Douglas Stuart and Sian Eleri
A Good Read
BBC
4.2 • 848 Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Douglas Stuart author of Booker Prize winning novel Shuggie Bain chooses his favourite book - Train Dreams by Denis Johnson - a short novel encapsulating the history of America in the early 20th century through the life of a lonely man in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. He's joined by Radio 1 and The Voice Wales presenter Sian Eleri whose choice is I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman - a dystopian tale of a group of captive women. Harriett's choice is More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman which examines family trauma through the relationship of three generations of women. Strong themes of loneliness run through all three choices as well as questions about our humanity.
Producer: Maggie Ayre
Photo credit Sarah Blesener
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Things just swirling around my head. |
| 0:03.6 | Am I really the product of this? |
| 0:06.1 | Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests. |
| 0:11.0 | Little did I know what more was to come. |
| 0:13.4 | I'm Jenny Clemen and in the new series of The Gift, |
| 0:17.5 | we'll hear more stories emerging out of the ever-expanding global DNA database. |
| 0:22.8 | They didn't know that I was different. |
| 0:25.7 | You had kids together. |
| 0:27.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:27.5 | Then you met. |
| 0:28.3 | Then we met. |
| 0:29.2 | The Gift. |
| 0:30.1 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.3 | BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:39.5 | Books, books, books of the making of many books, there is no end, thank goodness. |
| 0:44.0 | And we're going to be discussing some we particularly love. |
| 0:47.2 | With me is first the author Douglas Stewart, whose debut novel Shaggy Bain, |
| 0:51.7 | won the 2020 Booker Prize among a number of awards, |
| 0:55.0 | and whose second novel, Young Mungo, was a Sunday Times bestseller. |
| 0:59.3 | With him is the radio DJ and TV presenter Shana Lerry, |
| 1:03.4 | whose programmes on Radio One include future artists and The Chilist Show. |
| 1:08.8 | Her latest TV adventure is presenting the newly launched Welsh-language version of The Voice, which I can't pronounce. |
... |
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