5 May 2006
Friday 5 May 2006 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
David Mitchell, author of the Man Booker prize shortlisted novel Cloud Atlas, talks to Matthew Sweet about his new book Black Swan Green.
Playlist
PR'S PUBLIC RELATIONS
How should journalists regard public relations people - with hostile scepticism? Or as media colleagues? A few weeks ago, there was a flurry of press controversy about a new company called Editorial Intelligence, which some journalists accused of trying to make the relationship between journalism and PR overly cosy.
Now Julia Hobsbawm, founder of Editorial Intelligence, is publishing a book arguing that if the realities of this relationship are not openly acknowledged, it will only become less healthy. She tells Matthew why.
Where the Truth Lies: Trust and Morality in PR and Journalism, edited by Julia Hobsbawm, is published by Atlantic Books on 8 May.
DAVID MITCHELL
David Mitchell's last novel, Cloud Atlas , won much acclaim - and a place on the Booker shortlist. It's a highly elaborate narrative and ranges wide through time and space. So why is his new novel a simple story about a stammering thirteen year old?
Black Swan Green is published by Sceptre on 8 May.
THE POUND IN YOUR POCKET
Ezra Pound is known for three things: writing difficult poetry, helping TS Eliot with The Waste Land , and being a fascist. But he was also an economist of some originality. Or so says one of our leading economic thinkers, Meghnad Desai. He tells Matthew why he has been trying to sort Pound's reasoning from his racist ravings.
The Route of All Evil: The Political Economy of Ezra Pound is published by Faber.
IS ECONOMICS BANKRUPT?
The famed Keynesian economist JK Galbraith died earlier this week. Keynes' biographer Robert Skidelsky argues that his passing marks the decline of economics as a major part of public debate. Meghnad Desai begs to differ...
