The Digested Read podcast
By guardian.co.uk
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Podcast Description
A podcast version of John Crace's wickedly satirical Guardian column, lampooning the literary style of leading authors by summarising their books in five minutes
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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1 |
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch | John Crace has a quick dip into the Booker prize-winning novel | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
2 |
Must You Go? by Antonia Fraser | John Crace looks at the author's memories of life with Harold Pinter, with the pauses taken out | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
3 |
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury | John Crace makes a quick study of a depraved academic | 1/14/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
4 |
Candleford Green by Flora Thompson | John Crace makes a Sunday night feelgood costume drama | 1/13/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
5 |
You Need This Book to Get What You Want by Mark Palmer and Scott Solder | John Crace helps himself | 1/13/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
6 |
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera | The unbearable lightness of trying to be Milan Kundera gets to John Crace as he swallows his classic text | 1/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
7 |
Driven to Distraction by Clarkson | John Crace takes journalism's monster truck for a spin and writes him off | 1/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
8 |
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh | John Crace experiments wi skaggie an aw tha' | 12/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
9 |
Delia's Happy Christmas by Delia Smith | John Crace reheats some leftover recipes | 12/1/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
10 |
ExplicitThe Habit of Art by Alan Bennett | John Crace explores his thespian side | 11/26/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
11 |
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton | 'How dare you, sir!' Edith Wharton's 1870s portrait of high-class New York mores is taken downtown by John Crace | 11/26/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
12 |
The Original of Laura: A Novel in Fragments by Vladimir Nabokov | John Crace becomes tragically incoherent | 11/18/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
13 |
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler | John Crace reminds us that there's no I in socalsm or totaltaransm | 11/18/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
14 |
Meltdown by Ben Elton | Ben Elton's new novel, set in a world of financial mayhem, suffers a severe crash in the hands of John Crace | 11/13/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
15 |
The Humbling by Philip Roth | John Crace attempts to believe in a smooth-talking 65-year-old 'lesbo converter', but he can't keep it up | 11/13/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
16 |
Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner | John Crace makes some startling discoveries about the economics of sequel-writing | 11/13/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
17 |
Call for the Dead by John Le Carré | John Crace tails George Smiley's first outing as a spy, but whose side is he on? | 10/22/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
18 |
The Defence of the Realm by Christopher Andrew | John Crace unpicks The Authorized History of MI5 and feels the wool being pulled over his eyes | 10/22/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
19 |
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel | John Crace digests this year's Booker Prize winner: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel | 10/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
20 |
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown | John Crace gets lost in thickets of leaden prose as he unravels the mysteries of Dan Brown's new crypto-thriller | 10/1/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
21 |
Mr Fortune's Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner | John Crace is cast adrift on the seas of Sylvia Townsend Warner's classic, Mr Fortune's Maggot | 10/1/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
22 |
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins | John Crace traces the evolution of the greatest scientist on earth in Richard Dawkins's latest Darwinian masterpiece | 10/1/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
23 |
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy | John Crace sets off in deadly pursuit of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian | 10/1/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
24 |
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by William Shawcross | John Crace does obeisance before William Shawcross's biography of the Queen Mother | 9/29/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
25 |
ExplicitAtomised by Michel Houellebecq | John Crace endures an orgy of sex and philosophy as he wrestles his way out of the ashram | 9/10/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
26 |
Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett | John Crace goes to the Potteries | 8/28/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
27 |
Starting Over by Tony Parsons | John Crace. Writes. In very. Short sentences. | 8/27/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
28 |
ExplicitBonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe | John Crace bids to become Master of the Novelverse | 8/21/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
29 |
ExplicitThe Occupied City by David Peace | John Crace embarks on a a GLITZKRIEG of PRETENTIOUSNESS | 8/19/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
30 |
The Golden Bowl by Henry James | John Crace builds some nodding-off breaks into his reading | 8/15/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
31 |
The Exmoor Files by Liz Jones | John Crace retouches his roots | 8/12/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
32 |
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella | John Crace is like, whatever, about a chick-lit ghost story | 7/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
33 |
The Game Cook by Norman Tebbit | John Crace bites the head off Norman Tebbit's cookbook and shoves it in the oven for a good roasting | 7/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
34 |
