0:00:12 > 0:00:16APPLAUSE
0:00:16 > 0:00:21Thank you, and welcome to My Life In Books, a chance for my guests to share their favourite reads.
0:00:21 > 0:00:22Joining me tonight,
0:00:22 > 0:00:26Sir Trevor McDonald, the most famous newsreader of his generation.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28So great that when he tried to retire
0:00:28 > 0:00:33ITN claimed they couldn't manage without him and brought him back.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Alongside him, the actress and comedienne Rebecca Front,
0:00:36 > 0:00:38who won a BAFTA last year for her performance
0:00:38 > 0:00:43as the hard-done-by MP Nicola Murray in the BBC series The Thick Of It.
0:00:43 > 0:00:45Let's begin with childhood reads.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48Trevor, you were brought up in Trinidad.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51I was brought up in Trinidad in the West Indies, yes.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53Very different to life here.
0:00:53 > 0:00:55Slightly. Especially in the winter.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58And school, what sort of school was it?
0:00:58 > 0:01:03Well, it was a school which was based very much on the English public school line,
0:01:03 > 0:01:06and I remember now with great fondness,
0:01:06 > 0:01:09but I do laugh about it at times, all my books came from Oxbridge.
0:01:09 > 0:01:14They were all printed there, and they were very much the books that people would be reading here,
0:01:14 > 0:01:20because Trinidad was a colony of the Empire, and so that influence was pretty profound.
0:01:20 > 0:01:26- Rebecca, did you read as a child? - I did. Books were a big part of my childhood.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30My mother wrote books, and my father illustrated books.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33- Writing's a part of the family. - Plenty of books in the household.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36Lots and lots of books around, yeah.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40And you have a book you brought in with you that your father wrote, or your mother wrote.
0:01:40 > 0:01:47Yes. They produced about six or seven books together, so that's my mother's story and my father's illustrations.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51And it's a book about theatre. Both my parents are obsessed with theatre.
0:01:51 > 0:01:55And in fact, the central character is called Jem, which is my brother's name,
0:01:55 > 0:01:59and the book's dedicated to me and my brother. So books were a big part of growing up.
0:01:59 > 0:02:04Your first choice, Trevor, is a classic, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08- How old were you when you were reading this? - I must have been fairly young.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12I mean, reading was to become a passion which was encouraged by your parents.
0:02:12 > 0:02:18My father, who was himself formally uneducated, had this view that you improved yourself,
0:02:18 > 0:02:21which everybody in the West Indies wanted you to do.
0:02:21 > 0:02:23That was the great thing, improve yourself.
0:02:23 > 0:02:25Reading was one way of doing it.
0:02:25 > 0:02:30And so he'd make me read anything. He would make me get discarded newspapers,
0:02:30 > 0:02:34and made sure I read them. Then, at one stage he worked...
0:02:34 > 0:02:39although he was an engineer in the oil refinery, he worked mending shoes for a Scottish doctor.
0:02:39 > 0:02:42And there were odd copies of The Lancet lying around,
0:02:42 > 0:02:45and he'd bring copies of those home, and I read The Lancet.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47God knows why my father made me read this,
0:02:47 > 0:02:51but you know, I was to read anything, as long as they were not comics.
0:02:51 > 0:02:53He didn't like my reading comics at all.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56So there you were with Great Expectations.
0:02:56 > 0:02:58- Tell us about the plot of this. - Well, it's about...
0:02:58 > 0:03:04The main character is Pip, who is brought up by his sister, a terrible lady.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06Husband is a rather nice, charming chap,
0:03:06 > 0:03:09and Pip seems to be going nowhere until he finds an escaped convict.
0:03:09 > 0:03:17He meets a curiously mad lady called Miss Havisham and the icy beauty of Estella,
0:03:17 > 0:03:22and then somebody gives him the money to make a life for himself in London.
0:03:22 > 0:03:27And they said, "Quite frankly, Pip, you now become a man with great expectations.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30"You could do something with your life, you could become a gentleman."
