Radio 4 presenter Libby Purves talks about her love of sailing, vents her views on the Today Programme (of which she was the first female presenter) and reads from her new, partly autobiographical novel.
Love Songs and Lies features three young women who meet as undergraduates in 1970s Oxford and share their romantically shabby canalside house with the enigmatic Max Bellinger.
Although their paths diverge once they leave Oxford, Sally stays in touch with all the housemates and their lives remain interwoven throughout the momentous second half of the twentieth century.
Libby was at the Ilkley Literature Festival to talk about the book.
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Libby Purves was born in London in 1950. The daughter of a travelling diplomat, she was educated in Bangkok, France, Johannesburg, Tunbridge Wells and at St Anne's College, Oxford where she obtained a first class honours degree in English Language and Literature.
Libby had a varied journalistic career before joining the BBC in 1971 as a studio manager in Broadcasting House. She went on to become a studio manager for the World Service and then for Radio Oxford, where she presented and produced the morning programme.
In 1974 Libby joined Radio 4's Today programme as a freelance reporter. She then went on to present Today from 1977 to 1981.
She became presenter of Midweek in 1983 and also presents The Learning Curve on Radio 4.
In addition to her Radio 4 work, Libby is a columnist for The Times. She received the OBE for services to journalism in 1999 and was Columnist of the Year in the same year.
Libby's interests are sailing and travelling. She is married to Paul Heiney.
Love Songs and Lies is published by Hodder in paperback at £6.99. ISBN: 0340837403 The Ilkley Literature Festival's website is at www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk.
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