Overview
This podcast features Open Book and A Good Read. Open Book talks to authors about their work. In A Good Read Harriett Gilbert discusses favourite books.
926 Episodes
The writing duo known as Nicci French choose favourite books
Published: 10 February 2025
A PRIMATE'S MEMOIR (Love, Death and Baboons) by Robert Sapolsky, chosen by Professor Ben Garrod SOLDIER SAILOR by Claire Kilroy, chosen by Harriett Gilbert THE ABUNDANCE by Annie Dillard, chosen by Lucy JonesEvolutionary biologist Ben Garrod (Professor at the University of East Anglia) chooses a book which he's read and gifted countless times, a book which inspired him to go out in the field and study chimpanzees himself: A Primate's Memoir by Robert Sapolsky. Robert is one of the leading primatologists and scientists today and this is his gripping, at times heartbreaking account of leaving the United States age twenty-one to study wild baboons in the Kenyan savannah.Lucy Jones (author of Matrescence and Losing Eden) picks an author she has consistently loved for her child-like gift of wonder and close, detailed attention to the natural world. Lucy brings Annie Dillard's collection of essays, The Abundance, for the others to read.And Harriett Gilbert recommends a fictional tale of early motherhood. A vivid, immersive monologue of a woman on the brink that keeps readers on the edge of their seats to the very end.
Transcribed - Published: 2 December 2024
TOKYO EXPRESS by SeichĹŤ Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood, chosen by Sir Ian Blatchford THE LETTERS OF ABELARD AND HELOISE, translated by Betty Radice, chosen by Charles Fernyhough SOLDIERS OF SALAMIS by Javier Cercas, translated by Anne McLean, chosen by Harriett GilbertDirector of the Science Museum group and president of the Royal Literary Fund, Sir Ian Blatchford, chooses a cult classic from 1958 for his good read. A double love suicide wrapped up in suspicious government corruption and a whodunnit hinging on train timetables, Sir Ian makes the case for one of his favourite books.Travelling to the middle ages for Charles Fernyhough's pick, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise were once much more widely known than they are today. Charles, an amateur medievalist alongside being an author, musician and Professor of Psychology at Durham University, recommends this book as one of the greatest love stories of all time. The letters of Heloise he especially believes should be celebrated, as they showcase a great early feminist philosopher and writer.Presenter Harriett Gilbert's good read takes readers into the Spanish Civil War: Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas, from 2001. This is a book exploring the role of memory when unpicking the past, and asks questions about whether we can ever remember what really happened. What will the others make of it?Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio, Bristol Join the book club on Instagram, @agoodreadbbc
Transcribed - Published: 25 November 2024
The Power author Naomi Alderman, and Nigerian writer Abi Dare discuss favourite books. Naomi chooses Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher, a series of hilarious letters written by a beleaguered academic. Abi champions A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini's tale of two women in Taliban governed Afghanistan and Harriett recommends James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, two immensely powerful essays.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven Follow us on Instagram: agoodreadbbcPhoto credit: Annabel Moeller
Transcribed - Published: 18 November 2024
EDUCATED by Tara Westover, chosen by Jenny Kleeman THE WREN, THE WREN by Anne Enright, chosen by Harriett Gilbert GIVING UP THE GHOST by Hilary Mantel, chosen by Sam KnightJournalist and broadcaster Jenny Kleeman (of Radio 4's The Gift and author of The Price of Life) chooses Tara Westover's memoir Educated, which caused a sensation when it was first published. It's about her childhood growing up in an isolated Mormon family in rural Idaho, who were preparing for the end of the world, and didn't believe in school, doctors or medicine. It's about how she studied her way out of a difficult upbringing, eventually earning a PhD at Cambridge University.Sam Knight (staff writer at the New Yorker and author of The Premonitions Bureau) also picks a memoir, but of a very different kind. He goes for Hilary Mantel's beguiling Giving Up The Ghost. In it, she explores the real, and imaginary, ghosts of her life - the illnesses that have haunted her body, the family she would never have, and the art of writing.Harriett Gilbert brings a work of fiction by a writer she loves, the Irish writer Anne Enright. They discuss her latest novel The Wren, The Wren, a story which speaks about the inheritance of trauma and the price of love.Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio in Bristol Join the conversation @agoodreadbbc Instagram
Transcribed - Published: 11 November 2024
Nihal has chosen Amma, the debut novel by Sri Lankan writer Saraid de Silva, which he compares to meeting someone on a train and having a long, intense conversation. Elif Shafak's choice, however, You're Embarrassing Yourself by Desiree Akhavan, he describes as more like a hilarious night in a pub. Harriett has gone for The Second Murderer by Denise Mina, a Philip Marlowe novel. But is there a need to add to Raymond Chandler's canon?Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven Join the conversation on Instagram: agoodreadbbc
Transcribed - Published: 4 November 2024
THE COUNTRY OF OTHERS by LeĂŻla Slimani, chosen by Tatty Macleod THE MAN WHO ATE EVERYTHING by Jeffrey Steingarten, chosen by Tim Spector ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey, chosen by Harriett GilbertComedian Tatty Macleod chooses a novel by French-Moroccan writer LeĂŻla Slimani, the first volume of a new trilogy telling the saga of a French-Moroccan family between 1946 and 2016.Scientist and food writer Professor Tim Spector chooses an award-winning collection of essays by food writer and critic Jeffrey Steingarten. His impassioned, funny, and mouth-watering anecdotes are all bound by a gluttonous curiosity that too often tips into obsession.And Harriett Gilbert chooses a novella by Samantha Harvey called Orbital. Set on the International Space Station, it follows six astronauts as they reflect on life back down on Earth, in all its fury and glory.Producer: Becky Ripley
Transcribed - Published: 28 October 2024
In this final edition of Open Book, Johny Pitts and Chris Power celebrate some of the outstanding novels from the last twenty six years.They are joined by Kamila Shamsie, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2018 for her novel Home Fire. Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton, and one of this year's Booker Prize judges. Ted Hodgkinson, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, and previous chair of the International Booker.Kamila, Sara and Ted pick out some of the books, including Wolf Hall, Lincoln in the Bardo and On Beauty, which have stood out for them: books they'd recommend to others, and re-read again and again.Producer: Kirsten LockeBooks List:Best of Friends – Kamila Shamsie Burnt Shadows – Kamila Shamsie Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie The Confessions of Frannie Langton – Sara Collins In the City by the Sea – Kamila Shamsie Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro Seasonal Quartet – Ali Smith The Bee Sting – Paul Murray Maps for Lost Lovers – Nadeem Aslam In Memoriam – Alice Winn On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Transcribed - Published: 27 October 2024
REASONS TO STAY ALIVE by Matt Haig, chosen by Ali Woods ELENA KNOWS by Claudia Piñeiro, chosen by Fee Mak THE DETAILS by Ia Genberg, chosen by Harriett GilbertComedian Ali Woods chooses a memoir by Matt Haig based on his experiences of living with depression and anxiety disorder. Moving, funny and incredibly honest, Reasons to Stay Alive is a book which blasts open the way in which we talk about depression.Presenter and DJ Fee Mak chooses a novel by Claudia Piñeiro called Elena Knows, following a day in the life of Elena, a 63-year-old woman struggling to come to terms with both her own illness and the death of her daughter.And Harriett Gilbert chooses a short Swedish novel by Ia Genberg called The Details, exploring the relationships that define us, and the small but profound details that stay with us.Producer: Becky Ripley
Transcribed - Published: 21 October 2024
Elizabeth Day and Johny Pitts discuss AI and the novel.
Transcribed - Published: 20 October 2024
The two writers choose favourite books. Recorded at the Edinburgh Book Festival
Transcribed - Published: 14 October 2024
Chris Power explores the writing of Katherine Mansfield on the centenary of her death.
Transcribed - Published: 13 October 2024
At the Edinburgh International Book Festival the two authors discuss favourite books
Transcribed - Published: 7 October 2024
Alan Hollinghurst speaks to Chris Power about his new novel, Our Evenings.
Transcribed - Published: 29 September 2024
Rachel Kushner on her Booker Prize shortlisted novel, Creation Lake and Sarah Moss.
Transcribed - Published: 22 September 2024
Matt Haig discusses his new novel, The Life Impossible and Lord of the Flies at 70.
Transcribed - Published: 15 September 2024
Graham Norton speaks to Johny Pitts about his new novel, Frankie.
Transcribed - Published: 8 September 2024
Elif Shafak discusses her new novel. Hanna Pylväinen on writing about the Arctic Circle.
Transcribed - Published: 25 August 2024
Evie Wyld, Jessie Cave and Camille Bordas
Transcribed - Published: 18 August 2024
DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver, chosen by Rachel Parris DID YE HEAR MAMMY DIED? by SĂ©amas O'Reilly, chosen by Harriett Gilbert BOTH NOT HALF by Jassa Ahluwalia, chosen by Sonali ShahComedian and musician Rachel Parris and broadcaster and presenter Sonali Shah join Harriett Gilbert to read each other's favourite books.Rachel Parris (Late Night Mash, Austentatious) chooses Barbara Kingsolver's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead, which is based on David Copperfield and boldly takes on America's opioid crisis.Sonali Shah (Escape to the Country, Pilgrimage, Magic FM) picks Both Not Half: A Radical New Approach to Mixed Heritage Identity by the actor Jassa Ahluwalia, who had always described himself as 'half Indian, half English'. So he decided to come up with a new way of thinking about all kinds of individuality.Harriett brings a wonderfully funny and loving memoir by the Irish writer SĂ©amas O'Reilly: Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?Producer: Beth O'Dea for BBC Audio in Bristol Join the conversation @agoodreadbbc Instagram
Transcribed - Published: 29 July 2024
Benjamin Myers, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Claire Kohda
Transcribed - Published: 28 July 2024
RADIO ROMANCE by Garrison Keillor, chosen by Sarah Phelps PERSEPOLIS by Marjane Satrapi, chosen by Irenosen Okojie ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER by Rose Tremain, chosen by Harriett GilbertTwo authors pick books they love with Harriett Gilbert.Screenwriter, playwright and television producer Sarah Phelps (The Sixth Commandment, A Very British Scandal, EastEnders) brings us the trials and tribulations of a small-town radio station in the Midwest. Told with humour and irony, but also packs a punch.Novelist and short story writer Irenosen Okojie (Hag, Butterfly Fish, Speak Gigantular) chooses Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, an autobiographical graphic novel charting the writer's childhood in Iran, set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, before her move to Austria.Harriett Gilbert brings Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain, a story about the all-consuming power of first love, set 1960s London.Produced by Sally Heaven for BBC Audio Bristol Join the conversation on Instagram @bbcagoodread
Transcribed - Published: 22 July 2024
Irenosen Okojie talks to Johny Pitts about her new book, Curandera.
Transcribed - Published: 21 July 2024
BOOKS:WISHFUL DRINKING by CARRIE FISHER FORBIDDEN NOTEBOOK by ALBA DE CESPEDES YELLOWFACE by REBECCA F KUANGHarriett's guests today are comedian and writer Helen Lederer known for so many roles including as Catrionia in Absolutely Fabulous. Recently she has published her memoir Not That I'm Bitter and set up the Comedy Writing In Print Prize. She has opted for the hugely witty and knowing memoir Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher detailing her tumultuous life as the child of two Hollywood stars who often couldn't separate fantasy from reality. Ilaria Bernardini is an Italian novelist and screenwriter. She is currently working on Bernardo Bertolucci’s final script which Ilaria co-wrote with hi -The Echo Chamber. Her choice is the seminal feminist Italian novel Forbidden Notebook by the Italian-Cuban writer Alba de Cespedes about the inner life of an Italian housewife and Mama of the family. Harriett's choice is Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang - a cautionary tale for our times of plagiarism, cultural appropriation, social media storms and more.Producer: Maggie Ayre
Transcribed - Published: 15 July 2024
Johny Pitts speaks to Garth Risk Hallberg about his new novel, The Second Coming.
Transcribed - Published: 14 July 2024
Writer and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth has chosen EF Benson's entertaining tale of competitive snobbery in the 1920s, Mapp and Lucia. In a contrasting choice, neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow advocates for Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, a story of a Ghanaian family transplanted to Alabama which takes in neuroscience and opiate addiction. Harriett has gone for a real crowd-pleaser in E. Nesbit's The Railway Children and all three enjoy a bit of nostalgia for the times when children could run free having adventures around the railway. Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven.
Transcribed - Published: 8 July 2024
VOICES IN THE EVENING by Natalia Ginzburg (trans. DM Low), chosen by Tessa Hadley THE ZONE OF INTEREST by Martin Amis (trans. Jessica Moore), chosen by Sebastian Faulks EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal, chosen by Harriett GilbertTwo authors pick books they love with Harriett Gilbert.Tessa Hadley (Late In The Day, Free Love, After The Funeral) takes us to post-war Italy with Voices In The Evening by Natalia Ginzburg. The drama, suffering and fascism are in the past, but traumas surface in the day-to-day, with first loves and lost chances.Sebastian Faulks (Birdsong, Human Traces, The Seventh Son) chooses The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis, after watching the hit film by Jonathan Glazer and wanting to read the book it was inspired by. The haunting novel follows a Nazi officer who has become enamoured with the Auschwitz camp commandant's wife, and goes inside the minds of the commandant, who lives with his family right next to the concentration camp.Harriett Gilbert brings Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, a gripping novella set on the Trans-Siberian Railway, with a chance encounter between a desperate Russian conscript and a French woman.Produced by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio Bristol Join the conversation on Instagram @bbcagoodread
Transcribed - Published: 1 July 2024
Recorded at the Hay FestivalSHUGGIE BAIN by Douglas Stewart ON THE BLACK HILL by Bruce Chatwin AGAINST NATURE by Joris-Karl HuysmansHarriett Gilbert takes to the stage in the BBC Marquee at the Hay Festival for a special edition of the programme recorded in front of an audience. Actor and writer Doon Mackichan known for her outrageous character Cathy in the sitcom Two Doors Down chooses Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stewart as her good read. It's a touching but heartbreaking tale of a young Glaswegian boy's desperate efforts to save his mother Agnes from the alcoholism that ruins and degrades her. It won the Booker Prize in 2020. As we're in Wales Harriett's fitting choice is Bruce Chatwin's On The Black Hill an account of rural Welsh life in the mid 20th century. It's the story of two brothers' lives over 80 years and their connection to land and community. Bruce Robinson actor, director and writer of the hit film Withnail and I which has been adapted for stage chooses a book that features in the final scene of the film. The I character places two books in a suitcase at the end of the film, one of which is A Rebours - Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans. Bruce confesses that he's not the book's biggest fan but the ensuing discussion provides an entertaining insight into books we might read when we're younger and how differently we feel about them in later life. It's the story of an eccentric recluse Jean des Esseintes in 19th century France who loathes people and creates a fantasy world for himself but ultimately suffers from his self-inflicted pretentious ennui. "I wish I hadn't chosen this book" proclaims Bruce Robinson as he introduces it. "I wish you hadn't chosen it" agrees Doon Mackichan. They then elicit a lot of audience laughter from their deconstruction of this seminal French novel that all three find pretentious.This is a longer version of the broadcast programme.Producer: Maggie Ayre
Transcribed - Published: 25 June 2024
Shahidha Bari discusses EM Forster's A Passage to India with Neel Mukherjee, Elizabeth Lowry and Dr Chris Mourant.
Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2024
ABSENT IN THE SPRING by Agatha Christie (writing as Mary Westmacott) (HarperCollins), chosen by Simon Brett IN THE GARDEN OF THE FUGITIVES by Ceridwen Dovey (Penguin), chosen by Denise Mina HIDE MY EYES by Margery Allingham (Penguin), chosen by Harriett GilbertCrime writers Denise Mina and Simon Brett join Harriett Gilbert to read each other's favourite books.Simon chooses Agatha Christie under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, with Absent In The Spring. It’s a story without any detective and one that, perhaps, reveals a more personal side to Christie's writing.Denise picks the novel In the Garden of the Fugitives by South African-Australian author Ceridwen Dovey, an epistolary novel which begins with a letter that breaks seventeen years of silence between a rich, elderly man with a broken heart and his former protegee, a young South African filmmaker.And for the occasion of having two crime authors, Harriett Gilbert picks a golden age crime book, Hide My Eyes by Margery Allingham, where private detective Albert Campion finds himself hunting down a serial killer.Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio in Bristol Join the conversation @agoodreadbbc Instagram
Transcribed - Published: 17 June 2024
Johny Pitts talks to Kevin Barry about his new novel, The Heart in Winter
Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2024
QUARTET IN AUTUMN by Barbara Pym, chosen by Samantha Harvey MRS CALIBAN by Rachel Ingalls, chosen by Harriett Gilbert PHARMACOPOEIA: A DUNGENESS NOTEBOOK by Derek Jarman, chosen by Darran AndersonTwo award-winning writers share books they love with Harriett Gilbert.Produced by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio
Transcribed - Published: 10 June 2024
Historian and author Kathryn Hughes and No Such Thing As a Fish presenter Dan Schreiber recommend favourite books to Harriett Gilbert. Kathryn chooses Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes, an exploration of the French writer's life in the form of a novel. Dan's choice is very different - John Higgs taking on the conceptual artists and chart toppers The KLF. Harriett has gone for Michael Ondaatje's novel Warlight, set in a murky and mysterious post-war London.Presenter: Harriett GilbertProducer for BBC Audio Bristol: Sally Heaven
Transcribed - Published: 7 June 2024
Octavia Bright talks to Maggie Nelson about Like Love, an anthology of essays which explore art and friendship and criticism. And a new prize for climate fiction.Presenter: Octavia Bright Producer: Nicola Holloway
Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2024
Sarah Perry talks to Shahidha Bari about her new novel, Enlightenment
Transcribed - Published: 19 May 2024
Hari Kunzru talks to Shahidha Bari about his new novel, Blue Ruin
Transcribed - Published: 12 May 2024
Sunjeev Sahota talks to Alex Clark about his new novel, The Spoiled Heart
Transcribed - Published: 28 April 2024
Sinéad Gleeson is a writer, broadcaster and editor of three anthologies of Irish writing. Her collection of essays, Constellations: Reflections from Life won Non Fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 Irish Book Awards, and now publishes her debut novel, Hagstone.Hagstone is set on a remote island of the coast of Ireland, it tells the story of Nell an artist whose work takes inspiration from the landscape and folklore. When she receives an invitation to create a piece of art from the Inions, a reclusive commune of women living sustainably on the island, things begin to unravel. Sinead discusses the precarity of living as an artist, the folklore which infuses Hagstone and dedicating the book to the late activist and artist Sinead O' Connor.The Book Makers by Adam Smyth is a celebration of five hundred and fifty years of the printed book, told through the lives of eighteen extraordinary people. The printers and binders, publishers and artists, paper-makers and library founders - who took the book in radical new directions. We hear about the binder who created Shakespeare's First Folio, a 16th century Dutch printer who created bestsellers on Fleet Street and the Cut and Paste Bible sisters who made art from the gospels.And Kick the Latch author Kathryn Scanlan discusses her love of Moyra Davey’s Long Life: Cool White, Photographs and Essays.Book List – Sunday 21 MarchHagstone by Sinéad Gleeson The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers by Sinéad Gleeson The Glass Shore edited by Sinéad Gleeson Constellations: Reflections from Life by Sinéad Gleeson Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan Long Life Cool White: Photographs by Moyra Davey The Book Makers by Adam Smyth
Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2024
US author Percival Everett talks about his new novel, James - a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, told from the point of view of runaway slave, Jim.Plus, writing openly about the challenges of motherhood, and doing so with humour. Shahidha talks to two authors who have done just that, in the short story form: Naomi Wood, winner of the BBC Short Story Award, and author of a new collection, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, and to Helen Simpson who has written stories about motherhood in books such as Motherhood, and Hey Yeah Right Get A Life over 20 years previously.Presenter: Shahidha Bari Producer: Emma Wallace
Transcribed - Published: 14 April 2024
Alex Clark talks to Andrew O’Hagan about his new book Caledonian Road. Told over the course of a year, