Radio 4: Saturday Live

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Yes, it was me giving my all on the beauty of the hardback book, and I'm sorry I didn't let everyone know! If you want to listen (and have a few, a very few moments of the Black Beauty tune - can't think why they put that in) then it's here, at least for the next 7 days.

Comments

Jane Badger said…
Posting the comments up here instead of on next post:

Juliet said...
Ha! Just heard you on the radio. Didn't catch the intro but knew straight away that it simply HAD to be you. And it was.

Well done - an excellent piece and you are soooo right about the importance of reading Famous Five in those lovely old red hardback editions - there's just no other 'right' way to do it!

10 May 2008 01:49
Jane said...
Thanks! I'm profoundly grateful I sounded sane (oddly, they edited out the bit in which we inspected my bookshelves and found my son's old electric toothbrush.)

10 May 2008 02:19
Juliet said...
Jane - you sounded just great. I rarely listen to that programme but I happened to have it on just before I stepped into the shower and was arrested mid-step, as it were, by the subject matter. So I listened to most of it standing on one leg. The electric toothbrush is very welcome to join my Museum of Odd Things Found In Bookcases. I found a dead frog on the bottom shelf of mine, once. It was very flat and wrinkly. I didn't keep it.
10 May 2008 at 11:22
Jane Badger said…
The one thing I've noticed about dead frogs is that they don't tend to smell. When we moved the kitchen furniture around a few years ago we found several dessicated frogs (we used to have a kitten who specialised in catching them and bringing them in as presents) but we hadn't had the lingering stink of death you get with a well hidden rodent.
10 May 2008 at 11:24
Jodie Robson said…
Lovely to hear you yesterday - I really enjoyed it and thought about what you'd be saying all day. In fact, it inspired today's post (here, if you are interested: http://geraniumcatsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2008/05/hardback-vs-paperback-revisited and sorry I can't remember how to do all that embedding bit). I'm sorry they cut the bit about the toothbrush, it would have made me laugh, being rather familiar territory.
11 May 2008 at 18:31
Chalky Pots said…
Hi Jane must admit I do not normally listen to Fi Glover but there was not much on the radio on Saturday Just Sport !! and as I was driving my 40 ton truck on a boring motorway. I needed to listen to something to keep me alert,and your article did the trick I was enthralled listening to your article about hardback books and I am just re-listening again as I type this letter and it took me back 50 years and I identified with most of what you were saying I got my 1st ever hardback book from my Sunday school for good attendance when I was 10 years old anyway thanks again for a really nice article.Thanks Chalky
13 May 2008 at 13:12
Jane Badger said…
geraniumcat - thank you! I can't do the embedding thing either (in fact I didn't even know it was possible.)

Chalkypots - thank you too.
16 May 2008 at 17:18
Jane Badger said…
Sorry Chalky pots - lost concentration and finished posting before I'd finished answering you. I'm pretty certain some of my first hardbacks were Sunday School prizes too, though the one I'm fondest of was a Puffin paperback! (Mary Treadgold: The Winter Princess)
16 May 2008 at 17:22
galant said…
I have only just been directed to your blog from elsewhere, and I missed your paperback v. hardback talk, but I believe in horses for courses. Some paperbacks are lovely, especially paperback originals and, of course, Penguins and Persephone books. But I totally agree that some books must be read in their original form, such as the red Famous Fives (I had them all as a child, mint with dustwraps as my parents bought each one for me as it was published. This wasn't difficult as we had a newsagents shop which also sold books! Similarly I could not think of any other way of reading the Lorna Hill ballet books only in their original hardback form (by Evans) with dustwraps showing ballet dancers. However, 'original format' doesn't extend - with me - the books of Angela Brazil, as I read them in the small hardback Blackie format, so if I wished to collect those, then I'd be collecting the 1950s Blackies and not the original 1920s versions.
Paperbacks have their uses - ideal for reading in bed - but give me a beautiful hardback any day!
23 May 2008 at 19:20
Jane Badger said…
Galant - I do so agree! I'm not much of a one for ballet books but I do love the look of those Lorna Hills: they're a wonderful example of everything working together to create something that works as an artefact. Beautiful.
25 May 2008 at 11:42
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