New College Reads To You

• Stephen Anderson reads to you George Herbert’s poem, ‘Prayer’ (I)
• Steven Balbus reads to you from Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time Warps
• Tina Biswas reads to you from her novel, The Antagonists
• Tina Biswas reads to you from V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas
• Gyles Brandreth reads to you Derek Mahon’s poem, ‘Everything Is Going To Be All Right’
• Michael Burden reads to you from Dambudzo Marechera’s short story, ‘Oxford, Black Oxford’
• Andrew Caldecott reads to you from his novel, Rotherweird
• Andrew Counter reads to you from Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution
• Richard Dawkins reads to you from Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
• Richard Dawkins reads to you from his autobiography, Brief Candle in the Dark
• Marcus du Sautoy reads to you from G. H. Hardy’s A Mathematician’s Apology
• Roopa Farooki reads to you from her novel, Bitter Sweets
• Roopa Farooki reads to you John Donne’s poem, ‘The Canonization’
• Elizabeth Frazer reads to you from her book, Shakespeare and the Political Way
• Patrick Gale reads to you Charles Causley’s poem, ‘Angel Hill’
• Patrick Gale reads to you from his novel, The Whole Day Through
• Martin Gibson reads to you from his biography, A Primrose Path: The Gilded Life of Lord Rosebery’s Favourite Son
• Martin Gibson reads to you from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Donatien Grau reads to you from Euripides’s The Bacchae
• Donatien Grau reads to you from his biography, La vie Alaïa
• Ashleigh Griffin reads to you from Georgina Ferry’s biography, Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life 
• Daniel Harkin reads to you Philip Larkin’s poem, ‘The Mower’
• Masud Husain reads to you from Oliver Sacks’s Awakenings
• Ann Jefferson reads to you from Samuel Beckett’s Molloy
• Rachel Johnson reads to you from Bruce Chatwin’s On the Black Hill
• Rachel Johnson reads to you from her memoirs, Rake’s Progress: My Political Midlife Crisis
• Olivia Judson reads to you from Thomas Henry Huxley’s lecture, ‘On a Piece of Chalk’
• Catriona Kelly reads to you from Molly Keane’s novel, Loving and Giving
• Nur Laiq reads to you W. H. Auden’s poem, ‘Hymn to the United Nations’
• Karen Leeder reads to you from Porcelain, her translation of Durs Grünbein’s cycle of poems, Porzellan
• Chris Lintott reads to you from Jérôme Lalande’s introduction to Fontenelle’s Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds
• Erica Longfellow reads to you from John Donne’s sermon ‘Preached at Pauls, upon Christmas Day, in the Evening. 1624’
• Laura Marcus reads to you from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
• Katie McKeogh reads to you from Philip Caraman’s translation from the Latin of William Weston’s autobiography 
• Kate Mosse reads to you from her novel, The Taxidermist’s Daughter
• Kate Mosse reads to you from T. S. Eliot’s poem, ‘Little Gidding’, the fourth of Eliot’s Four Quartets
• Stephen Mulhall reads to you from Stanley Cavell’s The Claim of Reason
• William Poole reads to you from John Milton’s Paradise Lost
• Natasha Pulley reads to you from Akinari Ueda’s story, ‘The Reed-Choked House’
• David Raeburn reads to you from his translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
• Craig Raine reads to you his poem, ‘Sea Urchins’
• Dominic Selwood reads to you from his book, Anatomy of a Nation: British Identity in 50 Documents
• Dominic Selwood reads to you Jorge Luis Borges’s very short story, ‘The Witness’
• Hannah Sullivan reads to you from her poem, ‘The Sandpit after Rain’
• Rosalind Temple reads to you in her translation from the Welsh from Ned Thomas’s Bydoedd
• Martin Williams reads to you Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem, ‘Binsey Poplars’
• Miles Young reads to you C. P. Cavafy’s poem, ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’

Historian, author, journalist — and New College, Oxford alumnus — Dominic Selwood, reading a very short story, ‘The Witness’, by the Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)

Dominic Selwood — an author, historian, and journalist, who carried out his DPhil research at New College, Oxford — reading from his forthcoming book, to be published in September 2021 — Anatomy of a Nation: British Identity in 50 Documents (Constable, 2021)

The barrister and writer, Martin Gibson — who read History in the 1980s at New College, Oxford — reading from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), the only novel of Irish playwright and writer, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Martin Gibson — barrister, writer, and New College, Oxford alumnus — reading from his biography of Liberal politician Neil Primrose (1882–1917), A Primrose Path: The Gilded Life of Lord Rosebery’s Favourite Son (Arum Press, 2020)

