Books To Make Space For On The Bookshelf

Episodes

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01The Black Lizard2021031520231023 (R3)Edogawa Rampo's stories give us a Japanese version of Sherlock Holmes. New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding traces the way detective fiction chimed with the modernising of Japan, when the ability to reason and think problems through logically was celebrated, when cities were changing and other arts mourned a lost rural idyll. In The Black Lizard, the hero Akechi Kogorŀ? plays a cat and mouse game with a female criminal who has kidnapped a businessman's daughter.

Christopher Harding is the author of The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives and Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 - the Present (published in the US as A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 – the Present). He teaches at the University of Edinburgh.

He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can use their research to make radio programmes.

You can find him discussing other aspects of Japanese history in the playlist Free Thinking explores South and East Asian culture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq

He presented an Archive on 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b064ww32 and a series about Depression in Japan also for Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cv0y4 and a series of 5 Essays for BBC Radio 3 called Dark Blossoms about Japan's uneasy embrace of modernity https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01kb2

Producer: Ruth Watts

New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding reads the Japanese equivalent of Conan Doyle.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Hirai Tarŀ? (1894-1965) wrote under the name Edogawa Rampo. Having translated Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe he came up with a hero, Akechi Kogorŀ?, fit for a modernising country.

Edogawa Rampo's stories give us a Japanese version of Sherlock Holmes. New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding traces the way detective fiction chimed with the modernising of Japan, when the ability to reason and think problems through logically was celebrated, when cities were changing and other arts mourned a lost rural idyll. In The Black Lizard, the hero Akechi Kogor? plays a cat and mouse game with a female criminal who has kidnapped a businessman's daughter.

Christopher Harding is the author of The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives and Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 - the Present (published in the US as A History of Modern Japan: In Search of a Nation, 1850 - the Present). He teaches at the University of Edinburgh.

He is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can use their research to make radio programmes.

You can find him discussing other aspects of Japanese history in the playlist Free Thinking explores South and East Asian culture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq

He presented an Archive on 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b064ww32 and a series about Depression in Japan also for Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cv0y4 and a series of 5 Essays for BBC Radio 3 called Dark Blossoms about Japan's uneasy embrace of modernity https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01kb2

Producer: Ruth Watts

New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding reads the Japanese equivalent of Conan Doyle.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

02John Halifax, Gentleman2021031620231024 (R3)Dinah Mulock Craik achieved fame and fortune as the author of the 1856 bestselling novel John Halifax, Gentleman. New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore reads this rags-to-riches tale of an orphan boy who rises in the world through sheer hard work and sterling character and her essay looks at the way it encapsulates the most cherished values of its period - but, she argues, both it and the author are more subversive than they first appear. Though she was seen as an icon of the self-improving, respectable middle-classes, Craik had a colourful, often unconventional private life, supporting her husband with her writing and adopting a foundling, but dogged by her father, who was a dissenting preacher put into debtor's prison more than once; and her novels explore disability, forbidden desire, familial dysfunction, and the dark side of her culture's celebration of self-made success.

Clare Walker Gore is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio programmes. She teaches at the Open University and is the author of Plotting Disability in the Nineteenth Century Novel.

You can hear Clare talk about this research in the Free Thinking episode Depicting Disability

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p02b

She contributed to Radio 3's Essay Series Women Writers to Put Back on the Bookshelf profiling the author Margaret Oliphant https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fws4

She has also written an Essay about a 19th-century tiger-hunting MP, who was born without hands and feet.: Politician and Pioneer: Writing the Life of Arthur Kavanagh https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ns10g

Producer: Emma Wallace

Clare Walker Gore explains how Dinah Mulock Craik subverted Victorian expectations.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

02John Halifax, Gentleman2021031620231024 (R3)Dinah Mulock Craik achieved fame and fortune as the author of the 1856 bestselling novel John Halifax, Gentleman. New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore reads this rags-to-riches tale of an orphan boy who rises in the world through sheer hard work and sterling character and her essay looks at the way it encapsulates the most cherished values of its period – but, she argues, both it and the author are more subversive than they first appear. Though she was seen as an icon of the self-improving, respectable middle-classes, Craik had a colourful, often unconventional private life, supporting her husband with her writing and adopting a foundling, but dogged by her father, who was a dissenting preacher put into debtor's prison more than once; and her novels explore disability, forbidden desire, familial dysfunction, and the dark side of her culture's celebration of self-made success.

Clare Walker Gore is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio programmes. She teaches at the Open University and is the author of Plotting Disability in the Nineteenth Century Novel.

You can hear Clare talk about this research in the Free Thinking episode Depicting Disability

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p02b

She contributed to Radio 3's Essay Series Women Writers to Put Back on the Bookshelf profiling the author Margaret Oliphant https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fws4

She has also written an Essay about a 19th-century tiger-hunting MP, who was born without hands and feet.: Politician and Pioneer: Writing the Life of Arthur Kavanagh https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ns10g

Producer: Emma Wallace

Clare Walker Gore explains how Dinah Mulock Craik subverted Victorian expectations.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

The story of an orphan made good, narrated by his disabled friend, became a best seller in 1856. New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore profiles the novelist and her core themes.

03Sindhubala2021031720231025 (R3)The rights of tribal people, the lives of ordinary workers and the depiction of female desire were amongst the themes explored by the writer Mahasweta Devi. Born in Dhaka in 1926, she attended the school established by Rabindranath Tagore and before her death in 2016 she had published over 100 novels and 20 collections of short stories. Sindhubala is one such story, which traces the tale of a woman made to become a healer of children and for New Generation Thinker Preti Taneja, Mahasweta's writing offers a way of using language to explore ideas about power, freedom and feminism.

Preti Taneja is the author of the novel We That Are Young and the non fiction book Aftermath. She teaches at Newcastle University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.

