Alasdair Gray rereads

Alasdair rereads the passage from Chapter 22 of Lanark that includes his most quoted excerpt - where Thaw explains to his friend McAlpin why nobody notices the magnificence of the city they live in.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: Lanark by Alasdair Gray. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair rereads his own favourite excerpt from Lanark – Chapter 44. End. I first shared this podcast in memory of my beloved Uncle who left us on the 29th of December 2019. When I asked him why he had chosen this chapter he said "because it's the end and, I think, a rather good one". I'm so pleased to be able to say that Alasdair's own death - like his life - was a good one.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: Lanark by Alasdair Gray. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair rereads an excerpt from the Epilogue of his novel Lanark - where the hero meets his author and argues against his forthcoming death.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: Lanark by Alasdair Gray. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair explains how H G Wells’s description of interplanetary conflict in The War Of The Worlds - informed by socialism and the brutality of the British Empire - quickly became a dominant narrative and rereads excerpts from the Wells novel that particularly impressed him - The First Men On The Moon.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: The First Men on the Moon by H G Wells. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair rereads the first part of his essay New Kelvingrove from Of Me And Others - in which he describes how childhood visits to Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum fuelled his imagination and aided his obsession with creating and escaping to other worlds.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: Of Me And Others by Alasdair Gray. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair rereads another excerpt from the stories that so terrified him as a child and explains how Edgar Allen Poe’s The Imp Of The Perverse relates to Freud’s death wish.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: The Imp Of The Perverse by Edgar Allen Poe. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair describes the terror he experienced as a child on first reading the stories of Edgar Allan Poe and rereads the start of one of his most famous works – The Fall Of The House Of Usher.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: The Fall Of The House Of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair rereads excerpts from Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea – the first science fiction he ever read and a book that improved his geography as he followed the path of the Nautilus on a globe of the world.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair rereads excerpts from Just So Stories to his sister Mora (my mother) and they revisit Rudyard Kipling’s illustrations and rhymes – with one particular passage triggering thoughts of Jean Rhys and Eliot’s The Wasteland.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.

Alasdair rereads the beginning of John Masefield’s The Box of Delights – a book he mentions with great fondness in a number of podcasts and that he enjoyed as much at the end of his life as he did when he was a child. With many thanks to the copyright holders who very kindly gave us permission to reread this excerpt.

I made these recordings in what turned out to be the last year of my uncle's life - so I could spend more time with him and share with you the very great pleasure of sitting quietly at home with Alasdair listening to him read and talk about books.

You can find out more about the story behind Alasdair Gray rereads in A Gray Space a creative space inspired by Alasdair Gray.

I couldn't have made these podcasts without the help of my family and friends: 

Featured book: The Box of Delights by John Masefield. You can follow @alasdairgrayrereads on Instagram for news, pictures and previews of upcoming episodes. And if you have any questions or thoughts to share I’d love to hear them – so please do leave a comment.