0:03:30 > 0:03:33And Dickens does it in a wonderful way,
0:03:33 > 0:03:36by drawing great, great diagrams of characters
0:03:36 > 0:03:39which I think are unmatched in literature, really.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43And Pip's being brought up by his sister, who's quite a tricky character.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45Well, she's not a nice woman. She's awful.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47And her poor, put-upon husband.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50He was a wonderfully kind man who,
0:03:50 > 0:03:55one wonders, why on Earth did he ever get hitched to this woman?
0:03:55 > 0:04:01And you know, if you read a bit of what Dickens said about him, he said,
0:04:01 > 0:04:02"He was a fair man,
0:04:02 > 0:04:06"with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face,
0:04:06 > 0:04:09"and with eyes of such a very undecided blue
0:04:09 > 0:04:12"that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16"He was mild, good natured, sweet tempered, easy going,
0:04:16 > 0:04:18"foolish, dear fellow.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22"A sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness."
0:04:22 > 0:04:27You have to imagine in my case, a child in the West Indies, a long way from anywhere,
0:04:27 > 0:04:31because one was in this curious position of reading about people in England.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34Again, 4,500 miles away.
0:04:34 > 0:04:39And so what stood out for me was the sharpness with which these characters were drawn.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43And Rebecca, your first choice, wonderful, The Wind in the Willows,
0:04:43 > 0:04:47Kenneth Grahame, which of course is illustrated by EH Shepard.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50Give us a brief description, in case anyone doesn't know it.
0:04:50 > 0:04:55Well, Wind In The Willows is the story of a group of friends who are all animals.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59It starts with Mole, who is spring cleaning one day, and gets bored
0:04:59 > 0:05:03and goes out for a walk, and then befriends Ratty, who's a water rat.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07And then they also have a friend who's a badger, and the wonderful
0:05:07 > 0:05:11Mr Toad, who lives in Toad Hall, who's this sort of roguish character.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15And for me, what I love about the book is, it's all about home, and I'm very...
0:05:15 > 0:05:17I love home more than anything else.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20I love hunkering down and just being at home.
0:05:20 > 0:05:25And the whole book seems to me to be about variations on how you get back home.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28Are you a mole, a rat, a badger or toad, Trevor?
0:05:28 > 0:05:33I did like the idea of Mole until you mentioned he was very good at spring cleaning.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35No, he's not, he gets bored very easily.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Oh, he gets bored, yes. But I would never begin,
0:05:38 > 0:05:41so I'm not too sure I'd have the time to get bored.
0:05:41 > 0:05:46Every man I know is... All these characters are archetypes for men, and every man I know falls into
0:05:46 > 0:05:49one of these characters, so I think you do have to choose.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52Let's have a look at some of the characters here.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55This is from the 1983 film. Toad has just done something very bad.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57I think it's his driving.
0:05:57 > 0:06:03I am pleased to inform you that Toad has seen the error of his ways.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06He is truly sorry for what he has done,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09and perceives the folly of it all.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12That is good news.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14Do you, Toad?
0:06:14 > 0:06:16Do you really?
0:06:17 > 0:06:19No! Ha-ha! I'm not sorry at all! Ha-ha!
0:06:19 > 0:06:22And it wasn't folly, it was simply glorious!
0:06:22 > 0:06:27What? You backsliding animal! Didn't you tell me in there...?
0:06:27 > 0:06:29Oh, yes, in there.
0:06:29 > 0:06:31I'd have said anything in there.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36- Does the film match the book for you?- Not quite, no.
0:06:36 > 0:06:42But that just made me laugh, because I've been out with a Toad once or twice in my life!
0:06:42 > 0:06:43Tell us more, tell us more.
0:06:43 > 0:06:49Very charming, but they never regret anything and you just, you find yourself so exasperated.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52I'm not married to a Toad, I'm glad to say. I'm married to a Ratty.
0:06:52 > 0:06:57Trevor, your next choice, James Cameron's Point Of Departure, this leads to your career, doesn't it?
