Pale Fire (on the radio!), and other good stuff...

 Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov is a strange and compelling book.

 

I'd have thought it was impossible to put on as a radio play, but, dramatized by Oliver Emanuel, it comes off very very well. Just as strange as the original, you can find it on BBC Sounds.

 

By chance I'd re-read the novel just a few months ago, so I'm not sure how confusing it might be to someone who comes to it fresh. Still, a brilliant adaptation, directed by Kirsty Williams.

 I've never been able to get passed the first few pages of Ulysses by James Joyces, but this adaptation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man...

...was very good, again you'll find it on BBC Sounds. Read by Andrew Scott. Get the two omnibus editions if you can find them.

 

It has been a good couple of weeks on the radio, because there was also Wunderkind, by Sebastian Baczkiewicz. "It's 1770 and Leopold Mozart is taking his 14-year-old son on a much-anticipated trip to Italy to perform for the great and the good. They hit trouble in Rome when young Wolfgang is found to have written down the closely guarded and hitherto unpublished music for Allegri's sacred 'Miserere'. And Cardinal Ucelli sees a chance to make a name for himself."

 Scary in the way that it illustrates what happens when you give believers in God too much power.

And as if my cup was not overflowing there is a good new radio comedy (rare these days) The Train at Platform 4. Written by High Dennis and Steve Punt, plus a good cast Good stuff.