Hodder snaps up David Dimbleby’s inside story of life in broadcasting

Hodder & Stoughton has scooped broadcaster David Dimbleby’s Keep Talking: A Broadcasting Life, a behind-the-scenes insight into his television career. 

Non-fiction publisher Rupert Lancaster acquired world English language rights including serial from Rosemary Scoular at United Agents. It will be published in e-book, audiobook and hardback on 29th September 2022. 

In Keep Talking, Dimbleby writes about the media, monarchy, politics and the state of Britain. The book is enlivened with honest accounts of broadcasting from the inside — from commentating on Princess Diana’s funeral to anchoring 10 successive general election night results programmes, reporting from South Africa and his time spent with Nelson Mandela to working on BBC One’s “Question Time”, which he presented for 25 years. 

He reveals his own battles with politicians, queries the purpose and effect of political interviews, and considers the power of broadcasting to explore and amplify the public voice. 

Lancaster said: “David has been there for us at nearly every major national event of the past 50 years. As a broadcaster for the BBC, David had an obligation to appear a neutral observer. Now finally ‘off the leash’ he writes without inhibition. Keep Talking is just like David himself – serious, outspoken, and leavened with humour.”

Dimbleby said: “I started broadcasting when I was 11 years old, and since then have covered all forms of the art – from political interviewing, state occasions, 10 general elections, party leader debates, commentary, reporting, and, of course, ’Question Time’. With Keep Talking, I want to show how vitally important broadcasting is in an increasingly polarised world, where nuanced conversation has become more difficult. This book is about the need for a dialogue to continue, however hard that is.”