The Author Archive Podcast
Authors talking to David Freeman about their books. Most of the conversations are from David’s personal archive that have been collected over the past 40 years.
Episodes
Colin Dexter was a splendid writer. His creation Inspector Morse is superb on the page and just as gripping on television.
I used to meet Colin in the pub on Banbury Road in Oxford, The Dew Drop. He was great company and almost completely unaware of his success and star quality.
I recorded this conversation in his house after the publication of The Remorseful Day. He was relaxed and very happy to look back at his life in education ...
Joe Boyd is a man about music, record producer, a film producer and author.
He arrived in London in 1964 with Muddy Waters and a host of blues musicians who played to sold out UK audiences when they were unappreciated in their US homeland.
In this conversation he talks about Nick Drake, Paul Simon, The Incredible String Band, Paul Butterfield, MIke Bloomfield and the enduring power of real music.
Joe is currently on tour in North A...
Billie Holiday, Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7th 1915.
Bitter Crop is a superb biography of Billie Holiday who was probably the very best jazz singer there has ever been. The book title is takes from one of Billie's signature songs, 'Strange Fruit'.
There have been films and many books about Billie's career but not all of them came close to telling the whole truth of a remarkable life.
True there were drugs and alcohol but the...
Ruth Werner was born Ursula Kuczynski in Berlin.
She was appalled by Hitler and became a lifelong communist and a spy. During the 1940s she lived around Oxford and radioed secrets to Russia.
Her spy codename was Sonja and her memoir was published as Sonja's Report. Ben MacIntyre wrote a best-selling biography of her ...Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy.
David Freeman spoke to her in Oxford.
This conversation looks back at the post war time when all the world aspired to be young and American.
America was really perceived to be great back then.
How times change ........
Joseph Connolly paints a rock 'n roll picture.
When one looks at the antics and attitudes of the current president of the USA it easy to see parallels with the world view of Henry VIII. Although this account of the life lead by Henry VIII was first published at the turn of the century it is still selling well.
Alison Weir thinks the key to understanding the famous Tudor King is to realise that he was never alone. Even a conjugal visit to his wife or a trip to the loo were atte...
David Sedaris now fills arenas with enthusiastic fans but when David Freeman interviewed him in 2000 he was almost unknown.
His book 'Me Talk Pretty One Day ' was just published.
I would love to hear the Sedaris view of what is happening now in the US!
After Ashley Kahn had published his book on the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue he turned his attention to the timeless John Coltrane record A Love Supreme.
Not only is this still a highly regarded jazz performance, A Love Supreme is now the title of the biggest open air jazz festival in the UK.
Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore explains the mythic status of this eighteenth century Russian statesman, and military leader. Turns out that this slice of history informs current geo politics.
In this conversation recorded in London in 2000 the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore tells David Freeman about practical politics in 18th century Russia and how Potemkin made his way in society with the help of the love of Catherine the Gre...
Duke Ellington is famous, but what was he really like.
In this biography published in 2000, Stuart Nicholson writes about the man who was a brilliant instinctive and sophisticated musician.
Was he then a bit of a goody goody?
As Stuart Nicholson told me he was not in any way a goody goody!
The Oxford Companion to Music is probably the most famous music reference book of them all.
The latest edition was first published in 2002. It has over 120 contributors and covers covers the whole universe of music.
I spoke to the editor Alison Latham soon after publication.
A huge task to pull such a tome together ..... but maybe an enjoyable job?
Jon Ronson was not so well known when this conversation was recorded in the early 2000s
I was very taken with the subject of the book and the way Jon talked about it.
Being a Jewish journalist getting involved with people money raising for Hamas seemed improbable. It's true of course, as was Jon's interest in the wilder fancies of David Icke. Jon might well be fascinated by the wacky thoughts put about by the Trump administration.
...
As the American President declares that he has been saved by God to make his country great again, I find it impossible not to wonder about the precise nature of the deity that he professes to believe in. Are Donald and his advisers familiar with the writings that are the basis of his religion?
This book by Catherine Nixey is terrific - its a revelation and it's now available in paperback format.
Catherine has studied texts written...
As war rages in Europe again it becomes clear that the capacity for cruelty of man to a fellow human is seemingly infinite.
This interview with the Northern Irish poet Brian Keenan took place in London a full 10 years after his release from his barbaric incarceration in Beirut where he had been teaching at the local university.
Brian talks eloquently about his brutal treatment, but also about the strange things that can happen whe...
As the news from America becomes more and more worrying it's good to look back to the last century when everything was different and some American rock musicians brought joy to the world. Peace and Love meant something back then.
The Grateful Dead were very successful despite having no chart hits and they had a huge dedicated fanbase.
They were formed in California in 1965 and performed regularly for 30 years.
The anniversaries ha...
Kind of Blue is the most successful jazz LP ever made. It was recorded over two sessions in New York in 1959 and is still revered as a masterpiece.
Ashley Kahn told David Freeman the story behind a historic music event.
This novel is set in the 1960s with a backdrop of The Beatles and other music of the time.
It tells the story of Daisy Shoemaker who is 15 in 1964. She was born into a fundamentalist Mormon community on the US - Canada border.
In a ceremony called Placement she is given as a teenage wife to a much older man. She finds this intolerable and runs away.
The church official who makes the decisions is known as Bishop and he assures his f...
As the world remembers the inhuman brutality of Auschwitz this is an author who deserves to be heard.
The appalling inhumanity still happening in the world makes this conversation distressingly relevant. There is the thought that some people are less human then others. This has to be challenged.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on December 10th 1948.
We now live in a world where the rights agreed in that docume...
The future of democracy is a popular talking point.
The human race as been here before! When David Freeman talked to Dr Steve Kershaw about his book about battles in ancient Greece. it seemed that the human desire for conflict is unchanged through history.
Three Epic Battles that Saved Democracy is an entertaining and instructive read - now published in the US by Pegasus Books.
Great review in the Wall Street Journal.
The effect of the Trump win reverberates around the globe. There seems to be perceived electoral advantage in fanning hate and intolerance and spreading intolerance the idea around the world.
The Middle East is on a knife edge and the Ukraine war continues.
Why is this? Is there any cause for optimism? Where do non rational beliefs and convictions fit in the conflicts?
This conversation with the activist and thinker Tariq Ali was r...
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