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Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Over 350 editions available in the archive.

Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Search the extensive archive for interviews, debates and reviews. Go to Free Thinking for the new home of arts and ideas on Radio 3.

Night Waves: Free Thinking 2009

Night Waves: Free Thinking 2009: Lionel Shriver/Ian McMillan

Free Thinking 2009

18/02/2010

Lionel Shriver/Ian McMillan

BBC Radio 3 - Night Waves, Free Thinking 2009, Lionel Shriver/Ian McMillan

Lionel Shriver talks to Anne McElvoy about her novel A Perfectly Good Family.

As part of Radio 3's 2009 Free Thinking festival of ideas, Anne McElvoy is joined by novelist Lionel Shriver for an audience discussion about her 1996 novel A Perfectly Good Family.

Lionel Shriver is a novelist of international renown, best known for her controversial 2003 Orange prize-winning novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, about a mother and her mass murderer son. Recorded on 24th October 2009 as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking festival of ideas, presenter Anne McElvoy and an audience from New Writing North's book clubs join Lionel at the Sage Gateshead. They engage in an frank, wide ranging and lively conversation about her 1996 novel, A Perfectly Good Family - the story of three siblings and a grand inheritance - and they discuss the ways in which families are portrayed in fiction. And Anne presses Lionel on a popular but contested trend in novel writing today: writers who make sure their own troubled family life as part of their work. Does Lionel Shriver think it is ethical to do so - or can it cause lasting damage? 

Also in the programme from Free Thinking - you've heard of a poetry slam - poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan presents a theory slam as eight theorists from Gateshead pitch and pit their ideas against each other - debating and exploring philosophy, politics, culture and science in just three minutes.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Radio 3's ideas festival, with interviews, talks, public debates, drama and performance

Radio 3's festival of ideas, featuring interviews, talks, public debates, drama and live performance. With contributions from today's leading thinkers, artists, scientists and writers

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