books, poetry, plays- the spoken word on the radio/ online??

do you listen to much, or any literature online or on the radio?

i listen to radio 4, which has a play on each afternoon, Poetry Please every sunday, as well as Book At Bedtime, a book show, and another book serialised in the morning, a classic serial, and BBC radio 3's literature output is excellent too... you can listen again for a week after broadcast, but lots are podcast too-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/programmes/

are there any other reccomendations?

Wow, I've never heard of that. Then again, I live in America, where a commercial for McDonalds sometimes passes for literature.

Thank you for the link. I will have to check this out!

Really?? I thought loads of americans listen to the beeb- there are always texts and emails in from americans, as well as other countries.
Cant believe you never knew of it! Glad to pass it on, though. Enjoy.

You can listen live, but its night now so its just dull stuff- check the world clock, but its best 2-5pm, and eves. Also check bbc radio 7 (now called radio4 extra)-, which is old radio 4 stuff.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio7/programmes/a-z/player
- this week- chekov, hancock, the goons, and weird stuff- one man's attempt to start the country's first communist football team...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c8ygy/episodes/player
Coming home one night i saw an american guy get his phone snatched outside my building. I waited with him til the police came, and drunkenly apologised for my country's poor reception of him, then tried (? Drunk logic!) to console him w a list of good things in the uk, mainly bbc radio... cough. Im their most random pr!
some of their radio output is amazing- proper writers and authors, too-alan rickman, david attenborough, mike leigh etc, as well as new ones. Bob dylan even has a music programme!
Anyway, enough of my eulogies- im SURE there is a resource somewhere of loads of old american radio plays and soaps from the 30s-50s.
And seriously, do you have NO bookish progs on radio?? There have to be!

i found some archived stuff today...

this looks amazing-
http://www.archive.org/
modern and old- http://www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

http://www.otrr.org/

bbc radio is good live- no ads. ;D

violet wrote:

Really?? I thought loads of americans listen to the beeb- there are always texts and emails in from americans, as well as other countries.
Cant believe you never knew of it! Glad to pass it on, though. Enjoy. .
And seriously, do you have NO bookish progs on radio?? There have to be!

Not that I'm aware of. But now I'm going to Google and see if there are any in my area. Again, thanks for the links!

The times you gave, is that Greenwich time?

My pleasure. Its *kind of* gmt- but we have British Summer Time now, so GMT is winter time. Google 'world clock' and you can see the time dif. We have just one time zone, btw. The 'archive' site looks ace! Ive not had time to listen to anything, or find other sites, though. I really love listening to spoken word stuff as i stride about, either country or city (ive even mastered walking and reading- so geeky!)-more than music. Anyway, Radio 4 is cool- so varied. Try radio 7, too. They have the george smiley and peter wimsey books on at the moment. And 3! Its mainly classical but swoonily good. No ads and all the staff are expert. They have full length concerts each day, full operas-they did The Ring over easter weekend once. They have Composer of the Week -info, analysis and concerts of the composer, usually classical, but gershwin this week. Its not dull, either. Thats daily, over a week. Saturdays theres live opera from the Met in NY, but i cant remember which US station thats on for you. It was die walkure last sat- epic heaven! .They have great history of music progs, too- i heard one on bluegrass, and american folk, with interviews with really old black people, whose grand parents had been slaves (the ints were old, i think), then they'd sing and still have sweet, bright voices. Stuff like that gets in your head and stays- more than tv EVER does. Its all free, so dive in! I think theres station, as well as programme, message boards too, and most of the shows love emails etc. Not *entirely* off topic, as radio 3 has dramas and book-ey stuff too.

Actually, ignore what i said abt radio 4 in the mornings, it has some nice stuff on. The dramas and literature tend to be on in the p.m. Sorry, im over tired- brain fried.

I don't listen to live radio literature, because I'm hard pressed to find any here. I did, however, manage to get ahold of some recordings of the BBC Drama edition of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and another one called The Uncommon Reader, both very good fun and highly recommended.