The Secret Life of Books

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  • : 16
  • : 2
  • BBC Four
  • Documentary

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2
2x1
The Faerie Queene
Episode overview
Dr Janina Ramirez unravels Edmund Spenser's Elizabethan epic The Faerie Queene to reveal how this fantasy world of elves, nymphs and questing knights was written in the midst of the .. show full overview
2x2
Edward Lear's Nonsense Songs
Episode overview
Nicholas Parsons, a lifelong fan of Edward Lear, revisits the book that gave the world The Owl and the Pussycat to explore the fine line between joy and melancholy in Lear's writing and .. show full overview
2x3
The Mill on the Floss
Episode overview
Multi-award-winning actor and director Fiona Shaw explores the genesis of her all-time favourite book, The Mill on the Floss, and discovers how the scandal that caused George Eliot (born .. show full overview
2x4
Confessions of an English Opium Eater
Episode overview
Performance poet John Cooper Clarke explores Thomas de Quincey's autobiographical classic Confessions of an English Opium Eater, and discovers how his fellow Mancunian's addiction memoir .. show full overview
2x5
Cider with Rosie
Episode overview
Best-selling chronicler of modern country life, Joanna Trollope traces the roots of her favourite book Cider with Rosie to uncover how Laurie Lee blended fact and fiction in his wistful .. show full overview
2x6
Swallows and Amazons
Episode overview
Former journalist and keen amateur sailor John Sergeant takes to the water in the wake of the plucky young heroes of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, and learns how a .. show full overview