This is Radio 4’s Saturday travel programme, presented by Sandi Toksvig.
Last week’s discussion was about Istanbul and Venice – which made a happy link to The Bellini Card, of course, although you’d miss the mention of the title if you sneezed!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/excessbaggage/
Here’s a video, with some readings, about booksellers in Istanbul.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dEf31uXShJI
Faber are about to release the first Yashim story, The Janissary Tree, as an audiobook – which makes this quite a Summer along with the paperback edition of The Snake Stone and The Bellini Card itself.
Today I got the discs – a sneak preview.
The reader is Andrew Sachs, and he is brilliant. His voice is precise, quiet, companionable. He carries the book, delivering drama in surges – and for speech he does more than create accents. He makes characters.
I’m fascinated by the way he can suggest a woman’s voice, while using his own.
And now, for the first time, Yashim speaks!