Podcasts of the week: barn owls, pebbles and painting
Where I live, in London, the sound of traffic has been replaced by a comforting “cacophony of birdsong”, said Max Sanderson in The Guardian. But it’s nothing compared to the wildlife on Melissa Harrison’s doorstep.
In her “brilliant” new podcast,
the nature writer and novelist takes us on an audio tour of the countryside around her home in Suffolk, from a “quest to rediscover a local barn owl”, to her exploration of a ruined cottage in the woods. The author’s delight in her surroundings is a joy to listen to, as are her “wellinformed and often philosophical pontifications”. But the “real beauty is in the moments in-between”: the brief silences and hesitations that somehow “embody the open expanses” Harrison is navigating. It’s escapist, beautiful, and “absolutely lovely”.
Man.
personal documentary” by 25-year-old Jack Taylor about the resurgence of interest – among twentysomethings in particular – in a 1980s television series called
The tutor, the late Bob Ross, had the “most calming voice on TV”, and his painting lessons, which often took rural landscapes and trees as their subject, have become cult therapeutic viewing (via online streaming) for a “new generation of anxious youth”.
Joy of Painting.
The
Those of us who find our comforts between the covers of a good book are not spoilt for choice when it comes to podcasts, said James Marriott in The Times. Telling people about the novels you like can be a bit like recounting your dreams: there’s a good chance of being boring. (“A second-hand account of a series of disjointed, apparently illogical things that happened to some imaginary people. Who cares?”) A “shining exception”, though, is
a show about old books produced by the publisher Unbound and hosted by John Mitchinson and Andy Miller. You can tell, from the way they “guffaw and quote and enthuse” that these two really “love books, not the idea of being people who love books”. A recent stand-out episode was on W.N.P. Barbellion’s 1919 comic diary
I listened, laughed, and “then I bought the book – which is exactly what you want a books podcast to make you do”.
The Journal of a Disappointed