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A Good Read

Rob Newman & Sarfraz Manzoor

A Good Read

BBC

Arts, Books

4.2848 Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Comedian Rob Newman and writer Sarfraz Manzoor talk about favourite books. Rob loves John Berger's novel To the Wedding, but not everyone finds it hugely romantic. Sarfraz has chosen Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume 1. Thus far, there has been no Volume 2. Harriett enjoys Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrious, a thriller which criss-crosses pre-war Europe.

Producer Sally Heaven

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.

0:22.7

They did know that I was different.

0:25.7

You had kids together.

0:27.0

Yeah.

0:27.4

Then you met.

0:28.3

Then we met.

0:29.2

The Gift.

0:30.1

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:33.3

Hello.

0:33.9

Today we go inside Bob Dylan, across northern Italy and all over wargittery Europe.

0:40.3

With me to introduce their good read are the writer and comedian Rob Newman,

0:44.5

who first hit the mainstream with the Mary Whitehouse Experience and Newman and Badil,

0:49.1

and whose most recent Radio 4 series include The Total Eclipse of Descartes and the Half Full Philosophy Hour.

0:56.1

The latest of Rob's six books is Neuropolis, a brain science survival guide, and his

1:01.6

on tour with a new stand-up show this autumn. With Rob is the author, broadcaster and screenwriter

1:07.8

Saffras Manzoor, whose memoir greetings from Barry Park about growing up in Luton and the music of Bruce Springsteen was made into the feature film Blinded by the Light that he co-scripted.

1:19.5

Saffraz's most recent book, They, What Muslims and Non-Muslims get wrong about each other, is out in paperback this autumn.

...

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