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Book of the Week

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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

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

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Susanna Hislop

Noma Dumezweni

Paul Copley

Colman Domingo

Jill Waters

Book of the Week: Stories in the Stars: Episode 2

Stories in the Stars

Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Stories in the Stars, Episode 2

The stories behind the names and shapes of the constellations that pattern the night sky.

Susanna Hislop on the origins of names of the night sky's constellations: Orion and nearby Taurus. From December 2014.

A seasonal reading for clear and frosty nights, when the skies sparkle with thousands of dots forming half remembered, almost traceable shapes. These are the stories behind the names and shapes of the constellations that pattern the night sky.
 
Stories In The Stars by Susanna Hislop is read by a range of voices and accents from around the country and the globe. It might be one of the stories that the great Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy assigned to them in his masterwork that became known as the Almagest, or it might be a personified first person narration from the constellation Chameleon having a grumble about the number of different names and imagined shapes assigned to him over the millennia.
 
From Greco-Roman mythology to the lives of the eighteenth century astronomers, this is a delightful miscellany which gives us a reason to step outside, look up and wonder at the magic lantern show above us.
 
Readers: Susanna Hislop, Noma Dumezweni, Paul Copley, Colman Domingo
 
Episode Two:
Orion is one of the most famous and recognisable figures in the night sky. Close by Taurus gallops across our night sky.


Abridged, directed and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4

Book of the Week: Stories in the Stars

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.

Susanna Hislop tells the stories behind the names and shapes of the constellations.

Susanna Hislop tells the stories behind the names and shapes of the constellations that pattern the night sky.

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