Martin Edwards and Tom Shakespeare
A Good Read
BBC
4.2 • 848 Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week's books are:
Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie, chosen by crime writer Martin Edwards At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien, chosen by sociologist, bioethicist and comedian Tom Shakespeare Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Pineiro, chosen by Harriett Gilbert
Join us over on Instagram @agoodreadbbc
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sally Heaven
Photo credit: Belinda Mason
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. |
| 0:35.3 | The Gift. |
| 0:36.1 | Listen on BBC Sounds. Books are, Then we met it. The Gift. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.8 | Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. |
| 0:43.8 | Nick Hornby may have been exaggerating when he wrote that, but not by much. |
| 0:47.6 | And if you agree, stay with us. |
| 0:49.3 | We've got three very different books suggestions for you. |
| 0:52.2 | We are crime novelist Martin Edwards, recipient of the |
| 0:55.7 | Crime Writers Association prestigious Diamond Dagger, president of the Detection Club, and author of 24 |
| 1:02.5 | novels, most recently the playful Miss Winter in the library with a knife. And with Martin, |
| 1:09.0 | the social scientist and bioethicist Tom Shakespeare, a disability |
... |
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