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AudioBookRadio are currently archiving many of the programmes we have broadcast. We know it’s not always convenient to listen at a particular time so we’re aiming for everyone to be able to choose from a selection of programmes when you want to as we are sure this is a choice you’d like to have.
The launch of any feature is usually easier said than done but we are looking to add materials on a weekly basis. If there are particular programmes or themes you’d like to hear again then please let us know.
As the archive builds, themes and pockets of interest will develop so you’ll be able to choose more of what you want to hear when you want to hear it.
There are other materials we plan to include here too. Some are what you might call ‘vintage’ or ‘historical’ or just plain old but we hope they’ll still be of interest. You’ll find them here.
Other programmes might just be too specialised to broadcast. Yes, that sounds like a euphemism for boring but it’s probably because they are odd lengths, too niche, a bit long winded by which we mean ‘slow to the boil’. Sometimes we just can’t get broadcast rights but we can deliver them on a one to one basis by streaming. If everything was logical it wouldn’t be as interesting!
Visit regularly for all the latest titles.
Radio Archive featuring Hollywood Stage, Take Five with Peter James & Kobo interviews with Margaret Atwood & Roddy Doyle
Prunella Scales Dandruff Hits The Turtleneck By John Mayfield. Read by Prunella Scales From the moment pub landlord and keen amateur entomologist, Arnold Matson, arrives in Blinkington-on-the-Treacle to take over his new hostelry, the listener is guided superbly by one of Britain’s best-loved actresses, Prunella Scales, as she introduces local characters and intimately narrates her way through a colourful collection of vignettes and poignant flashbacks that are both comically funny and disturbingly familiar.
Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney was born in April 1939, the eldest member of a family which would eventually contain nine children. Heaney, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, uses all aspects of Irish culture, history, folklore, song, myth, and religion to write poetry that not only describes the Irish experience to the reader, but also allows the reader to feel the experience and emotions of the Irish people. He received a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry in 1990.
Gore Vidal Gore Vidal is the author of twenty-two novels, five plays, many screenplays, more than two hundred essays, and the critically lauded, Palimpsest: A Memoir. Vidal’s United States (Essays 1952-1992) won the 1993 National Book Award. In its “American Masters” series PBS said “Vidal’s lineage in American literature may be traced back to Henry James, the sophisticated American from the upper echelons of society who mingles with European sophisticates, and Mark Twain, the raw humorist and critic of American empire.”
12oon & 8pm & 4am
PLAYS/DRAMA
WAR OF THE WORLDS
War of the Worlds Returns with a BANG courtesy of Radio Drama Reivial.
This week we take a bow to radio drama history by clobbering Grover’s Mill New Jersey with a big ball of fire and pissed off laser-toting Martians. Yes, folks, it is the War of the Worlds – and one of the most exquisite re-creations of it ever produced, the 50th anniversary production by Otherworld Media released in 1988.
GRAMMY-nominated for Best Spoken Word production, digital sound design by Oscar-winner Randy Thom at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, an international broadcast event, this contemporary NPR/CNN version of the Orson Welles classic stars Jason Robards with Hector Elizondo, Steve Allen, CBS newsman Douglas Edwards and public radio personalities Scott Simon and Terry Gross.
1pm & 9pm & 5am
IN CONVERSATION…..GREENLIGHT BOOKSTORE
If you love books you probably have a favourite bookstore where you can go and know that not only will there be shelves of a wide variety of books where you can immerse yourselves but also knowledge, tips and conversation all around you. Brooklyn has one such store that recorded a range of interviews with bestselling authors. Today’s episode originally aired on 15th August and features Tom Rachman (The Imperfectionists) who talks with Susan Kamil, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Random House and Dial Press, about his new novel, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, and why writing books is like flying with the Marx Brothers. Also: reviews of The Story of Land and Sea by Katie Simpson Smith and Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey and reviews of books released that week.
2pm & 10pm & 6am
POETRY featuring Ben Jonson, Rumi, Classic Women Poets and more
Poetry is often cited as our greatest use of words. The English language has well over a million and poets down the ages seem, at times, to make use of every single one. But often they use them in simple ways to describe anything and everything from landscapes to all aspects of the human condition. Poems can evoke within us an individual response that takes us by surprise; that opens our eyes and ears to very personal feelings.
Forget the idea of classic poetry being somehow dull and boring and best kept to school textbooks. It still has life, vibrancy and relevance to our lives today. In this hour we’ll be listening to poets of the quality and breadth of Ben Jonson, Rumi and themes including Hell and Classic Women Poets
All of them are from a dedicated poetry publisher – Portable Poetry who believe that poetry should be a part of our everyday lives, uplifting the soul & reaching the parts that other things can’t. Their range of audiobooks and ebooks cover volumes on some of our greatest poets to anthologies of seasons, months, places and a range of themes. Check them out on your usual digital store such as Amazon or iTunes or at https://www.deadtreepublishing.com/ That’s Portable Poetry – poetry that carries you through!
3pm & 11pm & 7am
ALTERNATIVE RADIO with Maureen Webb on Hackers and Democracy
The digital age has given birth to hackers who carry out cyberattacks on our personal data, on pipelines, energy grids and meat processing plants. There are also other hackers who practice the sharing of software, open sourcing and the secure free flow of information. Maureen Webb says those hackers “are making some of the most important contributions to preserving our liberal deocratic tradition in the 21st century.”
4pm & Midnight & 8am
The Damon Runyon Theatre
New York has given rise to many authors who record and memorialise its streets and people. Damon Runyon is one such author who brings the New York story and its cast of characters to vibrant life. His tongue-in-cheek tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, gangsters and dolls appeal to our sense of what we think we know. Their colorful monikers; ‘Big Jule,’ ‘Harry the Horse Thief,’ ‘Good Time Charlie,’ or ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ immediately give life to his sparkling words. And life is bigger, exuberant; better.
The veteran Radio actor John Brown voices the recurring ‘Broadway’ character so central to every episode which today are Lonely Heart and Broadway Complex
5pm & 1am & 9am
THE PODCAST HOUR – THE JO SHOW
Audiobookradio is delighted to launch a new strand, namely the Podcast Hour. Our first podcast is the Jo Show presented by silky voiced Jo Sands and features a wide range of creatives with plenty to say….she calls it soul sipping maybe because her guests do some soul searching as Jo always gets to the parts that other interviewers don’t reach as you are about to find out. Today her guest is Jaime Hinkson, Jamaican born, writer, producer, and musician, who when not in Miami creating his own music, travels the world as keyboardist for Julian Marley’s band.
6pm & 2am & 10am
HOLLYWOOD STAGE – Red River
In our Hollywood Stage presentation John Wayne reprises his role as Tom Dunston and his journey west to build a cattle empire. He adopts a young boy, Matthew, orphaned by an Indian raid. Returning from the Civil War Mathew helps his father on a massive cattle drive only for their relationship to completely fall apart as Father is pitted against Son.
7pm & 3am & 11am
SHORT STORIES
The Namesake by Willa Cather. Read by Christopher Ragland
Pullitzer Prize winning American author, Willa Cather sets her story, the Namesake, in the Paris studio of the great sculptor Lyon Hartwell at the turn of the 20th century. Seven young aspiring student artists who admire his work hear Hartwell relate aspects of his life in this well crafted story which is said to be inspired by Cather’s own unlce.
When I Was a Witch by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Read by Laurel Lefkow
This story, although not as well known as The Yellow Wallpaper is another fine example of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s early feminist short stories. It is a humorous fantasy about a woman that makes a deal with the devil to have her wishes come true and uses this power to shape the world.