You can find other Essays by Preti available on the Radio 3 website including one looking at Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001kpc

Creating Modern India explores the links between Letchworth Garden City and New Delhi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08j9x3h

You can also find her discussing Global Shakespeare and different approaches to casting his plays in this Free Thinking playlist on Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm

And a Free Thinking interview with Arundhati Roy about translation https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Preti Taneja on the writing and politics of Bengali author and activist Mahasweta Devi.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

03Sindhubala2021031720231025 (R3)The rights of tribal people, the lives of ordinary workers and the depiction of female desire were amongst the themes explored by the writer Mahasweta Devi. Born in Dhaka in 1926, she attended the school established by Rabindranath Tagore and before her death in 2016 she had published over 100 novels and 20 collections of short stories. Sindhubala is one such story, which traces the tale of a woman made to become a healer of children and for New Generation Thinker Preti Taneja, Mahasweta's writing offers a way of using language to explore ideas about power, freedom and feminism.

Preti Taneja is the author of the novel We That Are Young and the non fiction book Aftermath. She teaches at Newcastle University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.

You can find other Essays by Preti available on the Radio 3 website including one looking at Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001kpc

Creating Modern India explores the links between Letchworth Garden City and New Delhi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08j9x3h

You can also find her discussing Global Shakespeare and different approaches to casting his plays in this Free Thinking playlist on Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm

And a Free Thinking interview with Arundhati Roy about translation https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Preti Taneja on the writing and politics of Bengali author and activist Mahasweta Devi.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

New Generation Thinker Preti Taneja reads the story, by Indian author Mahasweti Devi, of a childless woman forced to become a semi-divine healer saving other people's children.

04Closer2021031820231026 (R3)Drugs, sex, violence and thinking about death are at the core of the George Miles cycle of five novels. New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester draws the links between the author Dennis Cooper and the radicalism of the Marquis de Sade. Now 70, Cooper's books have been praised for his non naturalistic writing and the texture of teenage thought that he captures in the series, which begins with Closer, and condemned for depravity. George Miles was his childhood friend and then lover, who ended up committing suicide.

Diarmuid Hester teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a 2020 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. He has published WRONG: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper, and Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Histories

You can hear him talking about Derek Jarman's garden in this Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgm5 and discussing the new narrative movement in America alongside Dodie Bellamy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001q76q

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Diarmuid Hester looks at the George Miles Cycle from punk radical Dennis Cooper.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

04Closer2021031820231026 (R3)Drugs, sex, violence and thinking about death are at the core of the George Miles cycle of five novels. New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester draws the links between the author Dennis Cooper and the radicalism of the Marquis de Sade. Now 70, Cooper's books have been praised for his non naturalistic writing and the texture of teenage thought that he captures in the series, which begins with Closer, and condemned for depravity. George Miles was his childhood friend and then lover, who ended up committing suicide.

Diarmuid Hester teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a 2020 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. He has published WRONG: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper, and Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Histories

You can hear him talking about Derek Jarman's garden in this Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgm5 and discussing the new narrative movement in America alongside Dodie Bellamy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001q76q

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Diarmuid Hester looks at the George Miles Cycle from punk radical Dennis Cooper.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester compares the transgressive writing of Dennis Cooper about teenage boys, love and pain to the Marquis de Sade, and The Ramones' punk gigs.

05There's No Story There2021031920231027 (R3)The dangerous world of an explosives factory is the setting of Inez Holden's 1944 novel There's No Story There. A bohemian figure who went on to write film scripts for J Arthur Rank, to report on the Nuremberg Trials, and produce articles published in Cyril Connolly's magazine Horizon - Holden campaigned for workers' rights and was close friend of George Orwell, and though she published ten books in her lifetime, she fell out of fashion - until now. New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen re-reads her writing and finds a refreshingly modern mind.

Lisa Mullen is the author of Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after the Second World War. She teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.

You can hear Lisa writing on George Orwell and the contribution of his wife in a Radio 3 Essay called Who Wrote Animal Farm? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000413q

She has presented short features about Mary Wollstonecraft as a single mother https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061ly

On the blackthorn in Sloe Time https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n6bx

She has contributed to Free Thinking discussions about Contagion and Viruses https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gbq6 and Weimar and the Subversion of Cabaret https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b7r7

She has presented episodes of Free Thinking looking at eco-criticism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rw8t and Panto and magic https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q376

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Lisa Mullen looks at the depiction of war-time factory workers in a novel by Inez Holden.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen profiles Inez Holden, novelist and journalist who reported on the Nuremberg Trials and was a friend of George Orwell, H G WELLS and Stevie Smith.

The dangerous world of an explosives factory is the setting of Inez Holden's 1944 novel There's No Story There. A bohemian figure who went on to write film scripts for J Arthur Rank, to report on the Nuremberg Trials, and produce articles published in Cyril Connolly's magazine Horizon - Holden campaigned for workers' rights and was close friend of George Orwell, and though she published ten books in her lifetime, she fell out of fashion - until now. New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen re-reads her writing and finds a refreshingly modern mind.

Lisa Mullen is the author of Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after the Second World War. She teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio.

You can hear Lisa writing on George Orwell and the contribution of his wife in a Radio 3 Essay called Who Wrote Animal Farm? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000413q

She has presented short features about Mary Wollstonecraft as a single mother https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00061ly

On the blackthorn in Sloe Time https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n6bx

She has contributed to Free Thinking discussions about Contagion and Viruses https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gbq6 and Weimar and the Subversion of Cabaret https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b7r7

She has presented episodes of Free Thinking looking at eco-criticism https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rw8t and Panto and magic https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q376

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Lisa Mullen looks at the depiction of war-time factory workers in a novel by Inez Holden.

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.