The Immoralist by André Gide | Stand by for a spot of hedonism and moral recklessness as John Crace distills another literary classic | 7/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
35 |
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig | John Crace throws some spanners in the works | 7/22/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
36 |
Chastened by Hepzibah Anderson | John Crace tries to go for an entire column without sex | 7/21/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
37 |
The Hound of Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | John Crace heads out to the Grimpen Mire | 7/17/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
38 |
Magnificent Desolation by Buzz Aldrin | John Crace attempts to get over the Moon | 7/14/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
39 |
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust | John Crace has a quick search for lost time | 7/11/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
40 |
The Case for God by Karen Armstrong | John Crace has a go at believing | 7/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
41 |
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner | John Crace gets bored in Switzerland | 7/4/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
42 |
To Heaven by Water by Justin Cartwright | John Crace is at one with the Sublime | 7/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
43 |
A Champion's Mind by Pete Sampras | John Crace goes in search of the personality behind the winner of 14 grand slam titles, Pete Sampras | 6/23/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
44 |
ExplicitTarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs | John Crace becomes king of the jungle | 6/19/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
45 |
ExplicitI'm Only Being Honest by Jeremy Kyle | John Crace channel hops through the life of a daytime TV star | 6/16/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
46 |
ExplicitJunky by William S Burroughs | John Crace experiments with drug memoirs | 6/12/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
47 |
ExplicitPygmy by Chuck Palahniuk | John Crace has a go at being tough MoFo of American novel on Viagra | 6/9/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
48 |
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming | Agent 007 gets eaten alive as John Crace employs his licence to kill on the first James Bond Novel | 6/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
49 |
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters | John Crace struggles to adjust to the new social order after the second world war | 6/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
50 |
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham | John Crace journeys into post-apocalypse Britain | 5/29/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
51 |
Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch | John Crace digests David Aaronovitch's book about significant conspiracy theories, from the death of Diana to the moon landings | 5/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
52 |
Herzog by Saul Bellow | John Crace writes lots of letters, but doesn't send them | 5/15/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
53 |
Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro | John Crace watches the acclaimed novelist take tips from Jeffrey Archer | 5/12/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
54 |
More P***ks Than Kicks by Samuel Beckett | John Crace condenses the story of Belacqua Shuah - and wrestles with a lobster along the way | 5/8/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
55 |
Confucius From the Heart by Yu Dan | John Crace inherits the mantle of the Great Sage | 5/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
56 |
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe | John Crace goes on a major bender | 5/2/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
57 |
Under Their Thumb by Bill German | John Crace trails after a fan trailing after The Rolling Stones | 4/28/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
58 |
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy | John Crace puts on some damned elusive disguise | 4/24/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
59 |
Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult | John Crace gets to grips with some Big Questions | 4/21/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
60 |
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys | John Crace swims through some fevered modernist memories | 4/17/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
61 |
Grow Your Own Drugs by James Wong | John Crace fails to get healed, or high | 4/14/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
62 |
Generation X by Douglas Coupland | John Crace gets deep and meaningless | 4/7/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
63 |
Glover's Mistake by Nick Laird | John Crace is enslaved by his id | 4/7/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
64 |
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler | John Crace makes a quick investigation of the noir masterpiece | 4/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
65 |
God Bless America by Piers Morgan | Piers Morgan swans around America; John Crace chases after him | 3/31/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
66 |
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse | Tantric bliss, Brian Ferryman and lots and lots of "om". John Crace takes up the lotus position and transcends his destiny | 3/25/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
67 |
Stanley, I Presume by Stanley Johnson | John Crace enters the spiffing world of Boris maximus | 3/24/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
68 |
ExplicitThe Thief's Journal by Jean Genet | John Crace laughs in the face of bourgeois convention and becomes rapidly depraved | 3/13/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
69 |
Strangers by Anita Brookner | John Crace is quickly overcome with melancholy | 3/10/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
70 |
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan | John Crace tumbles through a ballooning nightmare | 3/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
71 |
Men Are Stupid ... and They Like Big Boobs by Joan Rivers | John Crace plunges in to plastic surgery | 3/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
72 |
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles | John Crace goes down with existential ennui in Africa | 2/27/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
