This Months Interview
This month our guest is Gyles Brandreth. Gyles is already well known in Petersfield. He’s one of Britain’s most sought-after speakers. A star of Celebrity Gogglebox, a veteran of QI and Have I Got News For You, and for many years one of the stars of Just a Minute BBC Radio 4. His many books include nine detective novels biographies (notably Philip: The Final Portrait) and four recent best-sellers.
Gyles Brandreth’s biography is a great read in itself. There is little he hasn’t done – and with no spoilers for the interview, here’s something I liked about his forebears:
They include George R Sims (the highest-paid journalist of his day, who wrote the ballad Christmas Day in the Workhouse) and Jeremiah Brandreth (the last man in England to be beheaded for treason). His great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Brandreth, promoted ‘Brandreth’s Pills’ (a medicine that cured everything!) I think Gyles can, too.
This month’s books were:
- Winter by Ali Smith
- The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber 1950
- Utterly Dark by Philip Reeve
- The Sentinel by Lee and Andrew Child
- The Fell by Sarah Moss
- Piranesi Susannah Clarke
- Audio: The Cost of Living Deborah Levy read by Juliet Stephenson
What’s coming up:
- The Mystery of the Lost Husbands by Gina Cheyne
- Making it Happen by Rebecca Stephens
- A Celebration of the South Downs National Park by Gordon Rushmer
- The Voice, the Face by Martin Muncaster
Suzie’s backlisted, with extract from:
- The Apple Tree by Daphne Du Maurier
A new edition of Talking Books is broadcast on the third Monday of the month at 8pm on Petersfield’s Shine Radio. It’s repeated at many other times during the month.
