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BBC Radio 4 LW

Open Book

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books

Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books, talking to authors and publishers and unearthing lost classics

BBC Radio 4 FM

Mariella Frostrup

Philip Pullman

Jung Chang

Alexander McCall Smith

Andrea Kidd

Open Book: Philip Pullman, Jung Chang, Alexander McCall Smith

13/10/2013

Philip Pullman, Jung Chang, Alexander McCall Smith

BBC Radio 4 - Open Book, Philip Pullman, Jung Chang, Alexander McCall Smith

Philip Pullman discusses children's books of the early Soviet era with Mariella Frostrup.

Philip Pullman discusses the great Soviet children's classics of the 1920s and 30s, Jung Chang on Empress Dowager Cixi, and Alexander McCall Smith on the book he would never lend.

Philip Pullman discusses a new anthology celebrating the golden age of children's literature in Russia during the 1920s and 30s. Called Inside the Rainbow, it explores how stories and vibrant modern art were used to win over the hearts and minds of the country's children during turbulent political times, while also allowing creativity banned in other areas of the arts to flourish.

Jung Chang talks to Mariella Frostrup about her biography of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the woman who was the power behind the throne of Imperial China for over forty years. A controversial figure, who poisoned her own adopted son, Chang explains why she feels Cixi has been misrepresented by history and her importance to the modernisation of China.

Alexander McCall Smith shares the book he would never lend - WH Auden's Collected Shorter Poems and describes how the poet has been an inspiration for his own work.

Producer: Andrea Kidd.

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