495: Wigtown Book Festival Gems

Read On Episode 500 shines a light inward rather than outward by celebrating people behind the scenes at the Talking Books studios, the library, at transcription, at RNIB Connect Radio, at RNIB Bookshare and all the people who champion accessibility in literature.I'd need 500 hours to feature them all, but hopefully we have a nice cross section as each person on the show also gives a great book suggestion. And all books on today's show are in the RNIB Library.

On Read On today, a spooky compilation with Emelia Fang Creator Laura Ellen Anderson, Stranger Times writer Caimh McDonnell, Professor Richard Wiseman on the science of safe scares, and from the Read On archives, James Herbert ... plus some horror in the RNIB Library

Today a chat with Simon McCleave on his many crime books set in Snowdonia and beyond, on leaving TV writing for novel writing and becoming a self-publishing success story.Plus we find some new books in the RNIB Library.

Today on Read On I talk to a co-founder of the annual Cliveden Literary Festival, Natalie Livingstone, about the book that sparked the idea for the festival and about her latest book, The Nuremberg Women.We also get a self help recommendation from the Happy Hour and find new books in the RNIB Library.

Best Kept Secrets for Travelers With Sight Loss lets people who are blind or have low vision enjoy travel with less fear and uncertainty. Robert Kirkwood talks to its author Lynn Jensen about some great travel tips. We also hear about the first blind travel writer and find some new books in the RNIB Library.

Today we look forward to The Wigtown Book Festival, (which starts on the day this episode is first broadcast) by listening to some authors I've previously talked to in Scotland's Book Town including, Maggie O'Farrell on The Marriage Portrait, Kathryn Harkup on Superspy Science, Alex von Tunzelmann on Fallen Idols, Estelle Paranque on Fire, Blood and Gold and Rory Cellan Jones on Ruskin Park, plus we find some new books in the RNIB Library.

This week on Read On, we're celebrating love in all its complicated forms.Robert Kirkwood chats to Fiona Lucas about her deeply emotional novel Always and Only You, a story of love, secrets and second chances. Then Jenny Ashcroft joins us to talk about The Echoes of Love, an epic historical romance set in Crete, where a young love story is tested by war, loyalty and betrayal. And finally, Yael van der Wouden discusses her acclaimed debut The Safekeep, an unsettling tale of desire, obsession, secrets and revenge.Plus, as always, we head to the RNIB Library to discover some brand new books.

This week on Read On, Robert Kirkwood watches Jo Sharp and her wife Val McDermid record the introduction to the brand new book in the Darkland Tales series, This Door of the Seas at the Canongate studios in Edinburgh and chats with them about the book. We also chat about Book Club Day UK - September the 11th - by finding out about RNIB's Talk and Support book clubs from both a club member and a volunteer facilitator.All that plus some new books in the RNIB library.

In today's Read On we talk to Damian Barr about his novel The Two Roberts and we hear from Coronation Street and Carry On actress Amanda Barrie about her memoir I'm Still Here - My 90 Years and we find a link between those two books. We also find some new books in the RNIB Library and get a Books Of My Life from the winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Percival Everett.

This week on Read On we investigate some different styles of crime. Anita Frank discusses her WW1 historical fiction murder mystery thriller, The Good Liars, we get cosy with Josie Lloyd in Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency, and from the archive a listen back to the creator of Inspector Morse, Colin Dexter.Plus we find new books in the RNIB Library.