V = Val R = Rob H = Hannah B = Bob A = Adela

Al = Alice Ro = Robert

V: Hi. I read a lot, mostly non-fiction books about history and politics, but I also like some poetry, too. I'm outside the Tate Modern in central London asking people about reading. Do you read much?

R: I do, yeah. I try to read as much as possible.

H: Yes, I do. I'm a great reader.

B: Yes, I do, yes. Mostly non-fiction.

A: I read a lot of fashion magazines.

Al: Yeah, I read a fair bit.

Ro: Yeah, I read a lot of, sort of, art criticism and things, and things like that. But I also, I read a lot of comic books as well.

V: What was the last book you read?

H: Well, the last book I read was Water for Elelphants by Sara Gruen which was a book recommended to me by some friends - I'd never heard of her, or indeed, the book - but I enjoyed it very much. It was a story about a circus in the 1930's America.

R: The last book I read was a novel called The Search by a London author called Geoff Dyer and it's about, it's set in the States. It's about a man who's paid to pursue another person and he travels across the land trying to catch him.

A: The last book I read: Breaking Dawn, part of the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Myers. I was re-reading it for the third time because I really enjoy the books. They get you quite hooked.

Al: I read a collection of short stories by Sylvia Plath called Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams.

B: Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency which was an `easy read' and it was fun, it was humorous. It was a book I'd had on my shelf for ages and I just, it took me years to get round to reading it.

V: What's your favourite book?

H: My favourite book of all time is a book called One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes which is a book about a housewife, just after the Second World War and it just traces her existence in a day of her life. It's terribly mundane.

Ro: Probably The Killing Joke, which is a Batman graphic novel.

Al: Well, one of them is definitely a book by Jean Cocteau called Les Enfants Terribles which is about two siblings and their, kind of, twisted relationship.

V: Which fictional character would you most like to be, or meet?

R: I'd most like to meet the fictional character, John Self from Martin Amis' novel Money which is the funniest novel I've ever read.

B: I think that would be The Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Just his irrationality, or irrationality to everyone else who looks at him, but to him, he's completely normal.

Ro: That's quite an easy one: Batman. I'd love to be Batman and I'd love to meet the Joker.

Al: I think I'd like to meet Humbert Humbert from Lolita, which is by Nabokov because he's such a complex character and in the book you really empathise with him even though he's got such dark and monstrous desires.

H: Perhaps one of my, the people I'd most like to meet would be Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. And I suppose, by default, that means I'd quite like to be Elizabeth Bennett.

Upper Intermediate Unit 4 Video Podcast Script

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