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

BBC Radio 3

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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 3: Ben Anderson

Episode 3

Episode 3: Ben Anderson

The Book that Changed Me

Ben Anderson

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Journalist Ben Anderson explains how The Autobiography of Malcolm X inspired him.

Ben Anderson, a correspondent with Vice News, explains how reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X led him to become a journalist.

Ben Anderson, correspondent with Vice News, on how "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" led him to become a journalist. He discovered the book, ghost-written by Alex Haley, as "a skinny white kid living in Bedford". Yet the story of the American firebrand for the cause of black power became his touchstone. He was inspired by the way Malcolm X devoured every possible book while in prison. "Suddenly a fire was lit inside me. I had a path to follow," Anderson says. And Malcolm X's urge to see the world for himself was another source of inspiration. "This basic approach of just getting there and witnessing has become my job," he says. Malcolm X's " constant search, his relentless curiosity, his willingness to face unpleasant facts and reinvent himself, set an example that I?ve tried to follow ever since."
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 working in the arts discuss the books that inspired them in their careers

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

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