25 April 2016
Episode 237
30 minutes
We’re heading out of the city for a breath of fresh air and an assessment of village culture. We take a tour of Lebanon’s Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in the bucolic surroundings of Alita and check out the headlines of the ‘Nunatsiaq News’, the local paper for the residents of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Plus: we head to the market town of Hay-on-Wye in Wales to meet the king of books.
25 April 2016
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Photo: Ismas
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Hay-on-Wye is an idyllic town in the rolling Welsh hills that has become internationally renowned for its bookshops. In the 1960s Richard Booth decided to find a way to boost the market town’s economy and his answer was books: he opened a second-hand bookshop and slowly others followed suit. Forty years later and the town’s book scene is still thriving, with more than 20 independent bookshops and the annual Hay literary festival.
12 minutes
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Chapter 2
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In Lebanon most villages are lucky if they have a cultural space. One village, however, is an anomaly. Monocle’s Beirut correspondent Venetia Rainey visits the tiny outpost of Alita, where a former factory manager turned art connoisseur has set up a world-class space for Lebanese sculptures and installations: the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum.
5 minutes
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Chapter 3
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In Canada the ‘Nunatsiaq News’ is particularly vital to its readers who are located in the rather remote area of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The weekly paper is based in the Nunavut capital, Iqaluit, and also caters for the Nunavik region of Northern Quebec. We meet managing editor Lisa Gregoire to find out more about the publication, the locals and the growing interest of international readers.
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