Veteran arts presenter Melvyn Bragg is to present a new four-part ITV1 television series on the 12 books he thinks have changed the world. The Twelve Books that Changed the World, a follow-up to his last ITV1 literary series The Adventure of English, has begun filming for broadcast in April 2006.
The twelve world-changing books, according to Bragg, are (in chronological order):
• Magna Carta (1215)
• King James Bible (1611)
• William Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623)
• Principia Mathematica (Isaac Newton, 1687)
• Patent specification for Arkwright’s spinning machine (1769)
• The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith, 1776)
• William Wilberforce’s Commons of Commons speech (12 May, 1789)
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792)
• Experimental Research in Electricity (Michael Faraday, 1855)
• The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin, 1859)
• The first rule book of the Football Association (1863)
• Married Love (Marie Stopes, 1918)
Lord Bragg also presents ITV1’s arts television programme The South Bank Show and BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time which has to be the most uncompromisingly intellectual programme on any channel in any medium. Interestingly, it is also the BBC’s most popular ‘podcast’ - see BBC Radio download and podcast trial for details of the BBC’s podcasting trial service of selected radio programmes which runs until the end of this year. Podcasts are mp3 downloads which can be played on any mp3 player.
An ITV spokeswoman said Bragg wrote the series himself: “When people think of things that change the world, they tend to think of extraordinary events: the assassination of leaders; the invasion of countries; the havoc wreaked by natural disasters. All extremely dramatic, but there is something less attention-grabbing, but just as powerful, which changes the world - books.”
Lord Bragg, who is Controller of Arts at London Weekend Television and president of the National Campaign for the Arts, also writes books - including the books to go with his many tv and radio series, not to mention 17 novels. Where does he find the time?
The 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced this afternoon. Out of the 17 longlisted books (see previous post), the following six were shortlisted:
- John Banville - The Sea (Picador)
- Julian Barnes - Arthur & George (Jonathan Cape)
- Sebastian Barry - A Long Long Way (Faber & Faber)
- Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go (Faber & Faber)
- Ali Smith - The Accidental (Hamish Hamilton)
- Zadie Smith - On Beauty (Hamish Hamilton)
The main surprise is that Ian McEwan failed to make the grade with Saturday - thought to be a dead cert for the shortlist if not for the overall winner. Other literary heavyweights falling at the first fence were Salman Rushdie (for Shalimar the Clown) and J M Coetzee (for Slow Man) - both previous Booker Prize winners.
We have a local representative on the shortlist: Ali Smith, who lives in Cambridge. This year’s dark horse is Sebastian Barry with A Long Long Way about Irish soldiers in the Great War. Kazuo Ishiguro is a previous winner of the Booker Prize (as it was then known) with The Remains of the Day in 1989 - which became better known with the 1993 film version starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as the butler.
John Sutherland, Chair of Judges, commented:
“The selection of a shortlist, the judges felt, was an unusually difficult process this year. There was sufficient quality for two distinguished lists. We were aware that the rules require that the award be to the best novel. The strength of the year’s competition can be measured by the fact that three good books by previous Man Booker winners were finally not selected. This shortlist, we believe, witnesses to the remarkable quality of the current state of fiction. We look forward to the final round.”
Reactions already out in
The Guardian:
Former winners absent from Booker shortlist,
The Times:
Booker shortlist delivers snub to some literary lions and BBC:
Barnes and Smith make Booker list.
Last year’s winner was Alan Hollinghurst for The Line of Beauty, a satire of the 1980s Conservative government. The library has acquired this book and intends to acquire this year’s winning book.
