Noon & 8pm & 4am

PLAYS/DRAMA

HARD CENTRES BY CARL CHETTY. STARRING IMELDA STAUNTON & DEREK JACOBI.

Lonely brother and sister, Frankie and Millicent, have come out of retirement to run Hamilton Chocolatiers but changes are ahead. On a hot June day, love is in the air for the divorcee and widower – and we discover one or two skeletons.

PASSING THROUGH BY HELEN SHAY

An older woman and a younger man meet at a railway station. Just what is their relationship all about?

 1pm & 9pm & 5am

IN CONVERSATION with CARL SAFINA

Carl Safina is the president of Blue Ocean Institute, whose main focus is using science, art, and literature to inspire a “sea ethic”—a closer relationship with the sea.  His first book, Song for the Blue Ocean, takes readers on a global journey of discovery probing for truth about the world’s changing seas, weaving adventure, science and political analysis along the way. His newest book, Voyage of the Turtle, is an impassioned account of the plight of ocean-dwelling turtles. Safina is also author of Eye of the Albatross and co-author of Seafood Lover’s Almanac.

 2pm & 10pm & 6am

POETRY & POETS featuring ADRIENNE RICH

Adrienne Rich received the Yale Younger Poets Award in 1951 (from judge W. H. Auden), at the age of 21, and with strength and conviction has not stopped writing since in her distinct voice. Rich has said that her poetry seeks to create a dialectical relationship between “the personal, or lyric voice, and the so-called political—really, the voice of the individual speaking not just to herself, or to a beloved friend, but to and from a collective, a social realm.” Her National Book Critics’ Circle Award citation explains: “Rich has captured with subversive wit, compassion, precision, supple poetics, toughness and yes, opposition and resistance, what life has been like in the opening years of a new century.”

3pm & 11pm & 7am

ALTERNATIVE RADIO with GARY TAUBES on Sugar: How Sweet It Isn’t

Here at Audiobook Radio we are keen to provide a range of voices – very literally as well as in terms of opinions and views of the world. This strand created by Alternative Radio does just that. We will hear from some of the most informed minds and greatest social activists of our time whose take on justice and power does not chime with those that hold the power and don’t provide justice for all so we rarely get to hear from them in mainstream media. Different opinions always help inform our own and we are always eager to hear from listeners about this or any other strand. Contact us on the tab at www.audiobookradio.net.

Today’s talk is given by Gary Taubes who is co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative and an investigative science journalist whose his articles appear in The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine and Esquire. He is the author of Why We Get Fat and The Case Against Sugar which is what he talks about her.  There is growing evidence that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making some people very sick.

 4pm & Midnight & 8am

SHERLOCK HOLMES CLASSICS

ABR is proud to present two classic episodes starring Basil Rathbone. ‘The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge’ followed by ‘The Case of the Vanishing Elephant.’

We close the hour with an author interview from KOBO and today’s guest is GRETCHEN RUBIN.

5pm & 1am & 9am

SPARK LONDON

The concept is stand out simple. Real people telling real stories.

Charley Harrison presents highlights from their first Best of Spark London evening at the Canal Cafe Theatre, featuring Christine Estima, John Hale and Helen Zaltzman. There are also two extra stories to enjoy: Lost and Found in California by Victoria Fitzpatrick and Prom Night in Perth by Allan Girod.

TAKE FIVE with ANNA KIM

We asked the same five questions to a range of writers – today it’s ANNA KIM, a poet, short story writer and novelist, is said to use language as a scalpel. She was born in Korea, grew up in Germany and now lives in Austria, often writing in German.

6pm & 2am & 10am

HOLLYWOOD STAGE with Only Angels Have Wings

Hollywood is indelibly printed in our minds as a go to place for entertainment and has been for decades. We take you back in time as The Hollywood ringmaster himself, CECIL B DE MILLE unveils Only Angels Have Wings featuring CARY GRANT.

7pm & 3am & 11am

SHORT STORIES – JAMES & BENSON

THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH BY M.R. JAMES. READ BY RICHARD MITCHLEY.

On his deathbed vicar Rant makes a secret confession to his niece Mary Simpson. Some twenty years later young librarian William Garrett is asked by elderly John Eldred to locate a book called ‘The Tractate Middoth’ but a mysterious cloaked figure takes the book from the shelves and Eldred panics and leaves. On a second attempt to find the book Garrett is confronted by the mysterious borrower.

CATERPILLARS BY E.F. BENSON. READ BY PATRICK MALAHIDE.

The Villa Cascana in Italy, not far from the Riviera, is the setting for this tale about eerily glowing caterpillars. They are a foot or more in length and are found crawling all over the bed in an unoccupied bedroom on the main floor of the Villa. It’s all another of the author’s dream/nightmare stories. The narrator is the guest of Mrs. Stanley, who has leased the house for the season. Another guest, Arthur Inglis finds an unknown caterpillar on his window sill and puts it in a box. He names it Cancer Inglisensis for its crab-like pincers. The name he gives the squirmy thing has much to do with the climax of this tale.