73 |
All the Nice Girls by Joan Bakewell | John Crace whizzes through a wartime romance | 2/24/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
74 |
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov | John Crace is seduced by this classic tale of forbidden love | 2/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
75 |
The Victorians by Jeremy Paxman | John Crace (aggressively) questions the grand inquisitor's study of history | 2/17/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
76 |
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford | John Crace cuts the saddest story ever told short | 2/10/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
77 |
The Associate by John Grisham | John Crace makes a snap judgment of the latest case from the legal bestseller | 2/10/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
78 |
Success by Martin Amis | John Crace fails to find much to admire in this once-acclaimed 80s satire | 2/4/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
79 |
The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk | John Crace follows the author on holiday to Italy, and comes home very quickly | 2/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
80 |
The World According to Garry Bushell | John Crace navigates the backwaters of the opinionator-in-chief's blog | 1/27/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
81 |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce | John Crace zooms down memory lane with the master modernist | 1/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
82 |
The Digested Read: How to Meet a Man After Forty by Shane Watson | John Crace goes looking for The One | 1/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
83 |
The Digested Read: Sarah Palin by Kaylene Johnson | John Crace makes a quick study of the life of a hockey mom | 1/14/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
84 |
Liberty by Garrison Keillor | John Crace digests Liberty by Garrison Keillor | 1/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
85 |
The Digested Classic: Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford | John Crace spends a brief summer with the Hamptons | 1/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
86 |
The Digested Classic: A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell | John Crace tangoes briefly through the first part of A Dance to the Music of Time | 1/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
87 |
ExplicitThe Digested Classic: The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger | John Crace cuts Holden Caulfield's struggles with the phonies down to size | 1/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
88 |
ExplicitThe Digested Classic: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby | John Crace takes a brief look at Nick Hornby's record collection | 1/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
89 |
The digested read: The Pursuit of Laughter by Diana Mosley | John Crace looks for chuckles in the essays of the wife of Britain's fascist leader | 12/17/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
90 |
The Digested Classic: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark | John Crace takes on Scotland's most famous teacher | 12/12/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
91 |
The Digested Read: The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling | John Crace uses his magic powers to shrink the wizardly tale down to 400 words | 12/8/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
92 |
ExplicitThe digested classic: Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth | John Crace plays with Portnoy's Compaint by Philip Roth | 12/4/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
93 |
The Digested Read: Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis | John Crace swallows a very thirsty volume | 12/2/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
94 |
The digested classic: Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee | John Crace downs another classic in one | 12/2/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
95 |
The digested classic: Justine by Lawrence Durrell | John Crace takes a quick trip through Alexandria | 11/28/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
96 |
The Digested Read: And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks, by William S Burroughs and Jack Kerouac | John Crace speeds through the drug-addled murder story by a pair of dead Beats | 11/25/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
97 |
The Digested Read: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell | John Crace pads out the original ideas in the 'new' theory of genius to make just over five minutes | 11/18/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
98 |
The digested classic: The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham | John Crace digests The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham | 11/13/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
99 |
The Digested Read: All in the Mind, by Alastair Campbell | John Crace's swift analysis of All in the Mind by Alastair Campbell | 11/11/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
100 |
ExplicitThe digested classic: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson | John Crace has a quick go at gonzo | 10/20/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 100 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Worthy of its own podcast
I was wondering where the D.R. went on the Guardian Books podcast. Ah ha! I hope the Guardian posts his hilarious versions of 'Biggles' and 'The Shack' on this podcast. This podcast is truly a treat and, in some cases, far better than reading the book itself. Abridged or digested books are nothing new, but most of them take a dull book and distill its most dull aspects. Not here. Mr. Crace chooses to focus mostly on literary hubris and media marketing blather, along with a pun or two (is there such a thing as a good pun?), and the result is very enjoyable listening.
Funny, skillful satire!
Even when you aren't familiar with the classic and modern books being satired, you feel familiar with them after you've heard John Crace's "digested" version of them. When you are, in fact, familiar with the book that's being skewered, it's even more hilarious!
Excellent but not updated enough !!!!
This is one of my favouriote podcasts, just wish that they updateded it more frequently. I read Crace's coloumn in The Guardian but hearing him read it with his own nuances is so much better - PLEASE PLEASE update !!!
