What with Benedict Cumberbatch’s radical new television interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, and the recent big-screen Guy Ritchie / Robert Downey / Jude Law action movies, the Baker Street seven per-center is enjoying a major revival of interest. How appropriate, then, that the master scriptwriter of the entire Holmes canon should ...read more →

How do you go about writing a book about one of the most powerful dynasties on earth? That’s the challenge special guest Russ Baker faced when he first considered writing about the Bush family; a tribe that encompasses two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, two Presidents and ...read more →

It was supposed to be “the war that will end war” – according to the misplaced optimism of British author H.G. Wells, and countless others like him who cheerfully expected “our boys” to be home by Christmas 1914.   Involving all the world’s great powers, more than 70 million combatants, and ...read more →

To mark the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice, Peter takes tea with Claire Harman, author of the highly acclaimed biography Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World.  If you share E. M. Forster’s passion – “I am a Jane Austenite, and therefore slightly imbecile ...read more →

His origins were humble; a working-class boy from a small military town in northern Sweden, not far from the Arctic Circle.  Today, he is one of the most influential figures in the world of literature, because  Peter Englund is Permanent Secretary to the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the ...read more →

Having scaled the walls of Faber’s well-manicured garden eleven years ago, Faber chief executive Stephen Page found himself in the broadcast hot-seat, sandwiched between Naked Bookers Philip Jones and Sam Missingham. This show is the first in an occasional series of tête à têtes, devoted to  the illuminati of the ...read more →

He’s Britain’s most controversial politician, and he tells it like it is.  David Cameron? On Botox!  The BBC’s chairman Chris Patten? An old toad who should be abolished! And please don’t get him started on immigration. Wait a minute – this is The Garry Bushell Show!  The place where political ...read more →