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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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Book of the Week: All Day Long

Ben Crowe

Teresa Gallagher

David Holt

Colleen Prendergast

Michelle Terry

Thom Tuck

Joanna Biggs

Pete Nichols

Karen Rose

Book of the Week: All Day Long: Episode 1: The Lawyer

All Day Long

Episode 1

Episode 1: The Lawyer

The Lawyer

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, All Day Long, The Lawyer

Joanna Biggs' portrait of Britain at work begins with the lawyer.

In 1974, the US broadcaster Studs Terkel talked to Americans "About what they do all day, and how they feel about what they do". His book telling their stories, Working, became a seminal tract in social history, and left an indelible print of how Americans worked and felt in the seventies.

Biggs has revisited Terkel's model in her tour of contemporary Britain - her interviewees including a lawyer, care worker, fishmonger, giggle doctor (yes, there really is such a thing), ballet dancer, quiz writer and potter, among many others. The book is a beautifully-observed portrait of the United Kingdom at work in the twenty-first century.

Episode 1: The Lawyer

Joanna Biggs is an assistant editor at the London Review of Books. She was born in Willesden, North-West London, in 1982.

Readers: Ben Crowe, Teresa Gallagher, David Holt, Colleen Prendergast, Michelle Terry and Thom Tuck

Abridged by Pete Nichols
Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk 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.

By Joanna Biggs. Portrait of the United Kingdom at work in the 21st century

By Joanna Biggs. Portrait of the United Kingdom at work in the 21st century. Abridged by Pete Nichols

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Episode 1: The Lawyer

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