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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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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.

Matthew Sweet

Linda Grant

Aminatta Forna

Naomi Alderman

Tim Stanley

Zahid Warley

Night Waves: The New Common Reader

The New Common Reader

22/04/2013

BBC Radio 3 - Night Waves, The New Common Reader

Matthew Sweet examines the place of reading in a digital age.

Matthew Sweet examines the place of reading in a digital age. Do we still believe that there is such a thing as a common reader?

Matthew Sweet will be following in the distinguished footsteps of Samuel Johnson and Virginia Woolf. He's leading an elite party of literary explorers - Linda Grant, Aminatta Forna, Naomi Alderman and Tim Stanley on an expedition to find "the common reader" -- a being stalked by Woolf in the 20th Century and by Johnson in the 18th. Both believed that the common reader "uncorrupted with literary prejudices" was the final arbiter of "poetical honours" so it's a quest that's clearly still relevant today. The question is what does a common reader look like in our digital age? What are they reading? Where? And how? Pack your e-reader and your thesaurus of course and tune in to Night Waves and join the hunt.

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.

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