Ben Crystal

Guest: Ben Crystal is an actor and writer. He has worked in tv, film and theatre, including the 2006
season at Shakespeare’s Globe, and is a narrator for RNIB Talking Books, Channel 4 and the BBC.
He co-wrote Shakespeare’s Words (Penguin 2002) and The Shakespeare Miscellany (Penguin 2005)with his father, David Crystal, and websites for these books can be found via The Shakespeare Portal. He regularly gives workshops on performing and speaking Shakespeare.

Books

Shakespeare on Toast by Ben Crystal
Who’s afraid of William Shakespeare? Just about everyone. He wrote too much and what he wrote is
inaccessible and elitist. Right?

Wrong. Shakespeare on Toast knocks the stuffing from the staid old myth of Shakespeare, revealing
the man and his plays for what they really are: modern, thrilling, uplifting drama.

The colourful words and vibrant world of the world’s greatest hack writer are brought brilliantly to
life by actor Ben Crystal. Sweeping cobwebs from the Bard – his language, his life, his world –
Crystal reveals man and work as relevant, accessible, alive.

This is a book for everyone, whether you’re studying Shakespeare for the first time or you’ve never
set foot near one of his plays, but have always wanted to. It smashes down the walls that have been
built up around him, that have turned Shakespeare into an untouchable literary figure. Shakespeare,
Crystal reminds us, invented popular culture.

Told in five fascinating Acts, this is quick, easy and good for you. Just like beans on toast.

Neuromancer by William Gibson
Here is the novel that started it all, launching the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to
win the holy trinity of science fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick
Award. With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace--and science fiction has
never been the same.

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway-jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace,trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price....

Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
Viktor is an aspiring writer with only Misha, his pet penguin, for company. Although he would prefer
to write short stories, he earns a living composing obituaries for a newspaper. He longs to see his
work published, yet the subjects of his obituaries continue to cling to life. But when he opens the
newspaper to see his work in print for the first time, his pride swiftly turns to terror. He and
Misha have been drawn into a trap from which there appears to be no escape.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend
of his best friend Kizuki.Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days
in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time
when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan
First published in 1976, Sombrero Fallout was Richard Brautigan's seventh published novel and the
third to parody a literary genre. Subtitled "A Japanese Novel," it featured two interrelated stories.
The first was about a sombrero falling from the sky and its affect on humanity. In the second story,
the narrator of the first thinks about his Japanese ex-lover who had recently moved out of his
apartment.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead and subject to the cruel regime at Lowood
charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the
post of governess at Thornfield Hall, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment
to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search
for a richer life than that traditionally allowed women in Victorian society. With a heroine full of
yearning, the dangerous secrets she encounters, and the choices she finally makes, Charlotte
Bronte's innovative and enduring romantic novel continues to engage and provoke readers.

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola
Zola's first important novel (1867) is a hauntingly powerful psychological study, described at the
time as 'a steamy story of sexual passion plumbing the murky depths of murder,revenge and
retribution'. Therese is trapped in a loveless marriage to Madame Raquin's sickly son, Camille.
Seduced by his best friend, Laurent, she conspires with him to murder her husband. Haunted by guilt
and by the pervasive presence of Madame Raquin, who has suffered a debilitating stroke, the lovers'
passion turns to mutual loathing...

Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
Michael Marshall Smith's surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild
humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. Now part of the Voyager
Classics collection. Stark is the hero the future is waiting for -- God help it. He's smart,
alarmingly cool, and has immaculate taste in shirts. He's a troubleshooter in the City, a lawless
sprawl of Neighbourhoods which covers the country from coast to coast. Each is totally geared to the
desires of those who live in it, from can-do corporate types, through deranged criminals, to people
who just don't like loud noises. Stark accepts a job from Zenda Renn, the human face of the Action
Centre -- where people who have to be doing something all the time hang out. Someone's missing.
Zenda needs him found, and soon. In a world where the past and future, reality and dreams meet and
have a fist fight, Stark is the only man who can make a difference. Time's running out and there's
no going back. Only Forward.

Needle in the Groove by Jeff NoonAfter years of playing in two-bit bands, Elliot gets his big chance - he meets a singer, a DJ and a
drummer who seem to have everything. But just as their first dance record is climbing the charts,
one of the band disappears

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor',
the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity
 - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul.
Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, "We" is the classic dystopian novel and was the inspiration for
George Orwell's 1984. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for
individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction.

Coming up next week, Author of Changing to Win- Giles Long.