Catriona Kelly — Professor of Russian at the University of Oxford and Fellow of New College, Oxford — reading from Loving and Giving (1988), a novel by Molly Keane (1904–1996)

Scholar and writer, Donatien Grau — who holds a DPhil from New College, Oxford — reading from his memoir from his time with the couturier, Azzedine Alaïa, La Vie Alaïa (2020)

Andrew Caldecott QC, barrister and novelist — who read history at New College, Oxford, 1970–1973 — reading from Rotherweird, the first volume in his Rotherweird trilogy of novels

Donatien Grau, scholar and writer — who did his DPhil at New College, Oxford — reading in the original language from the ancient Greek tragedy, The Bacchae, by Euripides

Writer, broadcaster, actor, entertainer — and New College, Oxford alumnus — Gyles Brandreth reading ‘Everything Is Going To Be All Right’, by Belfast-born poet Derek Mahon (1941–2020), from Gyles’s much-praised new anthology of poetry, Dancing By the Light of the Moon

Elizabeth Frazer — Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at New College, Oxford — reading about magic, from her brilliant and wonderfully written book, Shakespeare and the Political Way (Oxford University Press, 2020)

Journalist and writer — and New College Classics alumna — Rachel Johnson reading from On the Black Hill (1982), the novel by Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989), which won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread Award for First Novel

Olivia Judson — evolutionary biologist, science journalist, writer, and New College, Oxford alumna — reading from the remarkable 1868 lecture ‘On a Piece of Chalk’ by biologist and science educationist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)

Rachel Johnson — journalist, novelist, and New College, Oxford alumna — reading in witty and self-deprecating fashion about her short-lived career as a politician, from her superbly entertaining memoirs, Rake’s Progress: My Political Midlife Crisis (2020)

The Reverend Erica Longfellow — Dean of Divinity and Chaplain at New College, Oxford — reading from the Christmas Day sermon of 1624, by poet and clergyman, John Donne (1572–1631)

New College’s Cox Fellow, Katie McKeogh, reading from the inspiring autobiography of 1611 by Jesuit priest, William Weston (1549/50–1615), translated into English by Philip Caraman (1911–1998) as William Weston: The Autobiography of an Elizabethan (1955)

Ann Jefferson, Emeritus Fellow and former Tutor in French at New College, Oxford — and Emeritus Professor of French Literature in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford — reading the opening paragraph from the novel, Molloy by Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)

Martin Williams, the University of Oxford’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education) — and David Clarke Fellow in Engineering and Professorial Fellow at New College, Oxford — reading ‘Binsey Poplars’, by poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), one of the Victorian era’s finest poets

Tina Biswas, New College alumna and novelist — author of Dancing with the Two-Headed Tigress, The Red Road, and The Antagonists — presenting the 30th reading in our ‘New College Reads To You’ podcast series with a passage from the wonderful and much-celebrated novel, A House for Mr Biswas (1961), by V. S. Naipaul (1932–2018)

The acclaimed and scintillating novelist, Tina Biswas — who read PPE (1997–2000) at New College, Oxford — reading from her powerful, satirical third novel, The Antagonists (Fingerprint!, 2019)

Michael Burden — Dean and Pictures & Chattels Fellow at New College, Oxford, and University of Oxford Professor of Opera Studies — reading from a short story, ‘Oxford, Black Oxford’, by the Zimbabwean fiction writer and poet (and sometime New College student), Dambudzo Marechera (1952–1987)

Nur Laiq, TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities) Global South Visiting Fellow, from New College, celebrating the United Nations’ 75th anniversary, with her reading of W. H. Auden’s 1971 poem, ‘Hymn to the United Nations’

Ashleigh Griffin — University of Oxford Professor of Evolutionary Biology and New College Fellow — delivering a thought-provoking reading, to celebrate women at Oxford, from Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life (1998) by the writer, editor, broadcaster — and Oxford graduate — Georgina Ferry (b. 1955)

Rosalind Temple, New College Fellow and University of Oxford Lecturer in Linguistics, reading in the original Welsh and in her translation into English from Bydoedd (‘Worlds’), written by academic, journalist, publisher, writer — and New College alumnus — Ned Thomas (b. 1936)

Masud Husain — Professorial Fellow at New College and University of Oxford Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience — reading from the international bestseller, Awakenings (1973), written by neurologist, Oliver Sacks (1933–2015)

Stephen Mulhall — Russell H. Carpenter Fellow at New College and University of Oxford Professor of Philosophy — reading from The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (1979), by the American philosopher, Stanley Cavell (1926–2018) 

