice their lives. While its origins are still hotly debated by historians, this is no mere academic discussion. As you'll hear in tonight's totally engrossing show, the legacy of the Great War is still very much with us today - setting the agenda for many of the current events in the Middle East and beyond.
Our special guest is acclaimed historian Professor Sean McMeekin, whose radical and assiduous scholarship has shed much new light on this much-misunderstood conflict. Sean's books include The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, The Russian Origins of the First World War, and the forthcoming July 1914: Countdown to War.
We've got a lovely Easter chocolate-box full of naughtiness for you this week! All tied up in a saucy bow. Choose from a tempting selection of fillings, including:
The entirely wonderful, not to say intrepid, Kari Herbert is back with us: her new book Polar Wives tells the stories of the remarkable women behind the world's most daring explorers - a great read if the Easter weather takes a turn for the worse. And should you accidentally over-indulge yourself with holiday treats, don't panic - the hilarious and witty Jane Wenham-Jones is ready and waiting with 100 Ways to Fight the Flab – The Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom.
British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne are currently enforcing "savage" spending cuts that, in Cameron's own words, "will change our whole way of life". Why? What have the British people done to deserve this punishment?
Tonight's guest, Professor L. Randall Wray, has got some very revealing answers. If you want to know how we got in this mess - listen to this show. If you want to know what's going to happen next - listen to this show. And if you want to know what we might be able to do about it... you know what to do. This is one of our very best - and most important - shows. Please: tell all your friends about it.
It's not often we have a real-life spy as our special guest on LAD - but tonight, stepping out of the shadows and into our spotlight is special guest Major David Thorp - a man who has spent his entire life in signals intelligence (SIGINT)... from the Cold War to the Falklands, and everything in-between.
SIGINT is one of the least-known but most important aspects of battlefield and peacetime intelligence gathering. David's book, The Silent Listener - Falklands 1982: The Inside Story of British Electronic Surveillance and Intel Controversies, ignited a firestorm of controversy when it was published... and tonight we get our teeth into his insider's revelations about the sinking of the Belgrano and much more besides.
"Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood" quipped Oscar Levant, lies the real tinsel". Maybe true, but for our guest tonight, action actress Spice Williams-Crosby, the bruises, broken ribs and concussions are real enough. Spice has Hollywood in her DNA; you've seen her in motion pictures such as Star Trek, From Dusk Till Dawn, and A Simple Plan and on countless television dramas, including Scrubs, Roseanne and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spice has crashed cars, dove through glass windows, taken stair falls, executed 30-foot ratchets, 50-foot high falls, and hung from helicopters 350 feet above the ground. Oh, and wrestled Jim Carrey, too.
This is the first time we've had a genuine Klingon on the show - Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!