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Background, context, and highlights from the transcript: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/07/16/sylvia-plath-ted-hughes-bbc-interview-1961/

Rare 1961 BBC interview with Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

Background, context, and transcript: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/07/09/sylvia-plath-spoken-word-tulips-bbc/

Sylvia Plath reads "Tulips": A Rare BBC Recording

Background and poem text: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/07/17/billy-collins-reads-marginalia

POEM TEXT

Billy Collins reads "Marginalia"

Background and transcript: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/07/23/raymond-chandler-ian-fleming-bbc/

Raymond Chandler in conversation with Ian Fleming: Rare BBC interview

Dressed in black and based in the US, Neil Gaiman has, in the past decade, become an author hero among readers of all ages, including the 1.8 million who follow him on Twitter. In prize-winning, best-selling novels including Coraline, Neverwhere, American Gods and The Graveyard Book, he combines the everyday and the other-worldly, drawing on sources from English folklore, science fiction, fantasy, horror and fairytales to rock music and the Midrash. An element of enchantment runs through all his work. To mark the publication of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, an unsettling and very personal fable about memory, magic and survival, he is making one public appearance in London. Interviewed by the Guardian's literary editor, Claire Armitstead, he reflects on the boundaries between children's and adult literature; the appeal of working in multiple forms - such as comics, picture books and screenplays; the writers - from Kipling to Edgar Allan Poe - who have most influenced him; and the lure of darkness.

The Guardian  is media partner for this event.

Neil Gaiman in conversation with Claire Armitstead: June 2013

THE COSMO DAVENPORT-HINES MEMORIAL MEETING

Writing a memoir is something most people leave until they are old and grey, with a life's work behind them; but Tracey Thorn and Damian Barr are just 50 and 36 respectively. Tracey Thorn's beautifully written, faintly wistful Bedsit Disco Queen, published in February, traces her development from shy, self-conscious teenager to internationally acclaimed pop-singer - one half of Everything But The Girl - and offers fascinating insights into the highs and lows of stardom. Damian Barr, prize-winning columnist, writer, playwright and presenter, is the founder of the Shoreditch House Literary Salon, and Maggie & Me, published this month, is his heartbreaking, heartwarming account of what it was like to grow up gay and in deep poverty in Thatcher's Britain.

In a conversation chaired by Susannah Clapp, theatre critic of the Observer, and interspersed with readings from their memoirs, they reflect on what moved them to look back on their lives so soon, explore the relationship between memory and imagination, and exchange views on the Iron Lady and her legacy.

Damian Barr and Tracey Thorn on midlife memoir

Background, poem text, and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/09/charles-bukowski-reads-friendly-advice-to-a-lot-of-young-men/

Charles Bukowski reads his "Friendly Advice To A Lot Of Young Men"

Commemorating the late Nobel laureate with this exquisite reading of one of his most famous masterpieces. Poem text plus timeless wisdom on poetry from his Nobel acceptance speech here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/30/seamus-heaney-reads-death-of-a-naturalist-nobel-lecture

Seamus Heaney reads "Death of a Naturalist"

Lake

A radio show by Mari and Matthew, compiled in December 2011

Jelly on a Plate

The Ol' Razzle Dazzle

If I'm Honest

Speaker(s): Professor Jan Pronk | Editor's note: We apologise for the audio interference that can be heard in parts of this lecture The lectures honour the name of Kapuscinski, a Polish journalist and writer known as the Voice of the Poor, who died in 2007. The project is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the United Nations Development Programme.Present challenges (such as climate change and economic dualism) are structural. They are larger than before. They last longer, not only because they are mutually related and reinforce each other, but also because they are not addressed coherently. However, we should be more concerned about the fact that we have dismantled our capacity to deal with those challenges, rather than by the challenges themselves.Capacity innovation should serve the interest of in particular two categories of people. First, the poorest of the poor. In the production systems of today, which are primarily based on capital and technology, rather than people and nature, the poor are more exploited and excluded than in earlier phases of world capitalism. Second: the yet unborn, the future generations, our grand children and great-grand children. People in the underbelly of the world's economy and people that will come out of the shadows of the future have one thing in common: they do not have a voice. But they have a claim.Jan Pronkis Professor Emeritus at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University, The Hague.Tim Allen is Professor in Development Anthropology at the Department of International Developmen at LSE. Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:30:00 GMT

