You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.

I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.

I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,

relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.

So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,

and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience, and maybe that's you.

So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Hello, joining me today to champion books they've enjoyed are first, the comedian, actor and author Helen Ledderer, known for playing among much else Dippy Catriona in Ab-Fab.

In 2018, Helen founded the Comedy Women in Print Prize

to celebrate and enable witty women's writing.

Her own latest book, The Memoir, Not That I'm Bitter, came out this spring.

With Helen is the Italian author and screenwriter Ilaria Bernardini,

whose novels include most recently The Girls Are Good, The Portrait, and Just Out, We Will Be Forest.

Among her work for cinema, Ilaria co-wrote Bertolucci's final script, the Echo Chamber, and she's continuing to develop it.

Helen, would you start us off? What have you chosen as a good read? Well, I have

chosen wishful drinking written by Carrie Fisher. It's a very odd book in the sense that it was

written in 2008, and it reminds me, it's very retro. It reminds me of a Jackie magazine in that it's got photographs in it with captions.

So it just feels old.

But the narrative and the wit shines through.

And I just find Carrie Fisher, one of those rare beings that can talk about tragedy

with honesty but with real humour. It is really funny. I just wanted to reread Carrie Fisher

...