Biography - Diaries & Letters

ALAN BENNETT - DIARIES

by Alan Bennett

read by Alan Bennett

running time 9hrs 3mins

Classic memoirs from the acclaimed English actor author playwright and screenwriter Alan Bennett is one of the country's most celebrated and best-loved authors. This unmissable collection of diaries and memoirs brings together for the first time Telling Tales Diaries: 1980-1990 the autobiographical section of Untold Stories which covers the period 1997-2004 and Keeping On Keeping On: The Diaries 2005-2014. In his earliest collection of diaries Alan Bennett offers a fascinating insight into his life in the eighties working on location for his early films and enjoying life at home in Camden. In the diaries of Untold Stories he enjoys the simple pleasures of nature and wonders about the state of religion and politics at the end of the twentieth century. In Keeping On Keeping On he looks back at a busy decade that saw him write four highly acclaimed plays reflects on his life with his partner Rupert Thomas and considers his lately found status as 'kindly cosy and essentially harmless'. Telling Tales meanwhile provides ten childhood snapshots and reminiscences about his early years-charting his development from a schoolboy in Leeds to a doubtful agnostic teen as well as his undergraduate life at the University of Oxford. With wit wisdom sharp social commentary and perceptive impressions Alan Bennett's memoirs and diaries are a joy to discover and a delight to hear again. For those who want to listen to Alan Bennett read Untold Stories in its complete form Alan Bennett: Untold Stories is also available from BBC Audio.

BAN THIS FILTH!:LETTERS FROM THE MARY WHITEHOUSE ARCHIVE (X Rated)

by Ben Thompson (editor)

read by Derina Dinkin

running time 14hrs 20mins

In 1964 Mary Whitehouse became the unlikely figurehead of a mass movement: the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association. For almost forty years she waged war against the programme makers, pop stars and playwrights who she felt were dragging British culture into a sewer of blasphemy and obscenity. X rated, contains offensive language.

CAME THE DAY

by Jean Smith (editor) & Grenville J Davies

read by Bob Rollett

running time 4hrs 15mins

Grenville J Davies, a young man from the Welsh Valleys, relates his experiences when taken Prisoner of War at the beginning of WWII. Held in Stalag and Forced Labour Camps in Poland and Germany, his story is retold from a diary he was able to keep on scraps of paper obtained whilst in camp.

DARLING MONSTER

by Diana Cooper

read by Angela Holland

running time 17hrs 30mins

Lady Diana Cooper was an aristocrat, society darling, an actress of stage and early screen. Diana’s letters to her only son, John Julius Norwich, cover the period 1939 to 1952. As a portrait of a time and some of history’s most dramatic and important events, these letters are invaluable. But they also give us a vivid and touching portrait of the love between a mother and son, and the constraints of the time they lived in.

FEW EGGS AND NO ORANGES: A DIARY SHOWING HOW UNIMPORTANT PEOPLE IN LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM LIVED THROUGHOUT THE WAR YEARS 1940-45

by Vere Hodgson

read by Derina Dinkin

running time 19hrs 30mins

Vere Hodgson worked for a Notting Hill Gate charity during the Second World War; being sparky and unflappable, she was not going to let Hitler make a difference to her life, but the beginning of the Blitz did, which is why she began her published diaries on 25 June 1940 after the first air raid of the war on London. The war continued for five more years, but Vere's comments on her work, friends, what was happening to London and the news combine to make Few Eggs and No Oranges unusually interesting.

GALILEO'S DAUGHTER

by Dava Sobel

read by Cecilia Laughton

running time 13hrs 45mins

Galileo's daughter became a cloistered nun but continued to correspond with her father. These intelligent letters have been translated for the first time and are used to bring Galileo, his times and his beliefs to life as never before.

THE HARD CROWD

by Rachel Kushner

read by Rachel Kushner

running time 7hrs 52mins

In her twenties Rachel Kushner went to Mexico in pursuit of her first love - motorbikes - to compete in the notorious and deadly race, Cabo 1000. As fellow racers died on the roadside, bikes were stolen and friends abandoned one another in the heat of the chase, she crashed at 130mph and miraculously survived; soon after, she decided to leave her controlling boyfriend and manoeuvred her way into a freer new life. The Hard Crowd is a white-knuckle ride through that life; a book about muscling your way through, finding your own path and, as she says in the hair-raising opening piece, 'completing the ride without dying'. In nineteen razor-sharp essays she explores friendship, loss, social justice, art and more, taking us into the world of truckers, a Palestinian refugee camp, the American prison system and the San Francisco music scene, via the work of Jeff Koons, Marguerite Duras and the Rolling Stones. Fearless and bold, The Hard Crowd is an electrifying book about living fast and free in a crowded world.

INSTEAD OF A BOOK; LETTERS TO A FRIEND

by Diana Athill

read by Jill Johnson

running time 9hrs 28mins

Diana Athill's letters to the American poet Edward Field reveal a sharply intelligent woman with a brilliant sense of humour, a keen eye for the absurd, a fierce loyalty and a passionate zest for life. The letters cover 30 years of Diana's life.