Hannah Sullivan — University of Oxford Associate Professor, New College Fellow, and one of our College’s celebrated poets — reading from ‘The Sandpit after Rain’ from her award-winning debut poetry collection, Three Poems (Faber & Faber, 2018; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020)

New College’s Salvesen Fellow, Daniel Harkin, with a sensitive and thoughtful reading of — and commentary on — ‘The Mower’ by Philip Larkin (1922–1985), written 12 June 1979

Miles Young, Warden of New College, Oxford, delivering the 20th reading in our ‘New College Reads To You’ podcast series with ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’, a poem written in 1898 by C. P. Cavafy (1863–1933) — which he first heard read by John Julius Norwich

David Raeburn, who taught Classics in schools and at New College for many years, reading from his translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses — about the plague in the Greek island of Aegina . . .

Brilliantly inventive novelist and New College alumna, Natasha Pulley, reading from ‘The Reed-Choked House’, a story she came across while researching for her last book . . . 

William Poole — New College’s John Galsworthy Fellow, Senior Tutor, and Fellow Librarian — delivering a perfectly modulated reading from Book IV of Paradise Lost, by John Milton (1608–1674)

Karen Leeder, Professor of Modern German Literature, reading from Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of My City (Seagull Books, 2020), her translation — of Porzellan: Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt, by German poet, Durs Grünbein (b. 1962) — which is being published 75 years since the Allied firebombing of Dresden

Evolutionary biologist, bestselling author, and New College Emeritus Fellow, Professor Richard Dawkins, reading from his autobiography, Brief Candle in the Dark (2015) — sequel to his An Appetite for Wonder (2013)

Andrew Counter — University of Oxford Associate Professor and New College Fellow — reading beautifully a powerful, moving passage from The French Revolution: A History (1837) by Thomas Carlyle, which considers Louis XVI’s final hours as he takes leave of his family

Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, University of Oxford Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and New College Fellow, reading from A Mathematician’s Apology (1940) by G. H. Hardy (1877–1947) — the book that made Marcus want to create his own mathematical stories

The fabulous multimillion-selling author — and New College alumna — Kate Mosse, reading from her own bestselling Gothic novel, The Taxidermist’s Daughter, set in 1912 — within the village of Fishbourne, West Sussex, where Kate herself grew up . . .

Internationally bestselling writer, founder director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, first female executive director of the Chichester Festival Theatre — and New College alumna — Kate Mosse, reading from ‘Little Gidding’, the fourth of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets

Bestselling author and New College alumnus, Patrick Gale, reading from his thirteenth novel, The Whole Day Through (2009) — the only time he has yet written about his days at New College . . .

Writer, NHS medic, and alumna of New College, Roopa Farooki, reading ‘The Canonization’ by metaphysical poet and cleric, John Donne (1572–1631), which has hugely influenced her own work

Roopa Farooki — novelist, NHS junior doctor, and New College alumna — reading about New College itself, from her wonderful debut novel, Bitter Sweets (Macmillan, 2007)

New College’s Rodewald Lector in Classical Languages, Stephen Anderson, reading ‘Prayer’ (I) by the devotional poet, George Herbert (1593–1633)

Richard Dawkins, New College Emeritus Fellow and the University of Oxford’s inaugural Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science (1995–2008), reading from Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, from the edition narrated by Richard Dawkins (CSA Word, 2006)

New College Research Fellow, University of Oxford Professor of Astrophysics, and the BBC’s “The Sky at Night” presenter, Chris Lintott, reading from Jérôme Lalande’s introduction to Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle’s Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, translated by Elizabeth Gunning and published in 1803

Craig Raine — poet, critic, editor, and New College Emeritus Fellow — reading his new poem, ‘Sea Urchins’, based on an Henri Cartier-Bresson photograph of Henri Matisse

Steven Balbus, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, reading from Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy (Norton, 1994), by 2017 Physics Nobel Laureate, Kip Thorne 

Laura Marcus, Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature, reading from Virginia Woolf’s most autobiographical novel, To the Lighthouse (1927) — ‘Time Passes’

Patrick Gale, novelist and New College alumnus, reading the hauntingly enigmatic ‘Angel Hill’ from Collected Poems 1951–2000 (Macmillan, 2000) by Cornish poet, Charles Causley (1917–2003)

Subscribe to New College’s YouTube channel for all readings from our ‘New College Reads To You’ podcast series, and for more New College, Oxford videos.

Acknowledgements:

Video by Christopher Thompson — Photos of New College by Michael Burden and Erica Longfellow
Produced by Sam Brown, Erica Longfellow, and Christopher Skelton-Foord

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