
Mrs eNil, Creative Commons
Since the Desert Island Discs archive was digitised, making recordings of around 1500 castaways interviewed since 1942 available for download, I’ve been steadily making my way through the pick of them.
The interview format is timeless and still smart to this day: the music often prompts an emotion or a recollection that a short interview would otherwise struggle to do.
What’s more, there are hundreds with interviewees I admire, and from time to time the interviews are genuinely illuminating, peppered with insight and warmth, a whole biography writ small.
I love the different interviewer styles too: Posh Roy Plomley with his shambolic shortfall in research; urbane and wise Parky; go-for-the-jugular Sue Lawley; and slick Kirsty Young.
The 12 interviews with writers that I’ve chosen here are the best, most touching, most revealing, most surprising and thought provoking of those I’ve heard to date. Continue reading