29/09/2010

This week Libby Purves is joined by Paul Burns, Kit Chapman, David Cohen and Jane Davis. Paul Burns is a former soldier who survived an IRA bomb at Warren Point in Northern Ireland on 27th August 1979. He went on to become the first disabled member of the elite Red Devils parachute display team, and was a member of "Time and Tide", the first ever disabled crew to sail around the world. His story is featured in the BBC One series My Story. Kit Chapman is the owner of The Castle Hotel in Taunton, Somerset which his family have run since the 1950s. He was born into a long line of glamorous hoteliers: his grandfather Henry Pruger was once General Manager of London's Savoy and responsible for re-establishing the hotel's pre-eminence. His book My Archipelago is published by Mercer Books. David Cohen is a writer and psychologist. When he was twelve he was abandoned by his parents. He knew he'd be put in an orphanage if anyone found out, so he made sure no one did. His book, Home Alone, is published by JR Books. Dr Jane Davis is Director of The Reader Organisation, which she founded in 1997. Whilst working as a teacher at the University of Liverpool she began to develop the read-aloud and personal response model in her classes and she set up the first 'Get Into Reading' group in a small library in Birkenhead in 2001 with young single mums. There are over 230 'Get Into Reading' groups. The book, A Little, Aloud, edited by Angela Macmillan is published by Chatto & Windus.