You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.

My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.

The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.

With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to

helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all

put together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life,

check out BBC Sounds. This is a download from the BBC. To find out more, visit BBC.com.ukuk slash radio four.

Hello in today's programme, the river runs through it, how the waterways of Britain have inspired writers from Dickens to DeMore.

And with so much great European literature about, why aren't we reading it?

But first, some first-class British fair from the biographer, columnist and author A.N. Wilson.

Having illuminated us on the lives of everyone from Hitler to Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis to Jesus Christ,

and penning a series of novels alongside, including the book along listed

Winnie and the Wolf, Wilson has been a surprisingly prolific author for a man whose roots

were in clay. In his latest novel, The Potter's Hand, he returns to his Staffordshire birthplace,

elaborating and speculating on the life and legacy of Josiah Wedgwood, the visionary

whose world-famous pottery company Wilson's father was to run two centuries later.

Wedgwood famously sought perfection in his pottery, sourcing the finest clay from around the

world, and was one of the great enlightened industrialists of the

18th century, fascinated in pushing the boundaries of science, creating a village for his workers,

building canals, supporting the abolition of slavery, and selling exquisite dinner services to royalty at a loss,

knowing that middle-class business would surely follow.

Having grown up in Wedgwood country among communities built on the potteries

...