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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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Noma Dumezweni

Jessica Gunning

Colman Domingo

Susanna Hislop

Jill Waters

Book of the Week: Stories in the Stars: 24/12/2014

Stories in the Stars

24/12/2014

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Stories in the Stars, 24/12/2014

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: A unicorn – the constellation Monoceros. 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: Noma Dumezweni, Jessica Gunning, Colman Domingo
 
Episode Three:
A Unicorn – the constellation Monoceros is as likely to exist as Father Christmas.


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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24/12/2014

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