Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Jung Chang
A Good Read
BBC
4.2 • 848 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The children's author Frank Cottrell-Boyce and the author of Wild Swans and Big Sister Little Sister Red Sister Jung Chang choose their good reads.
Where Should We Run To by Alan Garner chosen by Frank Cottrell-Boyce Death of A Naturalist by Seamus Heaney chosen by Harriett Gilbert Hans Christian Andersen's Fairytales chosen by Jung Chang
Produced in Bristol by Maggie Ayre
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | Things just swirling around my head. |
| 0:09.6 | Am I really the product of this? |
| 0:12.1 | Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests. |
| 0:17.0 | Little did I know what more was to come. |
| 0:19.5 | I'm Jenny Clemen, and in the new series of The Gift, we'll hear more stories emerging |
| 0:25.2 | out of the ever-expanding global DNA database. |
| 0:28.8 | They did know that I was different. |
| 0:31.7 | You had kids together. |
| 0:33.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:33.5 | Then you met. |
| 0:34.3 | Then we met. |
| 0:35.2 | The Gift. |
| 0:36.1 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.9 | Today to talk about books they love, I'm joined by two writers. |
| 0:43.5 | Jung Chang leapt a fame with her best-selling family memoir, Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China. |
| 0:49.4 | She followed that with a trilogy of books about the people, including Chairman Mao, who helped shape |
| 0:54.2 | modern China, and she's now just published a second family memoir, Fly Wild Swans, that brings up-to-date |
| 1:01.0 | the story of her mother, her country, and herself. With Jung is Frank Cottrell-Boyce, currently |
| 1:07.5 | Waterson's Children's Laureate, and an award-winning author and screenwriter. His many |
| 1:12.6 | books for children include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again and most recently the Blockbusters |
| 1:17.9 | and his written scripts for among much else Dr. Hu and the movies Kenski's Kingdom and the |
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