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Desert Island Discs

Kate Mosse, writer

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.413.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kate Mosse OBE is a British novelist and broadcaster. She is the author of ten novels and short story collections, including The Joubert Family Chronicles and the best-selling Languedoc Trilogy. She has also written four works of non-fiction including her memoir about caring, An Extra Pair of Hands. In 1996 she co-founded the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Born in Chichester, she studied English at Oxford University and had a very successful career in publishing before writing her first book about pregnancy. Her novel, Labyrinth, published in 1995 and set in Carcasonne, became an international bestseller which enabled her to give up her publishing job and write full time. Kate lives in Chichester with her husband, Greg Mosse, and her mother-in-law, Grannie Rosie. She is a Visiting Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester, a Patron of the Chichester Festival for Music, Dance and Speech, and President of the Festival of Chichester. She was awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to literature and women. DISC ONE: Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens DISC TWO: These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Nancy Sinatra DISC THREE: Station to Station - David Bowie DISC FOUR: Walls Come Tumbling Down - The Style Council DISC FIVE: I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor DISC SIX: Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83. Composed by Maurice Ravel. Performed by Martha Argerich and London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado DISC SEVEN: Dancing Queen - Abba DISC EIGHT: La chanson des vieux amants - Jacques Brel BOOK CHOICE: Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot LUXURY ITEM: A jukebox CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83, composed by Maurice Ravel and performed by Martha Argerich and London Symphony Orchestra Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Sarah Taylor

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts

0:04.9

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern, and this is the Desert Island Disks podcast.

0:08.6

Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them

0:13.9

if they were cast away to a desert island.

0:16.5

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

0:21.2

I hope you enjoy listening.

0:30.0

My cast away this week is the writer Kate Moss.

0:47.0

She's known for her best-selling historical novels.

0:49.7

Her 2005 breakthrough labyrinth sold five million copies,

0:53.6

was translated into 38 languages, and made her, as she put it,

0:57.9

an overnight success at the age of 45.

1:01.2

On the page she's an adventurer, taking her readers on epic quests

1:05.2

interweaving her lifelong loves of history and landscape

1:08.8

with page-turning action.

1:10.4

She is, she says, not nearly as intrepid as her heroines,

1:14.0

though she is on a lifelong quest.

1:16.0

She's made it her mission to champion women's stories.

1:19.4

She was enjoying a successful publishing career when she co-founded the women's prize for fiction

1:24.4

and she's been the driving force behind it for almost 30 years.

1:28.7

She also writes forgotten women back into history,

1:31.7

through plays, short stories and non-fiction,

1:34.7

like last year's warrior queens and quiet revolutionaries,

...

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