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Words and Music Episodes

  1. Nature of the British Isles

    From Orkney, George Mackay Brown and Peter Maxwell Davies to Keats on the Isle of Wight.

  2. Wild Isles

    The birds, animals and landscapes of the British Isles from owls to oak, fenlands to foxes

  3. Women and Music

    "Women of the world, take over!" From Grace Jones to Jane Austen and Ethel Smyth's March.

  4. The Aeneid

    Episodes from the story of Aeneas, read by Olivia Darnley and John Sackville.

  5. The Emperor's New Clothes

    Music and readings on our relationship with the clothes we wear - or sometimes don't.

  6. Intoxication, addiction and ecstatic states

    Radio 3 researcher in residence Sally Marlow curates a programme about heightened states.

  7. Warmth

    From Orwell to Goethe, Zadie Smith to Donne with music from Puccini, Bizet and Tori Amos.

  8. A Christmas Menagerie

    Robert Lindsay and Shiloh Coke with a range of animals from sheep to turkeys and reindeer.

  9. Material World

    Wool, velvet, cotton, silk: Kate O'Flynn and Matthew Needham with readings set with music.

  10. Proust

    Marcel Proust's writing on taste, memory, love and jealousy is set alongside music.

  11. Encounters with Egypt

    From soprano Fatma Said to Verdi's Aida, Agatha Christie to Ahmad Shawki and Adhaf Soueif.

  12. Writers and the 麻豆社

    With poems and novels depicting the announcers, auditions, vox pops, concerts and news.

  13. Rings

    Marriage, motorways and magic: writers on rings, read by Susan Twist and Chris Jack.

  14. The Environment

    Reflections on our increasingly fraught relationship with the natural world.

  15. Northumbria

    From the Lindisfarne Gospels and Bede to poetry by Sean O'Brien and Katrina Porteous.

  16. Joy and Sorrow

    Patrick Baladi (The Office) and Charlotte Martin (The Archers) explore joy and sorrow.

  17. A Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    A sequence of music and readings reflecting on the life and reign of HM Queen Elizabeth II

  18. All Fingers and Thumbs

    Trilling, sucking, spinning, plucking 鈥� fingers, and thumbs, do the talking.

  19. Butterflies and Moths

    Readings from Nabokov, Sebald, Tagore, Poppy Adams, David Henry Hwang and Emily Dickinson.

  20. Electricity

    Frankenstein, lightning, the national grid, Bob Dylan, electronic orchestral instruments.

  21. Birmingham

    With the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, hear literature and music linked to the city.

  22. Courtroom Drama

    Readings from Kafka, Cyril Hare, Dorothy L Sayers, Carol Ann Duffy in this legal episode.

  23. The Ledbury Poets

    Prose and verse from Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds inspired by Ledbury Poetry Festival

  24. Keep Calm and Carry On

    From disastrous concert performances to shark attacks: how do we cope with challenges?

  25. Cats

    Felines in works by Chaucer, Aaron Copland, Stevie Smith, SF Said, Ravel and Hauschka.

  26. Swimming

    From deep ocean fish to Hampstead ponds and EM Forster's pool party in Room with a View.

  27. May Day

    Robert Glenister and Norah Lopez Holden are the readers in a celebration of May customs.

  28. April

    The cruellest month, when sweet showers fall, or the time to be in England?

  29. Movies

    Robert Powell and Amanda Donohoe with readings celebrating cinema set alongside music.

  30. Vikings

    The seafaring Norse warriors and their gods and mythology.

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