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BBC Radio 4 LW

Book of the Week

Audiobooks

Factual

Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

BBC Radio 4 FM

Book of the Week: The Unexpected Professor

Nicholas Farrell

Jill Waters

John Carey

Book of the Week: The Unexpected Professor: Episode 2

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Factual: Life Stories

The Unexpected Professor

Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, The Unexpected Professor, Episode 2

Rummaging in the study produced not just books but bullets too.

John Carey tells how rummaging in the study produced not just books but bullets too.

From Biggles to bee-keeping, John Carey threads together the chapters of his life in books - taking in politics, social history and the skirmishes of academia along the way.

Vignettes of pre-war Hammersmith and Barnes accompany affectionate accounts of Saturday jobs which he was expected to do to compensate the household for staying on at school.

The book is also partly a tribute to the grammar school system. He skewers the snobbishness of Oxford in the 50s but also gives us endearing portraits of the writers and scholars he met and was taught by - including Graves, Larkin and Heaney.

Later in his life, his politics and his sometimes controversial cultural criticism take centre stage, producing a commentator who is not afraid to move between genres and labels, always saying something refreshing and frequently unexpected.

Episode 2
Rummaging in the study produced not just books but bullets too.

Read by Nicholas Farrell
Abridged and directed by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Academic and reviewer John Carey looks back on a life in and around books.

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