The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Radio 4 defends 'Book at Bedtime'

09.06.08

Radio 4 commissioning editor Caroline Raphael, who is in charge of the station's "Book at Bedtime" slot, has defended her decision to pick novels which some listeners have branded "disturbing".

Among the complainants was one person saying Helpless by Barbara Gowdy, about child abduction, made them "sick", reports BBC online, but Raphael said it was "extremely well written" and added that listeners could "turn off".

But she said it might have been better to have avoided airing it after another "difficult" book, by Poppy Adams.

"I would accept that The Behaviour of Moths followed straight on by Helpless may not have been the best two books to put next to each other," Raphael told Radio 4's "Feedback" programme. "However we do try to get books on publication, and the paperback of Helpless is out now, and Behaviour of Moths has just been published. That's when people are reading the reviews, and they are being talked about."

Listeners complained that Helpless, which follows the stalking and kidnap of a nine-year-old girl, was an inappropriate and tasteless choice for "Book at Bedtime".

"It is about a very difficult subject," Raphael said. "Unfortunately, writers do want to write about disturbing things.

"We felt that this showed a level of humanity and an attempt to understand the story from everybody's perspective, that we thought listeners would enjoy hearing."

BBC online

Media Radio 4 Book at Bedtime