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Books and Authors

Open Book: Gail Jones, 1930's crime stories and the Tower of London's Ravens

Books and Authors

BBC

Society & Culture, Books

4.2824 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2018

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Gail Jones, revisiting iconic literary detectives and crime fiction of the 1930's.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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

0:05.4

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

0:10.8

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

0:17.5

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

0:22.7

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

0:28.7

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

0:35.0

check out BBC Sounds. This is the BBC.

0:43.5

Hello, come a little closer, slip on your braincoat and grab a notepad

0:48.3

because there's a murky business to investigate today on Open Book.

0:52.5

A dead body has been found in the House of Commons.

0:55.3

We look into the crime fiction of 1930s MP Ellen Wilkinson.

1:00.0

And two of the most distinctive sleuths in literature,

1:02.9

Holmes and Marlow, are back.

1:05.2

How reverential should writers be with these iconic characters.

1:09.2

But first, a mystery with a hint of the Godfather

1:12.1

by the much-lawed and award-winning Australian writer Gail Jones.

1:16.6

Describing herself as a novelist of ideas,

1:19.3

this is a book positively bursting with them,

1:22.1

with meditations on everything from the time-collapsing nature of memory

1:26.0

to the timelessness of art, the nature of grief,

1:29.3

sibling love and fatherhood. The novel begins and ends with the death of eponymous art historian

1:35.3

Noah, who in his last month may have become embroiled in an art theft. As his adult children,

...

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