THE JOHN LENNON LETTERS

by John Lennon

read by Miscellaneous

running time 8hrs 30mins

John wrote letters and postcards all of his life; to his friends, family, strangers, newspapers, organisations and lawyers - most of which were funny, informative, campaigning, wise, mad, poetic, anguished and sometimes heartbreaking. For the first time, John's widow, Yoko Ono, has given permission to publish a collection of his letters.

THE KENNETH WILLIAMS DIARIES

by Kenneth Williams

read by Richard Ratcliffe

running time 34hrs 30mins

Kenneth Williams gives a glimpse of his world and profession through his diaries.

LANGUAGES OF TRUTH

by Salman Rushdie

read by Raj Ghatak

running time 13hrs 19mins

Gathering pieces written between 2003 and 2020, including several never previously in print, Languages of Truth chronicles a period of momentous cultural shifts. Across a wide variety of subjects, Rushdie delves into the nature of storytelling as a deeply human need, and what emerges is a love letter to literature itself. Throughout, Rushdie shares his personal encounters, on the page and in person, with storytellers from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, and Toni Morrison, and revels in the creative lines that can join art and life. Always attuned to the malleability of language, Rushdie considers the nature of truth, and looks anew at migration, multiculturalism and censorship. Written with the author's signature wit and energy, Languages of Truth offers pleasure and insight in equal measure, confirming Rushdie's place as one of the most original and important thinkers of our time.

MEMOIRS OF A DIPLOMAT'S WIFE

by Betty Holman

read by Patricia Mumford

running time 8hrs

In 1940 Betty Fox married Adrian Holman, a career diplomat, and immediately left England for the Embassy in Baghdad. Over the next fourteen years she regularly wrote to a friend detailing life in the diplomatic service and issues of the day. These memoirs are based on their letters.

NELLA LAST IN THE 1950S

by Robert Malcolmson & Patricia Malcolmson

read by Carole Boyd

running time 10hrs

Nella, now in her 60s, writes about the 1950s and reveals more about life with her increasingly troublesome husband. She offers a moving and humorous insight into the experiences of ordinary people at a time that shaped the society we live in today.

OPENHEARTED

by Michael Ingle & Ann Ingle

read by Michael Ingle

running time 8hrs

At 20 Londoner Ann Ingle fell madly in love with an Irish fellow she met on holiday in Cornwall. At the church to arrange their shotgun wedding she discovered that he hadn't even told her his real name. Sixty-odd years later Ann looks back on that first glorious fall and in a series of essays considers what she has learned from the life that followed - bringing eight children into the world, their father's years of mental illness and tragic death at 40, being a cash-strapped single mother in 1980s Dublin, coming into her own in her middle years - going to college, working and writing, and continuing to evolve and learn into her ninth decade, even as she accepts the realities of being 'old'.

A PERSONAL RECORD

by Joseph Conrad

read by Greg Wagland

running time 4hrs 45mins

Conrad, Polish by birth, who goes on to become one of the greatest novelists of the English language, describes his childhood and adolescence, discusses his forebears, one of whom fought on the side of Napoleon and ate a Lithuanian dog, the exile of his parents, the death of his mother and his relationship with his Uncle Tadeusz.

SAND IN MY SHOES

by Joan Rice

read by Finty Williams

running time 6hrs 24mins

With the outbreak of World War II Joan Rice hurried to enlist - aged 20 - in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Her diary tells the story of everyday war life, of the social whirl of service society and of her very first encounter with the man who would become her husband.

THESE WONDERFUL RUMOURS

by May Smith

read by Jane Colgan

running time 17hrs 30mins

A unique and surprising insight into life on the Home Front. Through May Smith's observant, witty and sometimes acerbic diary, we gain a new understanding of how the people of Britain coped with the uncertainty, the heartbreak and the black comedy of life during wartime.

THE VICTORIA LETTERS

by Helen Rappaport

read by Miscellaneous

running time 5hrs 30mins

At only 18 years old, Victoria ascended the throne as a rebellious teenager and gradually grew to become one of the most memorable, unshakeable and powerful women in history. The extensive writings she left behind document this personal journey and show how she triumphed over scandal and corruption.

WRITING HOME

by Alan Bennett

read by Terrence Hardiman

running time 19hrs 30mins

The author's diaries, reviews and reminiscences from 1980-1990 give an amusing and revealing portrait of one of England's leading playwrights. It also includes the true story of Mary Shepherd, a homeless tramp who took up residence in his garden and stayed for fifteen years.

YOURS, PLUM

by P G Wodehouse

read by David King

running time 9hrs

These letters to friends and family cover every aspect of Wodehouse’s career, including the Berlin Broadcasts, and shed new light on his reclusive personality. And most revealing of all, are his letters to Leonora, his stepdaughter, someone he loved and trusted completely.

ZLATA'S DIARY

by Zlata Filipovic

read by Derina Dinkin

running time 5hrs

Zlata was 11 years old when she wrote about her life in Sarajevo and the dramatic changes brought about by war.