0:06:57 > 0:06:59It's a wonderful book.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01Published in 1967,
0:07:01 > 0:07:05and James Cameron was a very, very famous foreign correspondent.
0:07:05 > 0:07:11I think what made him so brilliant was the fact that he wrote like a god.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14I mean, with spectacular beauty.
0:07:14 > 0:07:19And then he got the chance to go to all the places
0:07:19 > 0:07:22where big international events were happening.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24Anything in the '40s, '50s and '60s, he was there.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27Later in life he took to TV, and we've got a clip
0:07:27 > 0:07:32here where he's reflecting on his life as a foreign correspondent.
0:07:32 > 0:07:38I was terribly cross sometimes, and very unhappy sometimes, and frequently very lonely.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42But, on the other hand, what other job could I have been doing
0:07:42 > 0:07:46where I would have been able to whizz all over the place,
0:07:46 > 0:07:51at somebody else's expense, meet people of significance?
0:07:51 > 0:07:54Meaningful people who wouldn't have had the slightest
0:07:54 > 0:07:58time for me as an individual, but did have some time for me as
0:07:58 > 0:07:59a newspaper man.
0:07:59 > 0:08:04I think he encapsulates there quite beautifully just what it means to be a foreign correspondent.
0:08:04 > 0:08:11And the bit about being lonely too, he once tried to re-establish himself in the community in England,
0:08:11 > 0:08:17after lots of foreign trips and found it terribly, terribly difficult. He went to extremes.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21He saw people in pubs with leather patches on their coats,
0:08:21 > 0:08:25and thought, "That's what I need to do, I'll put some leather patches on."
0:08:25 > 0:08:28And he did, and still didn't fit in.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31So it was a lonely job.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34It requires a great curiosity about people, doesn't it?
0:08:34 > 0:08:38I think it's the most important point about being a journalist and correspondent of any sort.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41You have to have an interest in people, and things, and in the news.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45And you have to have an interest in telling people about it.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49And I also suspect a minimum bit of talent as well, in doing that.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52And of course, as you say, he did some of the great stories of all time.
0:08:52 > 0:08:58By the time you'd left Trinidad, you'd already moved into radio, hadn't you?
0:08:58 > 0:09:00I'd done some radio, yes.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03- And you came over here to work for the World Service?- That's right.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06And you moved on to be a foreign correspondent.
0:09:06 > 0:09:09I got a chance to do some foreign travel by myself.
0:09:09 > 0:09:15I must say, I think Cameron's work still goes far beyond anything
0:09:15 > 0:09:20that I achieved, because his stories seemed to be much, much bigger than anything that I did.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23But obviously there was a similarity, and that drew me even more to the book.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27Is there one story he covered here that is memorable to you?
0:09:27 > 0:09:30I think the story of his going to cover the dropping
0:09:30 > 0:09:34of the first atomic bomb, and the way he describes it.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37He followed it on this American ship, and he describes life on the ship.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41You know, the PA system didn't quite work.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44He thought the food was quite awful.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46And they put ice cream on hot plates.
0:09:46 > 0:09:52But much more than that, he thought that they wasted so much food, and so at the end of every day,
0:09:52 > 0:09:58large joints, off which they would only have cut one bit, would be dumped into the sea.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03And so he said, "All the fish in the ocean realised that ours was the boat to follow."
0:10:03 > 0:10:08And then, the final line he said, "Sadly they stayed with us too long,
0:10:08 > 0:10:11"and were in the vicinity of the atoll when the bomb went off."
0:10:11 > 0:10:15And he describes that, hearing that noise,
0:10:15 > 0:10:20as a door being slammed in the deepest part of the ocean.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24And, you know, and it was introduced with the words,
0:10:24 > 0:10:27"Listen, world, this is crossroads."
0:10:27 > 0:10:30My goodness, crossroads it certainly was.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34- And he was the only British correspondent there, wasn't he? - He was.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36I mean, he was very much a writing journalist.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41To me, I feel that anyone who reads this, it's irresistible not to become a journalist.
0:10:41 > 0:10:46Rebecca, your next book is Mansfield Park, Jane Austen.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49You were at a comprehensive school in East London.
