New And Noteworthy - Brief Article

The spoken books is the format through which many people come across great works of literature. In many cases, hearing the text is better than reading it -- this is especially the case with poetry. It is, after all, something of a return to the old custom wherein a member of the family read a text aloud or, centuries before that, to the oral literature of our ancestors. One of the world's leading producers of spoken word texts is, of course, Penguin Audio and they have recently released two classic texts. The first is George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (ISBN 0-14-180191-3. Six cassettes. Ten hours.) read by Timothy West whose superb voice catches all the subtleties of the text. The second Penguin tape, issued in conjunction with Faber & Faber, is Jim Broadbent's reading of the unabridged text of W. S. Gilbert's The Bab Ballads (ISBN 0-14-180178-6. Two cassettes. Two hours.), a perfect example of reading bringing marvellous poetry to life.

The BBC, of course, is known round the world as a major force in enhancing and preserving spoken English. Their famous 'Radio Collection' has recently released a wide range of tapes of famous programmes from BBC Radio. There are two tapes of the incomparable Joyce Grenfell: Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure (ISBN 0-563-22606-4. Two cassettes. Three hours, fifteen minutes.) and Dear Joyce... Dear Ginnie: The Letters of Joyce Grenfell and Virginia Graham (ISBN 0-563-55272-7. Two cassettes. Two hours, twenty minutes.) Other releases include two famous BBC programmes which started on television and were then transferred to radio: Dad's Army: A Soldier's Farewell: Volume 10 (ISBN 0-563-55347-2. Two cassettes. Two hours.) and The Complete Yes Prime Minister (ISBN 0-563-55332-4. Six cassettes. Six hours.) with twelve of the original television episodes. These remain, a legal expert has remarked, one of the best insights into the British Constitution since Dicey.

Also from the BBC's 'Radio Collection' is Daphne Du Maurier's most famous novel, Rebecca (ISBN 0-563-39469-2. Two cassettes. Two hours.) read here by Harriet Walter and a dramatised version, first heard on Radio Four, of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (ISBN 0-563-55226-3. Two cassettes. Two hours.) in which Jamie Glover stars as Dorian Gray and Ian McDiarmid as Lord Henry Wotton.

Among new printed books worthy of note WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON have published Andro Linklater's The Code of Love: A True Story ([pound]U6.99. 235 pages. ISBN 0-297-64358-4). This is a fascinating account of how one man survived the horrors of a Japanese p.o.w. camp. Donald Hill did so by keeping a diary in a secret code. While he ultimately succumbed to mental illness brought on by the war he left the diary that has now been decoded and used as the basis for this story of love, separation, war, torture and impaired survival.

THAMES & HUDSON'S expansion into the world of reference books continues with two new titles. The first is John Haywood's Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age ([pound]19.95. 223 pages. ISBN 0-500-01982-7) which has over 400 articles on almost every aspect of Viking life, from Adam of Bremen to oars, from fames to William the Conqueror. The 279 illustrations add greatly to our understanding. The second is Mary Somers Heidhues' Southeast Asia: A Concise History ([pound]16.95. 192 pages. ISBN 0-500-25117-7). Southeast Asia includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam. She discusses the region by using a clever division of topics: waterways, temples and rice, religions, trade, colonial empires, World War Hand the Cold War and 'development and democracy'. Again the illustrations, 131 in number, greatly enrich the text.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS has recently published two new volumes in the Cambridge Fitzgerald Edition of the novelist's works: Trimalchio and Flappers and Philosophers. Trimalchio: an Early Version of The Great Gatsby ([pound]30.00/USS39.95 192 pages. ISBN 0-521-40237-9), the short novel which was later transformed into The Great Gatsby, was written in Paris in 1924. Flappers and Philosophers ([pound]35.00/USS49.95. 398 pages. ISBN 0-521-40236-0) is Scott Fitzgerald's first collection of short fiction to be published in 1920 in the wake of his best-selling novel, This Side of Paradise. There is a wide range of scholarly aids to help readers to get the most out of the stones.

Also from CAMBRIDGE'S American branch comes Harvey Fergusson's translation of the Italian historian, Elena Agarossi's A Nation Collapses: The Italian Surrender of September 1943 ([pound]30.00/US$39.95. 187 pages. ISBN 0-521-59199-6). Signora Agarossi gives us an honest examination of why and how Italy collapsed in 1943 and she is severe in her judgement on the Badoglio government, the army's leadership and the King who 'was not capable of meeting the tasks he faced'. This is 'revisionist history' at its best.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS has brought out Writing Weimar: Critical Realism in German Literature 1918-1933 by David Midgley ([pound]50.00. 390 pages. ISBN 0-19-815179-9) in which the author discusses the most important developments in German poetry, the novel and the theatre during what he calls 'this explosive phase'. He also looks at how writers remembered the First World War, interpreted the differences between country and town and coped with new technological developments.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group