Showing results by author "Melvyn Bragg" in All Categories

Continuing the story of Joe from A Son of War, this is the story of the rapid changes in his life from working-class Wigton to the rarified atmosphere of Oxford as he begins his studies there.

Since its debut in 1998, In Our Time has amassed a dedicated following of more than 2 million listeners. Hosted by Melvyn Bragg, with a panel of guest experts, each show features a plethora of fascinating facts and inspirational discourse on topics ranging from democracy to dark matter. This specially curated collection celebrates the rich diversity of poetry in English, focusing on 25 major works and writers from the mediaeval era to the 20th Century.

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the history of the Islamic world through its religion, thinkers, poetry, empire and rulers 'An ever-growing library of wisdom' The Economist Since 1998, In Our Time has been the go-to radio programme for knowledge seekers and inquiring minds. Tackling big topics...

A Time to Dance charts the consequences of a relationship between a man of 54 and a girl of 18. The gap in their backgrounds, expectations, and experience proves to be as wide as that between their ages.

A major 60-part BBC radio series exploring the questions that have preoccupied philosophers through the ages, presented by Melvyn Bragg. With his landmark series In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg introduced an audience of over two million to big ideas across the realms of science, religion, culture, history and philosophy. Now, in A History of Ideas, he looks at the fundamental concepts that underpin our world, and the great thinkers who explored them - from Plato, Aristotle and Seneca to Freud, Rousseau, David Hume and John Stuart Mill.

In this captivating 10-part series, Melvyn Bragg brings all his enthusiasm, experience and expertise to a subject that has enthralled him his entire life: the importance of the North in shaping the United Kingdom. Joined by special guests, he charts the ebb and flow of Northern power and influence, examining how one smallish geographical region came to have such an enormous effect on our culture worldwide: from science and philosophy to music and sport.

Melvyn Bragg follows his long historical exploration of the Routes of English with 'Voices of the Powerless', the BBC Radio 4 series in which he explores the lives of the ordinary working men and women of Britain at critical moments across the last 1,000 years. The Norman Conquest is his...

Broadcaster and arts presenter Melvyn Bragg fronts 'The Written World', a five-part BBC Radio 4 series following the origins of writing from its first appearance 6,000 years ago and exploring how it has shaped the world's intellectual history. In the first programme he looks at the technology...

In this collection, Melvyn Bragg surveys how English has evolved over 1,000 years. He starts by looking at the disappearance of old dialects like that of Cumbria, and how English has been enriched by foreign languages, from Latin and Old French to dozens more as conquest, trade and immigration played their part in recent centuries. He also examines new coinages, puns and wordplay; how accents and social class are entwined; swear words; attempts to stop the evolution of language in its tracks and, lastly, the many varieties of English that are spoken around the world today. 

In the spring of 1946, ex-corporal Samuel Richardson returns home from Burma to Wigton in Cumbria, to the relief of his young wife, Ellen. He finds a town in which little has changed. Sam, however, has changed: the war has left him with traumatic memories. And there's six-year-old Joe, a baby when Sam volunteered, who can scarcely remember his father. As all three strive to adjust, the bonds of love and loyalty become stretched to breaking point.

At the end of May 1381, the fourteen-year-old King of England had reason to be fearful: the plague had returned, the royal coffers were empty and a draconian Poll Tax was being widely evaded. Yet Richard, bolstered by his powerful, admired mother, felt secure in his God-given right to reign...

A profoundly thought-provoking, moving novel that breathes fresh life into one of history's most remarkable and enduring love stories. Paris in 1117. Heloise, a brilliant young scholar, is astonished when the famous, radical philosopher, Peter Abelard, consents to be her tutor. But what starts...

Joseph Tallantire has hope and ambition - like his father before him he is determined to make something of himself and improve his lot. But life is not easy for an uneducated young man in Cumberland before and during World War II, and Joseph's struggle against the odds is the subject of this...

Douglas Tallentire has at last achieved what his father and grandfather before him fought for so bitterly. Educated and independent, he can carve out his own career and spread his wings. But success, freedom and happiness are more elusive than ever in the fiercely competitive Seventies. From...

Could he not put together a memory for her? Perhaps he could become her memory. To build it from fragments, or make it up. And most of all bring back Grace. Her own mother. John visits his ageing mother Mary in her nursing home by the sea, and mourns the slow fading of her mind. Hoping to shore...

A passionate but ultimately tragic love affair starts when two students - one French, one English - meet at university at the beginning of the sixties. From its tentative, unpromising early stages, the relationship develops into a life-changing one, whose profound impact continues to reverberate forty years later.

Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time series regularly entertains and fascinates substantial audiences on BBC Radio 4. For this book he has selected episodes which reflect the diversity of the radio programmes, and take us on an amazing tour through the history of ideas, from philosophy, science and...

It was not love at first sight. It proved to be not much of a conversation…Nothing should have come of it. A passionate but ultimately tragic love affair starts when two students - one French, one English - meet at university at the beginning of the sixties. From its tentative early stages...