0:10:49 > 0:10:51- Was that about the time you read this?- It was, yes.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54It was one of the books I had to do for A-levels.
0:10:54 > 0:10:58- Oh, was it?- Yeah, and which, strangely, didn't put me off it.
0:10:58 > 0:11:05- Tell us about the book.- Well, it's the story of Fanny Price, who is a poor relation of the family
0:11:05 > 0:11:08who live in Mansfield Park, this great house.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12And she's allowed to go and live there, and be brought up there at their expense.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16She falls in love with her cousin, and you know, so the story develops from there.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18And what's wonderful about the book,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21as is always the case with Jane Austen, is the other characters.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26I mean the story, there are aspects of the story which are fabulous, but really it's how those characters
0:11:26 > 0:11:31relate to each other that makes the book so immensely readable.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34- Did you find Fanny Price a bit irritating?- Well, I didn't.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37Almost everybody in the world does, when they read the book.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41She's terribly self-righteous and moralistic and prissy.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44When I was 17, when I was reading it, I too was very self-righteous
0:11:44 > 0:11:48and moralistic and prissy, so she suited me down to the ground.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51But I think as I've got older I've started to
0:11:51 > 0:11:54fall much more in love with Mary Crawford, who is her love rival.
0:11:54 > 0:12:00There's a bit where those staying at Mansfield Park are putting on a play, but the owner of the house,
0:12:00 > 0:12:03the stern Sir Thomas, doesn't know it's happening.
0:12:03 > 0:12:09The point about that, of course, is that theatricals were considered incredibly shocking,
0:12:09 > 0:12:15so for young gentlemen and ladies to be doing any kind of acting was appalling, it was really poor form.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18Actually it's one of the most entertaining bits in the book.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21And there's a lovely quote here, which I find myself using all the time.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25There's a character called Mr Rushworth, who one of the sisters ends up marrying,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28and he's a real sort of silly ass, kind of Bertie Wooster character,
0:12:28 > 0:12:32and he claims not to want to be part of the theatricals.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35In fact, he's desperate, and he announces at one point,
0:12:35 > 0:12:41when they've spent weeks choosing a play, and he comes rushing out and says, "We have got a play!
0:12:41 > 0:12:44"It is to be called Lovers' Vows, and I am to be Count Cassel,
0:12:44 > 0:12:47"and I'm to come in first with a blue dress and a pink satin cloak,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50"and afterwards I'm to have another fine, fancy suit
0:12:50 > 0:12:52"by way of a shooting dress.
0:12:52 > 0:12:54"I do not know how I shall like it."
0:12:54 > 0:12:57And it's just so lovely, because actually that's an actor's impulse,
0:12:57 > 0:13:00to think, "I don't know if I want to be involved in this.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03"What are the costumes like? How many lines do I have?"
0:13:03 > 0:13:09- Were you already acting at school? - Yes. I knew from the age of about seven that I wanted to act so, yeah.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12I was angling for all the best parts even then.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16Trevor, your next choice is a poem. TS Eliot, it's called Little Gidding.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19Why did you choose this?
0:13:19 > 0:13:22I have always loved TS Eliot.
0:13:22 > 0:13:28He writes very complex things, with great style
0:13:28 > 0:13:33and with great beauty, and I love people who use the language well.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37And I'm not sure that it can be claimed that anybody does it better than TS Eliot.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40This is about an Anglican monastery, isn't it?
0:13:40 > 0:13:42Yes, in a little village called Little Gidding.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46And I think, if I'm right, it's the village that Charles I
0:13:46 > 0:13:53went to after the crushing defeat at Naseby, and found some refuge there.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57But TS Eliot takes a sort of broader view of life and the world -
0:13:57 > 0:14:02he says that these are gifts reserved for age.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05And he says, "To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
0:14:05 > 0:14:11"The conscious impotence of rage At human folly, and the laceration
0:14:11 > 0:14:14"Of laughter at what ceases to amuse."
