Thursday, September 21, 2006

The Rebuke: Emma takes Flaubert to task

Click to visit the BBC websiteBBC Radio Four: The Afternoon Reading
Friday, 22 September
3.30pm -- 3.45pm

To mark the 150 year anniversary of the publication of Madame Bovary in 1856, five specially commissioned monologues by different writers give a contemporary twist to the themes and passions of Flaubert’s classic novel.

The Rebuke
Written by Julian Barnes; Performed by Pat Kavanagh

Emma takes Flaubert to task over his treatment of her. In this unexpected retelling, she has not committed suicide and is, many years later, recounting her true story. She describes the ingenious means by which she extricated herself from debt and engineered her escape from Yonville with her reputation intact.

Available online for one week after broadcast. Note: The audio version is abridged from the original text due to be published in The Guardian Review on 30 September.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Arthur & George -- New Vintage Paperback

Vintage announces the U.K. release of Arthur & George in paperback (September 2006). Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Arthur & George is the story of two men who grow up worlds and miles apart in late 19th century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Catholic Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, George a Birmingham solicitor, is happy in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events that made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.

With a mixture of intense research and vivid imagination, Julian Barnes brings into sharp focus not just this long-forgotten case but the inner workings of the two men and the wider psychology of the age. Arthur & George is a novel in which the events of a hundred years ago constantly set off contemporary echoes. It is a novel about low crime and high spirituality; guilt and innocence; identity, nationality and race; and thwarted passion. Arthur & George explores what we think, what we believe, and what we know.

Click to visit the Vintage Website



Available for purchase from Amazon.co.uk and numerous local independent booksellers.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Arthur & George -- Audiobooks

Click to visit the Arthur & George webpageBBC Audiobooks America has released an unabridged recording of Arthur & George. Read by Nigel Anthony on CD or cassette, the recording runs 17 hours and 17 minutes.

Copies of the unabridged audiobook can be ordered online through Amazon.com, or through other fine booksellers.

An abridged version read by Nigel Anthony is also available. Published by BBC Audiobooks, the recording runs 5 hours. It's available from Amazon.co.uk, or through other fine booksellers.

You may also be interested in listening to Julian Barnes discuss Arthur & George in this interview conducted during his U.S. book tour [Conducted by Rick Kleffel]. Available in .mp3 format.