Kapuscinski Lecture: How to respond to global threats in the decade ahead [Audio]

David Foster Wallace's iconic 2005 Kenyon College graduation address. Context and transcript here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/12/this-is-water-david-foster-wallace/

Part 2 here: http://soundcloud.com/brainpicker/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water-2

David Foster Wallace: "This Is Water" (part 1)

Background and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/20/gertrude-stein-1934-radio-interview/

Rare Gertrude Stein Interview, 1934

For full poem text, plus Eliot on idea-incubation and the mystical quality of creativity, go here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/26/t-s-eliot-on-creativity/

MORE / POEM TEXT

T.S. Eliot Reads "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Sylvia Plath reads "A Birthday Present." Written in September of 1962, recorded in October. Background and full text: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/29/sylvia-plath-reads-a-birthday-present-1962/

Sylvia Plath Reads "A Birthday Present" (1962)

Excerpt from a Cornell University reading courtesy of PennSound. Background and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/14/adrienne-rich-on-love-loss-happiness-creativity/

Adrienne Rich reads from "Twenty-One Love Poems" (1985)

Excerpt from a 2005 discussion at the Kelly Writers House, courtesy of PennSound. Background and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/14/adrienne-rich-on-love-loss-happiness-creativity/

Adrienne Rich on public vs. private happiness

Recording courtesy of PennSound. Background and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/14/adrienne-rich-on-love-loss-happiness-creativity/

Adrienne Rich on love and loss as the foundation of all art

Background, context, and transcript: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/20/tennessee-williams-reads-hart-crane

Tennessee Williams reads "The Hurricane" by Hart Crane (1960)

Background and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/20/william-butler-yeats-on-modern-poetry-1936/

Recording courtesy PennSound: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/

William Butler Yeats on Modern Poetry (1936)

Rhodes Last Lecture

In this era of texting and tweeting, leaving a voicemail message can seem as old-fashioned as sending a letter. Well, a couple of Los Angeles artists are turning voicemails into a public art project that you can appreciate anywhere you have reception. Reporter Carolina Miranda made some calls and found out what it’s all about.

Voicemail serves as public art project

“In witness whereof—hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell.”

Groundbreaking digital technology has allowed researchers to recover Alexander Graham Bell's voice from a recording held at the Smithsonian. The story: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/We-Had-No-Idea-What-Alexander-Graham-Bell-Sounded-Like-Until-Now-204137471.html

Complement with Bell on creativity, innovation, and the secret of success: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/12/alexander-graham-bell-on-success/

Alexander Graham Bell speaks

T.S. Eliot reads from his celebrated classic, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/04/t-s-eliot-reads-t-s-eliot-the-ad-dressing-of-cats-1947/

T.S. Eliot reads "The Ad-dressing of Cats" from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Excerpt from her 2013 McGill University commencement address

Transcript, and discussion: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/07/judith-butler-mcgill-2013-commencement-address/

MORE / HIGHLIGHTS

Judith Butler on the value of reading and the humanities

James Joyce reads from the Aeolus episode of Ulysses, the only passage he found to be “declamatory” and thus suitable for recital.

Background and context: http://exp.lore.com/post/53132569188/as-open-culture-explains-this-rare-1924-recording

James Joyce reads from Ulysses

The late Sopranos star reads the late Maurice Sendak's most controversial book.

Background and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/21/james-gandolfini-reads-maurice-sendak/