0:14:14 > 0:14:15"And last" he says,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19"The rending pain of re-enactment Of all that you have done, and been;
0:14:19 > 0:14:24"the shame of motives late revealed, And the awareness of things ill done
0:14:24 > 0:14:26"and done to others' harm."
0:14:26 > 0:14:31And he ends this by saying, "Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35"Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains."
0:14:35 > 0:14:37But isn't that absolutely wonderful?
0:14:37 > 0:14:42"The laceration of laughter at what ceases to amuse."
0:14:42 > 0:14:46And he's exceedingly precise in his language.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48There's not a word there which is misplaced.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52Did you discover Eliot when you were still in Trinidad?
0:14:52 > 0:14:56I discovered Eliot then, but I read much more of him here,
0:14:56 > 0:14:59and read biographies and got to know...
0:14:59 > 0:15:05Got much, much more involved in it, you know? It's just something which stays with you for life.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08While you were still at home, were you made to learn poetry?
0:15:08 > 0:15:11- We were made to learn poetry. - It's a generational thing, isn't it?
0:15:11 > 0:15:15It is a generational thing. We would stand under a tree somewhere outside
0:15:15 > 0:15:21of the classroom, and 15 or 20 or 30 of us would stand reciting,
0:15:21 > 0:15:23"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way"
0:15:23 > 0:15:26and "The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea." You know.
0:15:26 > 0:15:32It gave me a love of poetry, and I'm terribly grateful for that.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36Rebecca, you studied English at Oxford, we come to your next book,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39which is another Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42- Was it a piece you were studying there?- No, quite the reverse.
0:15:42 > 0:15:47I came to Dickens after Oxford, deliberately, because I'd read one before I went up,
0:15:47 > 0:15:54and I thought, if I have to write essays about this, it's going to suck all the pleasure out of it for me.
0:15:54 > 0:16:02So I decided I would save Dickens, and I've always been really grateful that I did, because now my pleasure
0:16:02 > 0:16:05is to sort of lose myself in an enormous Charles Dickens book.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Give us a thumbnail sketch of the plot.
0:16:08 > 0:16:13Nicholas Nickleby's father dies at the beginning of the book,
0:16:13 > 0:16:20and he is charged with keeping his mother, his garrulous mother, and his rather sweet, virtuous sister alive,
0:16:20 > 0:16:23really, by whatever means possible.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25And he has a villainous Uncle Ralph,
0:16:25 > 0:16:27who tries to thwart him in everything he does.
0:16:27 > 0:16:29You have a favourite bit. This is after
0:16:29 > 0:16:34they've run away from school, Nicholas Nickleby and his sidekick.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36- Smike, yes.- Smike.
0:16:36 > 0:16:41Yes, they run away, and they're encouraged to join this awful theatre group, run by Mr Vincent Crummles.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44So this is Vincent Crummles introducing his troupe.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48"'This, sir', said Mr Vincent Crummles, bringing a maiden forward,
0:16:48 > 0:16:55"'is the infant phenomenon, Miss Ninetta Crummles.' 'Your daughter?' enquired Nicholas.
0:16:55 > 0:17:01"'My daughter, my daughter,' replied Mr Vincent Crummles. 'The idol of every place we go into, sir.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05"'We have had complimentary letters about this girl, sir, from the nobility and gentry
0:17:05 > 0:17:09"'of almost every town in England.' 'I'm not surprised at that,'
0:17:09 > 0:17:14"'said Nicholas, 'she must be quite a natural genius.' 'Quite...' Mr Crummles stopped.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18"Language was not powerful enough to describe the infant phenomenon.
0:17:18 > 0:17:23"'I tell you what, sir,' he said, 'the talent of this child is not to be imagined.
0:17:23 > 0:17:28"'She must be seen, sir, seen, to be ever so faintly appreciated.
0:17:28 > 0:17:30"'There, go to your mother, my dear.'"
0:17:30 > 0:17:33And it's full of this wonderful detail.
0:17:33 > 0:17:38The infant phenomenon, it transpires, is in fact about 17 or 18, she's not an infant at all.
