Thanks to our friends at Naxos Audiobooks, The Dabbler is serialising Richard Fawkes' award-winning The History of Classical Music, read by Robert Powell... In this episode we arrive at Johann Sebastian Bach and look at the development of keys, and of music for the keyboard... This serialisation is an abridged version of ... Read More...

On his birthday we pay tribute to a great actor - and one of life's scrappers. Dustin Hoffman celebrates three-quarters of a century this month. Obviously a great actor, but just as obviously quite funny looking. He had to wait until he was 29 for his break - in The Graduate ... Read More...

Today's Dabbler letter from America finds the site of America’s first experiment in religious liberty in an unexpected place.. John Pendleton Kennedy’s 1848 novel Rob of the Bowl has all the hallmarks of overwrought Gothic historical fiction.  A haunted chapel, mysterious blood stains, an evil pirate named Cocklescraft, the beautiful daughter of an ... Read More...