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Are you heading off to some exotic idyll for a fortnights R & R?  Or maybe you’re venturing off alpaca shearing in Outer Mongolia?  Or perhaps, you’re skint and sitting on a deck chair in your back garden.  No matter where you’re spending your hard earned break let Litopia After Dark give you the low down on the must reads of the summer. Dave, Donna, Carolyn, Eve and Peter recommend books for your reading pleasure over the long, hot, summer days.

Links to our recommended reads…

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Our last, and without doubt most outrageous (note the “Explicit” rating) live offering before the long summer break - we proudly present our most ambitious and most perfect game show offering, for your amusement and delectation.

Panelists Donna Ballman, Dave Bartram, Paul Baker, Carolyn Soutar and very special guest “Dr. Sue” Susan O’Doherty embark on a positively neo-Darwinian competitive frenzy of combat - publishing-style!  Fortunately, our own Eve Harvey is on hand to keep the score, and to maintain a modicum of sanity.

For the next three weeks, we’re not live - but we ARE nevertheless going to be with you - so don’t miss an episode!  And we’ll see you LIVE in the UStream chatroom once again on the 15th August!

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Our last Litopia Daily before the summer break!  Eve pushes the boundaries, Donna tangles with the TSA, and Peter’s looking forward to Minnesota - and being back with you on Monday 18th August!

Peter continues to rant about getting writers into the gym, plus Today in Writing History from Eve, and Today’s Writing News from Donna.

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A shock announcement today from Publishing News, the British book trade magazine, that it is to close.  Plus Today in Writing History from Eve, and Today’s Writing News from Donna.

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Eve’s off to Patagonia…  Donna’s defending the Almighty in the courtroom… and Peter rants about dead writers and dumb agents…

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Eve expostulates on one of the greatest literary critics in the English language… Donna reveals a present-day Shakespearean mystery… and Peter wants to shake your booty…

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As we continue our long wind-down into the summer holidays Litopia After Dark is proud to present The Famous Litopia Game Show!  The contestants battling it out for the title of  Game Show Legend were Dave Bartram, Donna Ballman, John Quirk and me (Eve Harvey, Podcast Officer extrordinaire).  And I was rubbish.  Not just a bit rubbish but really rubbish.  Where were the questions about Captain Underpants?  Where were the quotes from Gerri Halliwell?  Why didn’t we have to recognise the blurb from The Da Vinci Code?  Despite my desperate efforts to Google the answers, raid my bookshelves for cheat-material, phone round everyone more intelligent than me… well, listen yourself… but I warn you, it isn’t pretty!

I have no idea what went on in the Ustream chatroom (7.30pm GMT) because I was far too busy cheating.  Join us next week for the very last show before the holidays.

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Eve exposes the sanitizer of Shakespeare… and Donna revisits the 19 year old writer of The Trouble with Tribbles, a classic Star Trek episode.

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Eve exposes history’s first vanity publisher… and Donna’s left that darn cake out in the rain again…

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Eve unmasks Barbara Cartland, Donna battles PC (no, not Peter…)

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Grey miners think of strike in this episode, as both Eve and Donna mysteriously intuit the same mondegreen…

Eve explores the origin of the comic …. and Donna gets her teeth into biography…

Where do your most brilliant ideas come from?  What’s the most extreme thing you’ve done when researching your book? What’s the worst book you’ve ever bought?  Litopia After Dark this week begins to wind down for the summer holidays with a writers’ quiz.  It all gets completely out of hand as the panellists give each other marks and the bickering reaches a crescendo as they try to outdo each other in the race to the finish line… tune in to see who wins.

The contenders this week are Dave Bartram, Richard Howse and Donna Ballman.  They are joined by Amanda Lees, novelist, journalist, actress and broadcaster whose second novel Kumari, Goddess of Secrets has just been released.

We were cheering in the Ustream chatroom (7.30pm GMT) as the scores reached infinite highs and desperate lows and the panellists tried every trick in the book to win the game. Join us next week for more of the same.

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It’s Independence Day… and to celebrate, Eve drops through a rabbit hole …. and Donna gets us au courant…