Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey,

history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

This is a download from the BBC.

To find out more, visit BBC..co.uk slash radio four.

Hello on today's program the novelist Siri Hustford muses on living, thinking and looking.

With sales of e-books still a mysterious black hole, how do we nominate bestsellers

and how writers have responded to wild places?

There is no life higher than the grass tops or the hearts of sheep,

and the wind pours by like destiny bending everything in one direction.

I can feel it trying to funnel my heat away.

Ted Hughes, reading from Sylvia Plath's poem Wuthering Heights,

and later in the programme we continue our writing Britain series. Ted Hughes, reading from Sylvia Plath's poem Wuthering Heights,

and later in the program we continue our writing Britain series.

But first, an American author whose 24 years of laboring has finally paid off with a debut novel

that's already being described as a 21st century Catch-22.

Billy Lynn's long half-time walk by Ben Fanton takes a wry look at America's relationship

with the Iraq War, as told through the eyes of the eponymous Billy Lynn and his Bravo platoon.

Proclaimed heroes, when a battle against insurgents, in which one of their comrades dies

and another is seriously injured, is captured on film by a news network,

the soldiers are returned home for a two-week victory tour of the US.

Confronted by immense crowds of gung-ho patriots and flagwivers,

...