FlexiLingo
Matt Haig is the bestselling writer, whose work ranges from magical realism to memoir. His novel The Midnight Library became a global phenomenon, selling 15 million copies, while his memoir Reasons to Stay Alive has provided comfort to millions around the world. He grew up in Newark-on-Trent in a loving family, though his mother struggled with post-natal depression. Difficulties at school and the death of his grandmother led to a period of teenage rebellion. Matt met his future wife, Andrea, at university and credits her with helping him through the most dangerous period of his life. In their...
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Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury that they'd want to take
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Is this episode right for you?
B1 · Intermediate
Fine if you can follow simple news
- 89% of the words are B1 or easier.
- 170 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
- 179 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.
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The opening of the episode. The whole transcript is in the player.
harder words (B2+)
Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons the music's shorter than on the original broadcast but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC sounds.
Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening. My castaway this week is the writer Matt Haig. His work defies easy classification, almost 30 books, encompassing magical realism, fantasy, memoir, novels, children's books and non-fiction.
One thing his devotees agree on, however, is that all his stories have the feel-good factor, providing comfort and escape to millions around the world. His smash hit the Midnight Library about a woman who finds herself in a library located somewhere between life and death, trying out alternative versions of her life via
That was the opening. The rest of the episode (50 min) is in the player: every word clickable, with translation, saved words and flashcards.
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