0:17:38 > 0:17:40- And he's saying she's about 10, isn't she?- Yes.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42It's very good. Because he's talking there almost
0:17:42 > 0:17:48- like a sort of Hollywood agent, really.- Yes, "This girl, have I got a girl, this girl is amazing,"
0:17:48 > 0:17:51and she's just annoying. It transpires that audiences
0:17:51 > 0:17:54avoid going to the theatre if they know her.
0:17:54 > 0:17:59- Because he's a very good agent! - And of course, Dickens famously wrote for money, didn't he?
0:17:59 > 0:18:02Yes, and I mean I think that's why
0:18:02 > 0:18:06his sentences were, at times, over-long.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09- He would have been paid by the word. - He gets many words in, yes, yes.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12Trevor, we've talked about your interest in the classics, poetry.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15Your next book is very up to date.
0:18:15 > 0:18:20It's called Bloodlands, by Timothy Snyder. Tell us about it.
0:18:20 > 0:18:26"Bloodlands" is not a metaphor at all, it actually refers to a part
0:18:26 > 0:18:30of the world, basically between the old Soviet Union and Germany.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35And what Snyder argues is that, that is where the killing went on.
0:18:35 > 0:18:3914 million people were killed there, not in combat.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42So this is not the fighting in the Second World War -
0:18:42 > 0:18:48these people were killed as a result of the insane, murderous policies
0:18:48 > 0:18:52of these two monsters, Hitler and Stalin. They hated each other.
0:18:52 > 0:18:57And kind of egged each other on, to see who could be the worst monster.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00Sadly, the result was, for all those people who lived in the middle -
0:19:00 > 0:19:04in other words, most of Poland, Belarus, the Baltic states, Ukraine -
0:19:04 > 0:19:08- those were the people who suffered. - Did it change your view?
0:19:08 > 0:19:10There's endless books been written.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12I was fascinated about his interpretation,
0:19:12 > 0:19:18because he makes distinctions between the principles on which some of this killing went on.
0:19:18 > 0:19:24You know, some people died because they were part of the forced labour that the Germans instituted.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27Others just went in and were killed.
0:19:27 > 0:19:32It's a frightening account of what happened right in the middle of Europe.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35- Do you think your generation, you were born in 19...?- 39.
0:19:35 > 0:19:37So just as war...
0:19:37 > 0:19:41Do you think it's different, looking back, for you, than perhaps Rebecca?
0:19:41 > 0:19:47I mean, this sounds like a book that I should read, because actually this is my distant family's story.
0:19:47 > 0:19:53My ancestors were predominantly from Eastern Europe, Russian Jews and Polish Jews.
0:19:53 > 0:19:59And my immediate family had actually come over in Edwardian times from Russia and Poland,
0:19:59 > 0:20:04depending on which bit of the family, but I didn't know individual names and faces, and I still don't.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07It's something that I feel, I desperately don't want to
0:20:07 > 0:20:10find out about, but I feel one day I'm going to have to research.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13Your next choice, I love this, it's The Diary Of A Nobody,
0:20:13 > 0:20:17George and Weedon Grossmith. Tell us about this.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21It is a spoof diary, written by these two guys, George and Weedon Grossmith,
0:20:21 > 0:20:26who were brothers, and who had actually done a lot of theatre.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28I think they were journalists as well,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31did bits of acting, my sort of career, actually.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35And they came up with this brilliant character called Charles Pooter, who is a nobody.
0:20:35 > 0:20:42He's just a very ordinary bloke, living in Holloway in North London, and working as a clerk.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45And he has a rather ordinary wife, and a slightly extraordinary son
0:20:45 > 0:20:47called Lupin, who's a little bit disreputable.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50And he just wants a quiet life, actually.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53But he always gets things slightly wrong.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56He rubs people up the wrong way, he upsets them.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00There are little bits of petty jealousy directed at him.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03He makes jokes that people take huge offence at,
0:21:03 > 0:21:06and it's just a really lovely, detailed character observation.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09He's a completely absurd character. He works in the city,
0:21:09 > 0:21:14it's the late 1800s, and he lives in this house in Holloway.
0:21:14 > 0:21:19And he thinks his diaries are earth-shattering, and the whole world would be interested in them.
0:21:19 > 0:21:24Yes, he does. And it's interesting that you said he's an absurd character, because he is, absolutely.
0:21:24 > 0:21:29But he's a really ordinary man, and that's what's so lovely, because absurdity is in all of us, you know.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32We all do things every day that are completely ridiculous.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36But he writes them down. It's a beautiful, detailed character observation,
0:21:36 > 0:21:38very much in the vein of Dickens and Austen.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42- And it's just the most wonderful title.- Yes.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45- I mean, it is a magical title... - Everyone should read this book.
0:21:45 > 0:21:50..of a nobody, because it's sort of, you know, counter-intuitive,
0:21:50 > 0:21:52about what we think diaries should be made of? Wonderful.
0:21:52 > 0:21:58It is, it's a beautiful book, and it's full of just lovely, lovely little details of nothingness.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02And the absurdity is not unlike your character in The Thick of It, is it?
0:22:02 > 0:22:06Where she's going along, and not quite getting the rest of them.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11You're Nicola Murray, we've got a clip here, and this is where you're being interviewed by Richard.
0:22:11 > 0:22:17I love this, interviewed by Richard Bacon on Five Live, and you've got all those minders,
0:22:17 > 0:22:21- who are trying to help, are actually an awful nuisance, aren't they? - Yes, that's right.
0:22:21 > 0:22:24Nicola Murray, any piercings?
0:22:24 > 0:22:29- Er, no.- Yes, you do. - No piercings at all, no.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31You have got some piercings.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34- OK, all right. - Sorry, no piercings at all, no.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39Some people say that my distinguishing feature
0:22:39 > 0:22:44would be probably my ears, which I'm told are quite small.
0:22:44 > 0:22:50- Right...- But I do think we have to be a little bit careful about taking
0:22:50 > 0:22:55too light an approach to culturally-sensitive issues like body piercing,
0:22:55 > 0:23:00or female circumcision... Earrings! Earrings, I've got pierced ears!
0:23:01 > 0:23:07- Very good.- Wonderful. - It's so beautifully written, all of that. It's lovely.
0:23:07 > 0:23:09- Did you always want to go into comedy?- I didn't really, no.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13I wanted to be a great Shakespearian actress, and I went up to Oxford
0:23:13 > 0:23:16and started auditioning for Juliet and Beatrice,
0:23:16 > 0:23:20and it always went to girls with flowing hair, and I didn't have flowing hair,
0:23:20 > 0:23:23and then I went for an audition for the Oxford Revue, which
0:23:23 > 0:23:27is the equivalent of Footlights, and there were no other women there, so I got in.
0:23:27 > 0:23:32At that point I thought I should just take the course of least resistance, and try to be funny.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34- It's proved an excellent choice. - It's been useful.
0:23:34 > 0:23:39Now, we've had your childhood reads, and books that have influenced your career.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42Trevor, your guilty pleasure,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45Beyond A Boundary, CLR James, about cricket.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49Of course. Well I mean, first of all,
0:23:49 > 0:23:53CLR James was a brilliant journalist, also a kind of West Indian philosopher, really,
0:23:53 > 0:23:55and a great political polemicist.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59And he became quite prominent in the West Indies, but the book is about cricket,
0:23:59 > 0:24:05and he begins with the premise, you know, what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?
0:24:05 > 0:24:08And says that, in the West Indies, it acquired a significance
0:24:08 > 0:24:12far beyond the boundaries of just the game. I remember one,
0:24:12 > 0:24:19he went to America, James, and discovered that people were cheating at games.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22And he thought, "But you can't do that.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26"You can cheat in life in many other ways, but you can never cheat in a game.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29"And you could never possibly cheat at cricket."
