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A Good Read

Muriel Gray and Leah Davis

A Good Read

BBC

Books, Arts

4.2847 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The broadcaster and writer Muriel Gray champions The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton because she believes books that deal with the supernatural are often unfairly dismissed as unworthy of literary praise. But she says you can't argue with a Pulitzer Prize winning author such as Wharton who decided to write a collection of ghost stories as a way of overcoming her own fears. As well as being disturbing and downright spooky the stories contain a lot of social commentary about the values and prejudices of early 20th century society. Leah Davis is the voice of late night RnB and hip hop on Capital Xtra. She also runs a book club on her show. Her choice is Luster by Raven Leilani, a rather nihilistic tale of a young New Yorker who is struggling to make it in life, unable to hold down a job and living in a vermin infested apartment. She gets involved with an older married man with surprising results. Harriett's choice is More Than A Woman by Caitlin Moran a poignant and sometimes hilarious account of middle age and motherhood. A discussion about Botox ensues.

Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Maggie Ayre

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 did 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.

0:34.2

BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:38.7

Hello, I'm Harriet Gilbert.

0:40.4

Thank you for downloading a good read, the podcasts,

0:43.6

where two guests and I recommend books we love and describe why we love them.

0:47.9

We don't always see eye to eye, but I hope you'll find some great reading suggestions here.

0:53.0

Hello, with me today, the writer Muriel Gray, one-time presenter of Channel 4's

0:57.4

seminal live music program, The Tube, and the author among much else of three non-fiction

1:02.3

books and three horror novels. The most recent of those, the ancient, was described by

1:07.6

Stephen King, no less, as scary and unput-downable.

...

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