Original version

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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Book that Changed Me

The Essay: The Book that Changed Me: Episode 1: Steve Earle on In Cold Blood

The Book that Changed Me

Episode 1

Episode 1: Steve Earle on In Cold Blood

Steve Earle on In Cold Blood

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Book that Changed Me, Steve Earle on In Cold BloodClose menu

Musician and singer Steve Earle discusses the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

Musician and singer Steve Earle discusses how the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote captured his imagination as a 12-year-old boy.

The legendary singer-songwriter Steve Earle describes how Truman Capote's true-life murder story, "In Cold Blood", captured his imagination as a 12-year-old boy. He first encountered the tale - a dramatic account of a multiple killing in Kansas - in the film version, shown at a local drive-in movie house. "I had to find a copy of that book and read it for myself," he says, stealing the volume from his mother's handbag and devouring it over the next couple of days. Capote's story inspired his decades-long campaign against the death penalty. And the book led him to feel empathy for the killers at the centre of the tale, thanks to "the power of intellect and humanity flowing from heart to hand to pen to page."
Producer: Smita Patel.

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.

People involved in the arts discuss the books that inspired them in their careers

Series in which people involved in the arts discuss the books that inspired them in their careers

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Essay

The Book that Changed Me

Episode 1: Steve Earle on In Cold Blood

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3