Salena Godden and Rob Biddulph
A Good Read
BBC
4.2 • 847 Ratings
🗓️ 26 July 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Writer Salena Godden chooses Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys, a book she's re-read many times and returns to now – older, wiser and with even greater empathy for its protagonist.
Author-illustrator Rob Biddulph recommends When the Sky Falls by Phil Earle, named Children’s Fiction Book of the Year at the 2022 British Book Awards, which brought him to tears and conjures London in the Blitz so vividly.
Presenter Harriett Gilbert picks Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore, the story of a heart transplanted from one life to another.
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sarah Goodman.
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. |
| 0:53.3 | Hello, today, Jean Reese in Paris, a gorilla in the Blitz, and the story of a young man's |
| 0:59.7 | heart. With me to introduce their good read, our first, the poet, performer and broadcaster |
| 1:04.9 | Selena Godin. Among Selena's more recent publications are the childhood memoir Springfield Road, |
| 1:12.1 | the poetry collection, pessimism is for lightweights, and a debut novel, Mrs. Death, Mrs. Death, |
... |
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