Richard Reynolds
Thursday 1 May 2008 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
Isabel Hilton talks to Richard Reynolds about his new book Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries, which traces the history of secret planting, also known as guerilla gardening, which has become a global movement dedicated to improving public spaces.
Reynolds started gardening in secret outside his council block in South London in an effort to improve the communal space around him, soon realising that he was part of a global movement that had its roots in 1970s Manhattan. Today, there are 'guerrilla gardeners' across the world - all on a mission to plant bulbs, clear litter, pull weeds and generally improve the neglected public space that surrounds them.
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende - copyright Lori Barra
Playlist
Isabel Allende
Isabel Hilton talks to one of the best known writers from Latin America - Isabel Allende. The story goes that she became a novelist at the urging of the great Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda.
She talks about The Sum of Our Days an account of her life since that sad event and the porous boundaries between memoir and fiction.
The Sum of Our Days is published by Fourth Estate
Guerrilla Gardening
Night Waves investigates of the politics and pleasures of guerrilla gardening with Richard Reynolds who is publishing a handbook for those franticly searching for the horticultural frontline
On Guerrilla Gardening is published by Bloomsbury
Sean O'Brien
The poet Sean O'Brien will be celebrating the Kielder Observatory in Northumberland which boasts some of the darkest skies in Britain.
Inferno and The Drowned Book are published by Picador
Click here to see pictures of the Kielder Observatory
