The Reading Room

If you missed The Reading Room LIVE, you can now watch the entire show on YouTube!  And if you were there, why not relive a great night of spoken word and poetry, including our interview with Red Dwarf star Robert Llewellyn...

Ever wondered what goes on in the studio during our live shows? No? Well we're going to show you anyway!  This was recorded during our April show and features Paul, Jonny, Gill and studio guest Georgia Twynham...

After a tense wait, the results of the European Podcast Awards have finally been announced - and we're proud to say we came second in the UK Professional category, beating podcasts from BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time and The Guardian.  We were only pipped to the post by the hugely popular Answer Me This podcast.

We actually received the highest number of public votes in our category, so a big thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for us.

On Saturday 12th May, The Reading Room once again takes to the stage with a special LIVE radio broadcast, this time from the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre.  We'll again be featuring the best up and coming performers in spoken word and poetry, as well as live music... plus a very special guest: star of Red Dwarf, Scrapheap Challenge and Carpool, Robert Llewellyn! Robert will be talking to host Paul Tyler about his work and career, including his new book News From Gardenia.

The show starts at 7pm (live on air at 7.30pm) on Saturday 12th May at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre (LPAC).  Tickets cost just £5 (£5.50 with booking fee) and are available here.

In another of our short videos, The Reading Room's presenter Paul Tyler ruminates on the connected influence two books have had on his life: The Gobbler by Adrian Edmondson and Memoirs of a Fruitcake by Chris Evans.

In ROOM 18, our regular contributor Gill Hart previewed some of the books due for publication in early 2012. Here’s the full list of her top 5 picks...

The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year

by Sue Townsend

Townsend is one of Britain’s favourite comic novelists, perhaps best known for the hugely popular Adrian Mole books, which this year celebrate the 30^th anniversary of Adrian’s first appearance in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4. In The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year, she deconstructs modern family life in a funny and touching novel about what happens when someone refuses to be the person everyone expects them to be. It tells the story of Eva who, on the day her children finally leave home, gets into bed and stays there. And from this odd but comforting place she begins to see both the world and herself very, very differently.

Publication date: 1^st March 2012 | Price: £18.99

The Gallows Curse

by Karen Maitland

Local novelist Karen Maitland visited The Reading Room back in ROOM 12. Her latest book, The Gallows Curse, is set in a fear-ravaged and spiritually desolate 13^th Century England populated by desperate priests, scheming herbalists, torturous conspirators and a plot of treason against the King. First published in 2011, the paperback version is published in March, offering an opportunity for new readers to discover this increasingly popular historical novelist.

Publication date: 15^th March 2012 | Price: £7.99

Blue Remembered Earth

by Alastair Reynolds

In the first volume of his new trilogy, Sci-Fi author Alastair Reynolds traces the Akinya family across more than 10,000 years of future history. This first volume begins 150 years from now in a world where Africa is the dominant power and where crime, war, disease and poverty have been banished to history. Geoffrey Akinya wants nothing more than to be left alone to continue his studies of the elephants of the Amboseli Basin – but his family, the vast Akinya business empire, has other plans for him...

Publication date: 19^th January 2012 | Price: £18.99

A Room Full Of Bones

by Elly Griffiths

The fourth novel in the Ruth Galloway crime series set in atmospheric Norfolk. It is Halloween night and the local museum in Kings Lynn is preparing for an unusual event – the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. But when Dr Ruth Galloway arrives to supervise, she finds the museum’s curator lying dead beside the coffin. Soon the museum’s wealthy owner lies dead too, and when threatening letters come to light, events take an even more sinister turn.

Publication date: 5^th January 2012 | Price: £16.99

Tom-All-Alone's

by Lynn Shepherd

2012 is the bi-centenary of Charles Dickens' birth and this Victorian murder-mystery from the author of Murder at Mansfield Park engages with Dickens' world, being set in the grimy world of Dickens' Bleak House. In Lincoln’s Inn Fields the affairs of the mighty Dedlock family are not the only concern on the mind of formidable lawyer Edward Tulkinghorn. He has other clients’ interests to safeguard, and other deadly secrets to hide... Described as “Dickens but darker”, you don’t need to know Bleak House to enjoy this book, but Dickens fans will find it a creative and fascinating response to the events and themes of Dickens’ masterpiece.

Publication date: 2^nd February 2012 | Price: £12.99

On December's show The Reading Room Book Group will be reviewing 1Q84: Books 1 and 2 - the blockbuster international bestseller from Haruki Murakami.  Don't forget to tune in at 10am on Sunday 4th December on Sirenonline.co.uk. The podcast version will be available from Tuesday 6th December. In the meantime, here's a quick video preview... click below or go to our YouTube channel.

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In our first ever video blog, Paul talks about his reluctance to embrace poetry ahead of our review of Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy's The Bees in November's show...

Back in May we hosted The Reading Room Live - a unique event at the Bishop Greaves Theatre in Lincoln featuring poetry and spoken word performances and all broadcast live on Siren 107.3FM.  The event was also filmed, and videos of the night, along with bonus interviews with the performers, are now available on our very own YouTube Channel.  Click here to visit our page and subscribe.

Here's an overview of the event...

The Reading Room has announced the books we will be reviewing over the coming months.  The list includes titles by Nick Hornby, Lionel Shriver and Karen Maitland amongst others.  Click here to see the full list.