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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Book of the Week

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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

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Book of the Week: David Mitchell - The Reason I Jump

Kasper Hilton-Hille

Allegra McIlroy

Naoki Higashida

Book of the Week: David Mitchell - The Reason I Jump: Episode 4

The Reason I Jump

Episode 4

David Mitchell - The Reason I Jump

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, David Mitchell - The Reason I Jump, Episode 4

Author David Mitchell introduces a unique book written by a 13-year-old with severe autism

A book by a teenager with severe autism has given an author a deeper understanding of his own son. Read by Kasper Hilton-Hille.

By Naoki Higashida
Translated by David Mitchell and KA Yoshida, and introduced by David Mitchell
Read by Kasper Hilton-Hille

Thirteen year old Naoki Higashida explores how he experiences the world as a child with autism. He describes how going for a walk can melt him into nature and out of time, his feeling that the touch of another person might make his thoughts visible, and the pleasure of numbers and lines. Most movingly, he explains that because he struggles to have a conversation with another person, he can find himself desperately lonely and aching for company.

When novelist David Mitchell, whose own son has autism, discovered this extraordinary book, he felt that for the first time his own son was talking to him about what was going on inside his head, through the words of the young author.

Abridged and Produced by Allegra McIlroy.

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 Naoki Higashida. David Mitchell translates and introduces this extraordinary book

By Naoki Higashida. David Mitchell, award-winning author of Cloud Atlas, translates and introduces this extraordinary book by a Japanese teenager with severe autism. Read by Kasper Hilton-Hille

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