A Good Read: Olivia Laing and Charlie Porter

Books and Authors

BBC

Society & Culture, Books

4.2 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Author and cultural critic Olivia Laing, whose books include The Lonely City, Funny Weather and Everybody, is joined by fashion writer and curator Charlie Porter, of What Artists Wear and Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion, and presenter Harriett Gilbert, to talk about the books they love.

Olivia recommends Bad Blood by literary critic Lorna Sage - a memoir of her eccentric childhood and adolescence in 1940s rural Wales. Charlie loves Honey From A Weed by Patience Gray, a cookbook which exalts local knowledge and seasonal cooking, taking readers to a time and place far removed from modern life. And Harriett brings The English Understand Wool, a 2022 novella by American author Helen DeWitt, which takes unexpected twists and turns and which Harriett argues, merits reading more than once.

Comment on instagram: @agoodreadbbc Produced by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:07.0	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.0	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:14.0	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for
0:21.7	Leukin. It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. I'm Alex von
0:26.7	Tunselman. This is The Lucan Obsession. Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:37.2	Hello, I'm Harriet Gilbert.
0:38.6	Thank you for downloading a good read, the podcasts,
0:42.0	where two guests and I recommend books we love and describe why we love them.
0:46.4	We don't always see eye to eye, but I hope you'll find some great reading suggestions here.
0:52.4	Hello, with me today, Olivia Lang, whose half dozen books of cultural criticism include
0:57.4	the lonely city, funny weather, and most recently everybody subtitled a book about freedom.
1:05.0	Olivia is also the author of the novel Crudo. Joining her is the fashion writer and curator
1:10.7	Charlie Porter. His books include
1:12.5	what artists wear and coming out in September to coincide with his forthcoming
1:17.3	exhibition at Charleston Lewis in East Sussex, Bring No Clothes, Bloomsbury and the Philosophy
1:23.5	of Fashion. Olivia Lang, would you start us off?
1:27.6	What have you chosen as a good read?
1:29.5	I have chosen Bad Blood by Lorna Sage, which is a memoir that came out in 2000,
1:35.8	and Lorna died almost immediately after it.
1:39.6	She died very young of emphysema, so she was about 48.
	...

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