The Digested Read podcast

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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


    • Dec 31, 2015 LATEST EPISODE
    • infrequent NEW EPISODES
    • 8m AVG DURATION
    • 100 EPISODES


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    Latest episodes from The Digested Read podcast

    EL James: black and blue and read all over? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2015 14:29


    John Crace whips through the lastest instalment of EL James's sado-masochistic bestseller, Grey, and asks if it's time to apply the safe word

    Michel Houellebecq: profane or prophetic? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2015 16:30


    John Crace squashes Houellebecq's Submission and asks whether the sacred monster of French fiction is just making trouble for its own sake

    TS Eliot: beyond commentary? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 29, 2015 16:10


    John Crace puts the annotated editon of the Nobel laureate's poetical works through the wringer and assesses the stature of the modernist master

    Kazuo Ishiguro: roaring giant or sleeping dragon? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 28, 2015 15:40


    John Crace boils down The Buried Giant and asks whether this genre-bending quest novel is destined for the halls of glory or the mists of forgetfulness

    Harper Lee: a happy return to Maycomb? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 25, 2015 15:15


    John Crace puts the squeeze on Go Set a Watchman, and considers its effect on the author's reputation

    Hillary Clinton: the big reveal? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 2, 2015 11:55


    John Crace digests Hillary Clinton's latest autobiography, and picks it over for clues to vital questions – what does she really think of Obama?

    Haruki Murakami: Cult of the colourless? - books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 1, 2015 10:18


    John Crace digests Murakami's latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage, and wonders if the bestselling Japanese author has bleached the life out of his fiction

    Val McDermid: Jane Austen's equal? - books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2014 12:05


    John Crace digests Val McDermid's update of Northanger Abbey, and asks if her attempt to square up to Austen's gothic melodrama is fine or foolhardy • More digested reads podcasts

    Caitlin Moran: all about the girl, again - books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2014 10:46


    John Crace digests Caitlin Moran's debut novel, How to Build a Girl, down to 600 words, and wonders what it adds to the autobiography that set her on the crest of the fourth wave of feminism

    Martin Amis: back in the danger zone? - books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 29, 2014 11:55


    John Crace digests Martin Amis's new novel The Zone of Interest down to 600 words, and wonders if he was wise to return to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

    Stephen Fry: low tales of the high life - books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2014 14:12


    John Crace digests Stephen Fry's latest memoir, More Fool Me, down to 600 words, and finds the nation's favourite luvvie adrift in a blizzard of names and white powder

    Karl Ove Knausgaard : Proust or poseur? - books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 25, 2014 12:56


    John Crace digests Karl Ove Knausgaard's multi-volume autobiographical fiction, My Struggle, and asks if it is exceptional in anything apart from length • More digested read podcasts

    Russell Brand: the raffish revolutionary - books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 24, 2014 10:21


    In the first of a daily series of digested reads, John Crace considers Russell Brand's political manifesto, Revolution More digested read podcasts

    Iain Banks: a death foretold? - books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2013 11:06


    John Crace digests Iain Banks' last novel The Quarry, about a man dying of cancer, down to 600 words, and explains how satire can be powered by affection

    JK Rowling: a question of identity – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2013 11:20


    John Crace boils down JK Rowling's first crime novel, The Cuckoo's Calling – published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith – into just 600 words

    Roddy Doyle: gutsy performance or needs more commitment? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 29, 2013 9:47


    John Crace boils down Roddy Doyle's sequel to The Commitments, The Guts, into just 600 words, while Caspar Llewellyn Smith and Hannah Freeman debate the merits of Jimmy Rabitte's return

    Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 28, 2013 15:08


    John Crace digests Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath down to just 600 words, and Oliver Burkeman joins him to discuss whether popular science books have reached a tipping point

    TS Eliot: giant of poetry or literary obsessive? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2013 14:58


    John Crace boils down the fourth volume of TS Eliot's Letters into just 600 words, while Nicholas Wroe examines their importance for understanding a great poet

    Morrissey's autobiography: vain or glorious? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2013 12:02


    John Crace digests Morrissey's Autobiography down to just 600 words, while Will Woodward and Caspar Llewellyn Smith wonder if the one-time Smiths frontman is as cool as he thinks he is

    Richard Dawkins: intellectual titan or tiresome self-publicist? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 24, 2013 12:44


