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Monday, February 23, 2004

Get London Reading Launch

Did anyone make it along to the Get London Reading launch today? I heard the likes of Nick Hornby, Zadie Smith, Gilda O'Neil (My East End: A History Of Cockney London) and Martina Cole interviewed by Dotun Adebayo (Diran Adebayo's brother I suppose) on Robert Elms' afternoon show on BBC London Radio 94.9 FM whilst driving along the West Way and the North Circ (no sign of Vaughan or Ballard!). It kinda felt like I was there, and I got to hear all their thoughts on the subject to boot. Ofcourse, they all have books to sell and projects underway that will hit the shops soon but the mood was one of a genuine interest in the role of books and reading in their lives and the life of the city we all live in. A little self congratulatory on the idea that London has such a great array of literary talent, but hey why not. The piece made me want to read Gilda O'Neil's book and Martina Cole sounded interesting too.

Dotun Adebayo has a book show called Word for Word on BBC London 94.9 on Sundays 5-7pm that I've caught a couple of times. There's a link to the show's online book club but it seems to have lapsed - missing their moment perhaps - and got no further than inviting comments on Helen Fielding's follow up to Cause Celebre (which I must admit to having read when it came out - haven't met anyone else who has ?) the title escapes me. I enjoyed The Edge of Reason too.

Anyway, Robert Elms had Clive Harris on a bit later talking about his book Walking the London Blitz.



Synopsis
This Battleground Europe 'special' is a fascinating and highly informative guidebook to the Capital which will be invaluable to those who wish to understand what Londoners went through during the Second World War. By means of seven easily manageable walks, the reader is transported back to those dark days of devastating destruction. Using rich anecdotes and first-hand accounts the scale of the Luftwaffe raids becomes apparent and the horror of Hitler's V-weapon attacks unfurls. An original and fascinating way to visit London.

It sounded very interesting. He had some great stories about leaning lamp posts giving clues to where bombs exploded, shrapnel scars on buildings, and V2s leaking fuel on their left side and falling short in Croydon as a result.



Robert Elms does have a marvellous radio show - just a shame his website doesn't list all the guests he has on, its easy to hear names, books, records, references on the radio and not be able to remember them later! - he does have a list of his ten favourite non-fiction books about London though. And he randomly played my fave feel good track of the past month today - Do you Believe in Magic by The Lovin' Spoonful - at just the right moment - which is the mark of sheer radio brilliance - how do they know just what you want to hear at that moment?

Posted by Nick @ 23:21 GMT

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