0:24:29 > 0:24:32Well, alas, that's no longer so, I fear,
0:24:32 > 0:24:35but, you know, this is the view he has.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39And yet, he thinks it also has a political relevance,
0:24:39 > 0:24:43and he's probably right, because there was a man called Eric Williams,
0:24:43 > 0:24:45who was running to be Prime Minister
0:24:45 > 0:24:50of the first independent Trinidad and Tobago and in the '50s,
0:24:50 > 0:24:55when, after England had been beaten by the West Indies at Lords in 1950,
0:24:55 > 0:24:59the political campaign was based almost on the slogan,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02"If we can beat them at cricket, then we can govern ourselves."
0:25:02 > 0:25:08And so it did have a significance greater than the game itself.
0:25:08 > 0:25:13Meanwhile, Rebecca, your Guilty Pleasure, Naked, by David Sedaris.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16You can tell this is a guilty pleasure and sits by my bedside
0:25:16 > 0:25:19because it actually has tea stains all over the cover.
0:25:19 > 0:25:21Did you read this at a particular time?
0:25:21 > 0:25:29Well, I came to it fairly recently, but I think what really struck me was, I'm a dreadful hypochondriac.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32I lurch from one imagined crisis to another,
0:25:32 > 0:25:34and on one particular holiday a couple of years ago,
0:25:34 > 0:25:37I was going through one of these, "That's it!"
0:25:37 > 0:25:40"I'm absolutely certain I've got something terrible wrong with me."
0:25:40 > 0:25:43I was ruining the holiday for everybody, and I started reading
0:25:43 > 0:25:48this as a distraction, and it cheered me up no end. It's hilariously funny.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50I think what I love about it is,
0:25:50 > 0:25:56it's funny, and he writes with a very spare style, that makes it sound as if it's very easy for him.
0:25:56 > 0:26:02I don't believe it is, but he writes in a style that's slightly like Bill Bryson, slightly like Woody Allen.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06It seems to trip off the tongue, as if he's just chatting to you,
0:26:06 > 0:26:08but clearly it's much more complex than that.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11And it's also very personal - this volume in particular is about
0:26:11 > 0:26:15his, family, his childhood, his mother, and the characters are so vivid.
0:26:15 > 0:26:20What do you think, Trevor, your collection of books say about you?
0:26:20 > 0:26:22Nothing very much, really.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25I do like poetry.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28And I would like to think that, if it says anything about me,
0:26:28 > 0:26:33is that it says that I am absolutely in love with the language.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36I love the beauty of words. I think we're very lucky
0:26:36 > 0:26:41to have a language which is so wonderfully expressive about things.
0:26:41 > 0:26:46And to read it and to read, it's one of the reasons why I write less and less myself, really.
0:26:46 > 0:26:48I read almost too much.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52And you realise, you know, people have done it so well before,
0:26:52 > 0:26:55why should you, why should you ever try?
0:26:55 > 0:26:58But I hope it says that
0:26:58 > 0:27:01I love things which are written well.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05Rebecca, how about you? What does your choice say about you?
0:27:05 > 0:27:07I think it says that I love people.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12I'm fascinated by character, and individuality, and quirkiness,
0:27:12 > 0:27:15and all of these books are about the quirks of human nature.
0:27:15 > 0:27:20And my whole career is about observing and trying to convey the quirks of human nature.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24And if you had to recommend just one of them, which one would it be?
0:27:24 > 0:27:27- Nicholas Nickleby, I think. Because it's so vast.- Trevor?
0:27:27 > 0:27:33Mine would be very difficult, but I'd take the poetry, because one gets, you know,
0:27:33 > 0:27:37endless charm from poems, and I'd probably settle for that.
0:27:37 > 0:27:42- You'd settle for a collected poems of TS Eliot?- Yep.
0:27:42 > 0:27:48Well, there we are. Thank you to Trevor McDonald and Rebecca Front for joining me on My Life In Books.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51APPLAUSE
0:27:54 > 0:27:56Please don't forget, there's more about this
0:27:56 > 0:28:00book series on the BBC website, and please join me again tomorrow,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04same time, same place, for more stories of lives and books.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd