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BBC Radio 4

Find reading inspiration with favourite books chosen by our guests.

A Good Read

This week's books are:
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner chosen by the Welsh poet and writer Gwyneth Lewis
The LIving Mountain by Nan Shepherd picked by author Annabel Abbs
Emma by Jane Austen chosen by Harriett Gilbert ahead of the writer's 250th birthday in December 2025

Join us over on Instagram @agoodreadbbc

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Maggie Ayre

Photo credit: Edward Brown

Gwyneth Lewis and Annabel Abbs

Michelle Ogundehin is a broadcaster, magazine editor and author also known as a presenter on TV's Interior Design Masters. She and author Lisa St Aubin de Terán give their book recommendations. Michelle's is 4000 Weeks: Time Management For Mortals by Oliver Burkeman which she says has helped her simplify her life. Lisa chooses Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix the powerful retelling of the 2021 incident in which 27 people drowned in the English Channel attempting to make the crossing from France. It's a fictionalised account of a real event told from the perspective of the French Coastguard blamed for not taking adequate action.
Harriett's choice is The Party by Tessa Hadley set in post war Bristol.

Have your say on any of these books on Instagram @agoodreadbbc

Producer: Maggie Ayre

Michelle Ogundehin and Lisa St Aubin de Terán

WEDLOCK: HOW GEORGIAN BRITAIN'S WORST HUSBAND MET HIS MATCH by Wendy Moore, chosen by Kate Lister 
GRAYSON PERRY: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG GIRL by Wendy Jones, chosen by Harriett Gilbert
PLASTIC EMOTIONS by Shiromi Pinto, chosen by Roma Agrawal

Structural engineer Roma Agrawal, known for her work on buildings such as the Shard in London, and historian Kate Lister, who specialises in the history of sex, join Harriett Gilbert to share their favourite books. Kate's choice is Wedlock: How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore, a gripping biography that tells the true story of Mary Eleanor Bowes's distrastrous marriage to Andrew Robinson Stoney, one of the wealthiest women in 18th-century Britain. Roma’s pick is Plastic Emotions by Shiromi Pinto, a novel inspired by the life of Minnette de Silva, Sri Lanka’s pioneering modernist architect, exploring love, politics and creativity in a time of upheaval. And Harriett brings Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl by Wendy Jones, a candid and colourful account of the artist’s early life and identity. 

Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Eliza Lomas
Join the conversation on Instagram: agoodreadbbc

Photo credit: Steve Ullathorne

Roma Agrawal and Kate Lister

THE YEARS by Annie Ernaux chosen by Richard Benson
THE CORNER THAT HELD THEM by Sylvia Townsend Warner chosen by Amy Sackville
COFFEE AND CIGARETTES by Ferdinand von Schirach chosen by Harriett Gilbert

Writer and former editor of the Face Richard Benson talks to fellow writer Amy Sackville and presenter Harriett Gilbert about favourite books.
Richard chooses The Years by Nobel Laureate Annie Ernaux, saying it brings back memories of his French penpal's bohemian mother. Amy's choice of The Corner that Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner, about convent life in the 1300s, isn't as dry as that might sound, and Harriett's pick is Coffee and Cigarettes by German criminal defence lawyer Ferdinand von Schirach.

Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven
Join the conversation on Instagram: agoodreadbbc

Richard Benson and Amy Sackville

FUNDAMENTALLY by Nussaibah Younis, chosen by Julia Shaw
YOUR LIFE IS MANUFACTURED by Tim Minshall, chosen by Hayaatun Sillem
ROSARITA by Anita Desai, chosen by Harriett Gilbert

Criminal psychologist Julia Shaw joins engineer Hayaatun Sillem to discuss favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. Julia's choice, Fundamentally, is a bold debut novel by Nussaibah Younis which sparks a bit of debate. Younis writes a comedy story about an academic who takes a UN job in Iraq to lead a deradicalisation program for ISIS women. Hayaatun puts forward a very different book, a non-fiction by Tim Minshall, Professor of Innovation at the University of Cambridge. His book Your Life is Manufactured reveals the seismic impact that manufacturing has both on our lives and on the natural world. Finally, Harriett's choice is a haunting novella called Rosarita by Anita Desai, an unsettling riddle that follows a young Indian woman's quest through Mexico to find out more about her mother.

Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Becky Ripley

Julia Shaw and Hayaatun Sillem

Two books featuring teenage killers feature this time. Nicola Sturgeon MSP votes for Elif Shafak's Honour as her good read. It details the reasons behind the so-called honour killing carried out by a young Turkish Kurd living in London in the 1970s. Nicola says it provides valuable cultural insight into the reasons behind a particular form of violence against women.
His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet is set in the feudal system of the Highlands in the late 1800s where crofters were at the mercy of the local Laird and his staff. Roddy's father is barely eking out a living from a small patch of land near Applecross. When his family's livelihood is threatened by a local man exerting his power over them, Roddy commits a brutal triple murder. Harriett enjoys it because it traces the events leading up to the event and Roddy's subsequent trial posing the question of whether he is legally insane or criminally violent.
Something gentler is Alistair McGowan's choice. Fair Stood The Wind For France is HE Bates' wartime novel of an RAF airman crash landing in occupied France. As he recovers from his injuries he falls for the daughter of a farming family who take him in. Alistair believes Bates to be one of the finest English writers of last century but being best known for The Darling Buds of May says he's often overlooked.

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Maggie Ayre

Photo credit: Charlotte Hadden

Nicola Sturgeon and Alistair McGowan

THE STONE DIARIES by Carol Shields, chosen by Tom Cox
HOW TO WRITE A THESIS by Umberto Eco, chosen by Sophie Scott
PARADISE by Abdulrazak Gurnah, chosen by Harriett Gilbert

Writer Tom Cox joins neuroscientist Sophie Scott to discuss favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. Tom's choice is the 1995 Pulitzer Prize winner, The Stone Diaries. Following the story of one woman’s life from birth to death, the novel also charts the unsettled decades of the twentieth century. Sophie puts forward a very different book, a non-fiction by Italian writer and academic, How to Write a Thesis. It first appeared on Italian bookshelves back in 1977, but still rings true for many. And finally, Harriett's choice is a historical novel called Paradise by the Nobel Prize-winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah, which is both a coming-of-age story, and a tale of the corruption against the backdrop of European colonialism in East Africa. 

Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Becky Ripley

Join the conversation on Instagram: agoodreadbbc

Tom Cox and Sophie Scott

OPEN by Andre Agassi
SONIC YOUTH SLEPT ON MY FLOOR by Dave Haslam
THE SECRET HOURS by Mick Herron

Television and radio broadcaster Chris Tarrant nominates the autobiography of tennis legend Andre Agassi, and novelist Mike Gayle has gone for Dave Haslam’s memoir of his time spent DJing at Manchester’s famous Hacienda. Harriett is hoping the two of them will enjoy an espionage novel by Slow Horses author Mick Herron.

Producer for BBC Audio Bristol: Sally Heaven

Join the conversation on Instagram: agoodreadbbc

Chris Tarrant and Mike Gayle

BEAR by Marian Engel, chosen by novelist Sarah Waters
THE TRUE BELIEVER by Eric Hoffer, chosen by film editor Walter Murch
THE VISITOR by Maeve Brennan, chosen by presenter Harriett Gilber

Sarah Waters, acclaimed author of Fingersmith and The Night Watch, and Walter Murch, legendary film editor of Apocalypse Now and The English Patient choose the books they love.

Sarah's choice is a cinematic novel set in Northern Canada. Bear by Marian Engel is the unusual tale of a woman's friendship and subsequent sexual relationship with a bear when she travels to a remote island for the summer.

The True Believer is a remarkably prescient examination of mass movements from 1951. Author Eric Hoffer examines political fanaticism throughout the ages. Walter Murch chose it because he says so much of it rings true in today's fractured world.

Harriett's choice is the story of different generations of women in an unhappy home in Ireland. Maeve Brennan's novella The Visitor is a haunting tale of a chilly tight-lipped Dublin home.

Producer: Maggie Ayre, BBC Audio Bristol

Photo: Charlie Hopkinson

Sarah Waters and Walter Murch

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS by Augusten Burroughs, chosen by Rob Rinder
THE ODD WOMAN AND THE CITY by Vivian Gornick, chosen by Harriett Gilbert
EARTHLINGS by Sayaka Murata, chosen by Juno Dawson

The barrister, television presenter and writer Rob Rinder and author Juno Dawson talk books with Harriett Gilbert. Juno Dawson selects Sayaka Murata's Earthlings, the follow-up to her cult hit Convenience Store Woman. Rob Rinder advocates for Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs' memoir of a deeply bizarre childhood, and Harriett has gone for The Odd Woman and the City, Vivian Gornick's essays celebrating New York.

Producer for BBC Audio Bristol: Sally Heaven

Join the conversation on Instagram: agoodreadbbc

Photo credit: Ollie Rosser

Rob Rinder and Juno Dawson

Harriett Gilbert and her guests - former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller and Turkish author Elif Shafak - discuss their books by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alison Lurie and Michael Chabon.

‘Americanah’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publisher: Fourth Estate

‘The War Between the Tates’ by Alison Lurie
Publisher: Vintage 

‘Gentlemen of the Road’ by Michael Chabon
Publisher: Sceptre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2014.

Eliza Manningham-Buller and Elif Shafak

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