A Good Read

Latest Episodes:

Katherine Rundell and Nathan Filer Feb 08, 2022

Show notes

Katherine Rundell and Nathan Filer bring their favourite reads to Harriett Gilbert. Katherine has chosen the poetry of John Donne, Nathan loves The Shapeless Unease by Samantha Harvey, and Harriett is keen to hear everyone's views on Sylvia Plath's only novel, the Bell Jar. Producer Sally Heaven

Alan Titchmarsh and Amanda Owen Feb 01, 2022

Show notes

'How can you feel fed up?' when you read PG Wodehouse is Alan Titchmarsh's answer when asked why he chose Summer Lightning. Harriett remarks that Wodehouse has been chosen on the programme twice in the last year and wonders if many of us are seeking the simplicity of Wodehouse's writing about the pre-internet days of rural Shropshire as 'comfort reading' during worrying times. Amanda Owen is best known as the Yorkshire shepherdess who runs a remote hillfarm and whose family life is featured on television's Our Yorkshire Farm. She is also a writer and has appeared on BBC 4's Winter Walks. Perhaps unsurprisingly her choice of a good read is the account of her role model Hannah Hauxwell whose life story is told in Seasons of My Life. Hannah lived a solitary existence without water and electricity on a farm high in the Yorkshire Dales. When television director Barry Cockroft made a programme about her in the 1970s she received fame and recognition as an extraordinary woman from a bygone age. Most of us probably haven't given a lot of thought to the act of the handshake. Perhaps we only really considered its importance after we were told not do do it at the start of the pandemic. Harriett's choice of book is the fascinating and witty exploration of The Handshake by Ella Al-Shamahi.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

Liam Williams and Kate Stables Nov 30, 2021

Show notes

Three strange, fantastical novels, all very different, are the book choices for this week.

Liam Williams is perhaps best-known for the BBC series 'Ladhood'. He picks 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' by Herman Melville, a dark tale about the monotony of office work and people who quietly buck the system. The musician Kate Stables AKA This is the Kit is a self-confessed huge fan of Ursula K. Le Guin, and she chooses 'The Word for World is Forest' to share with Liam and Harriett. It's a book which draws heavily on the Vietnam War to comment on the nature of humanity. Harriett's pick is Requiem by Antonio Tabucchi, a tale of unexpected encounters on the streets of Lisbon, as the narrator goes in search of a lost love.

Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Toby Field

Kaffe Fassett and Andy Summers Nov 23, 2021

Show notes

Kaffe Fassett is perhaps best known for his colourful knitwear designs but he is also a quilt maker, painter and ceramicist. His choice of book is Kandahar Cockney: A Tale of Two Worlds by former foreign correspondent James Fergusson. It's the story of Mir an interpreter Fergusson meets and hires while on assignment in Afghanistan in the late 1990s as the country fell to the Taliban for the first time. Fergusson assists Mir in escaping to Britain and claiming asylum where he becomes the eponymous 'Kandahar Cockney' trying to navigate a new life in the East End of London. Kaffe chose it because of recent events and wanted to reread it. Andy Summers is a guitarist best known for being part of The Police. He is also the author of a collection of short stories Fretted & Moaning featuring a variety of characters whose lives centre in some way around the guitar. His good read is A Tale For The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki which he says is 'hip, modern and amazing'. Alongside these two books is Toast by Nigel Slater, the food writer's memoir of growing up hungry in the 1960s and 70s.

Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Maggie Ayre

Athena Kugblenu and Pope Lonergan Nov 16, 2021

Show notes

Friends, sisters and serial killers all feature in the book choices for this week. Writer and stand-up comedian Athena Kugblenu picks 'My Sister the Serial Killer' by Oyinkan Braithwaite, a darkly comic tale which is as much about sibling rivalry as it is about murder. Nell Dunn's memoir about love and friendship, 'The Muse', is Harriett Gilbert's pick. And Pope Lonergan selects 'African Psycho' by Alain Mabanckou for its challenging portrayal of a frustrated and violent protagonist.

Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Toby Field Follow our instagram book group @agoodreadbbc

Muriel Gray and Leah Davis Nov 15, 2021

Show notes

The broadcaster and writer Muriel Gray champions The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton because she believes books that deal with the supernatural are often unfairly dismissed as unworthy of literary praise. But she says you can't argue with a Pulitzer Prize winning author such as Wharton who decided to write a collection of ghost stories as a way of overcoming her own fears. As well as being disturbing and downright spooky the stories contain a lot of social commentary about the values and prejudices of early 20th century society. Leah Davis is the voice of late night RnB and hip hop on Capital Xtra. She also runs a book club on her show. Her choice is Luster by Raven Leilani, a rather nihilistic tale of a young New Yorker who is struggling to make it in life, unable to hold down a job and living in a vermin infested apartment. She gets involved with an older married man with surprising results. Harriett's choice is More Than A Woman by Caitlin Moran a poignant and sometimes hilarious account of middle age and motherhood. A discussion about Botox ensues.

Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Maggie Ayre

Dr Rachel Clarke & Mohsin Zaidi Nov 02, 2021

Show notes

The NHS palliative care doctor and author Rachel Clarke (Breathtaking, Dear Life) and the barrister and author Mohsin Zaidi (A Dutiful Boy) share the books that inspire them with presenter Harriett Gilbert.

Rachel chooses The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, a memoir about locked-in syndrome by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Mohsin picks a collection of essays, speeches, and poems by African-American author and poet Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You. And Harriett shares with them a crime novel, Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell.

Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol, Eliza Lomas. Follow our instagram book group @agoodreadbbc

Musa Okwonga & Sophie Heawood Oct 26, 2021

Show notes

Writers Musa Okwonga (One of Them, Striking Out) and Sophie Heawood (The Hungover Games) share their favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. Musa chooses The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross, a crime novel set in the Caribbean. Sophie picks Lunch Poems, a collection by Frank O'Hara written on the streets of New York and Harriett introduces them to An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel, written before her Booker-winning Wolf Hall trilogy.

Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol, Eliza Lomas. comment on instagram at @agoodreadbbc

Mona Arshi & Malaika Kegode Oct 19, 2021

Show notes

Mona Arshi is a poet and novelist. Her choice of book is Summer Book by Tove Jansson which of which she says: "I'm glad it exists in the world". She loves its simplicity and quietness in its exploration of the relationship between a grandmother and a young girl and the unspoken grief that exists between them as they spend the summer on an island off the coast of Finland. Malaika Kegode chooses a book with a very different take on family: White Oleander by Janet Fitch about a young girl Astrid and her beautiful dangerous, selfish mother who makes her daughter feel she is a burden. It's a book Malaika read as a teenager and which she says bridged her passage into reading adult fiction. Jonathan Coe's novel Mr Wilder and Me is Harriett's choice. It's what Malaika calls 'a wish fulfillment novel' as it tells the story of a young woman who gets to work with the legendary Hollywood director Billy Wilder and how her life changes for good.

Producer: Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio, Bristol

Adam Rutherford and Farrah Jarral Oct 12, 2021

Show notes

As part of Radio 4's Day of the Scientist Harriett Gilbert asks two scientists and broadcasters to choose a book on a science theme. Adam Rutherford chooses Kazuo Ishiguro's dystopian love story Never Let Me Go. Dr Farrah Jarral says when she first read the novella she has chosen - Octavia Butler's Bloodchild - it blew her mind dealing as it does with interspecies procreation and with underlying themes of control and power imbalance. Harriett Gilbert's choice is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke in which the character 'Piranesi' lives in The House populated by endless corridors and statues and The Other.

Producer: Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio, Bristol

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