Stop What You're Doing and Read This!

Don't miss BBC Radio 4's current Book of the Week: Stop What You're Doing and Read This, a series of essays by leading writers on the importance, mystery and magic of reading.  You can listen again to episodes here.  

So far Michael Rosen has talked about the experience of his father reading Great Expectations aloud on holiday and how books wove themselves into his daily life to the extent that he began to think of the characters as part of his family.  

Jeanette Winterson's essay is my favourite so far - reading in bed a book about the Cairngorm mountains she talks of the mystical experience of reading - a door from one place to another, with her ususal passion and intellect.

And Tim Parks has a fascinating essay on mindful reading.  How words construct selves and how reading whilst aware of our own responses can make us know ourselves.  'Life is too short for a bad book or the right book at the wrong time' he says.  

There are two more to come in the series; I have already listened to these three twice each (they are a modest 15 minutes long).  A reminder that Radio 4 alone justifies the BBC's licence fee.

 

Comments

[Jo C]

Is it possible to print these easays

[Mrs Bookworld]

Yes they are available in book form - follow the link I have put in the title of the collection and it will take you to the book on Amazon.