    John Crace boils Richard Dawkins's memoir, An Appetite for Wonder, down to just 600 words, while Ian Sample and Andrew Brown consider his life and work

    Bridget Jones: today's heroine or yesterday's woman? – books podcast

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 23, 2013 17:30


    John Crace digests Helen Fielding's third Bridget Jones novel, Mad about the Boy, into just 600 words. Lisa Allardice and Rosie Swash discuss how well Bridget has aged

    The digested read podcast: The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2010 10:56


    John Crace has a quick dip into the Booker prize-winning novel

    Must You Go? by Antonia Fraser

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2010 6:15


    John Crace looks at the author's memories of life with Harold Pinter, with the pauses taken out

    The digested classic podcast: The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 14, 2010 8:00


    John Crace makes a quick study of a depraved academic

    Digested classic podcast: Candleford Green by Flora Thompson

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 13, 2010 8:39


    John Crace makes a Sunday night feelgood costume drama

    The digested read podcast: You Need The digested read podcast: This Book to Get What You Want by Mark Palmer and Scott Solder

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 13, 2010 5:45


    The digested read podcast: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 12, 2010 10:10


    The unbearable lightness of trying to be Milan Kundera gets to John Crace as he swallows his classic text

    The digested read podcast: Driven to Distraction by Clarkson

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 12, 2010 5:53


    John Crace takes journalism's monster truck for a spin and writes him off

    Digested classic podcast: Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 3, 2009 10:29


    John Crace experiments wi skaggie an aw tha'

    Digested read podcast: Delia's Happy Christmas by Delia Smith

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2009 5:49


    Digested read podcast: The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 26, 2009 5:54


    John Crace explores his thespian side

    Digested classic podcast: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 26, 2009 8:29


    'How dare you, sir!' Edith Wharton's 1870s portrait of high-class New York mores is taken downtown by John Crace

    Digested classic podcast: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2009 9:03


    John Crace reminds us that there's no I in socalsm or totaltaransm

    The Original of Laura: A Novel in Fragments by Vladimir Nabokov

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2009 5:45


    John Crace becomes tragically incoherent

    Digested read podcast: The Humbling by Philip Roth

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2009 5:27


    John Crace attempts to believe in a smooth-talking 65-year-old 'lesbo converter', but he can't keep it up

    Digested read podcast: Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2009 5:08


    John Crace makes some startling discoveries about the economics of sequel-writing

    Digested read podcast: Meltdown by Ben Elton

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 13, 2009 5:21


    Ben Elton's new novel, set in a world of financial mayhem, suffers a severe crash in the hands of John Crace

    Digested classic podcast: Call for the Dead by John Le Carré

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2009 9:24


    John Crace tails George Smiley's first outing as a spy, but whose side is he on?

    The Defence of the Realm

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2009 5:28


    John Crace unpicks The Authorized History of MI5 and feels the wool being pulled over his eyes

    Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2009 3:59


    John Crace digests this year's Booker Prize winner: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

    The Digested Read podcast: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2009 6:17


    John Crace gets lost in thickets of leaden prose as he unravels the mysteries of Dan Brown's new crypto-thriller

    Digested classic podcast: Mr Fortune's Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2009 7:37


    John Crace is cast adrift on the seas of Sylvia Townsend Warner's classic, Mr Fortune's Maggot

    Digested classic podcast: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2009 7:55


    John Crace sets off in deadly pursuit of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian

    The Digested Read podcast: The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2009 5:37


    John Crace traces the evolution of the greatest scientist on earth in Richard Dawkins's latest Darwinian masterpiece

    The Digested Read podcast: Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by William Shawcross

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2009 5:33


    John Crace does obeisance before William Shawcross's biography of the Queen Mother

    Digested classic podcast: Atomised by Michel Houellebecq

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2009 8:00


    John Crace endures an orgy of sex and philosophy as he wrestles his way out of the ashram

    The digested classic podcast: Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 28, 2009 7:20


    The Digested Read podcast: Starting Over by Tony Parsons

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 27, 2009 11:24


    Digested classic podcast: Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2009 6:09


    Digested read podcast: The Occupied City by David Peace

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 19, 2009 6:24


    John Crace embarks on a a GLITZKRIEG of PRETENTIOUSNESS

    Digested classic podcast: The Golden Bowl by Henry James

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2009 7:21


    John Crace builds some nodding-off breaks into his reading

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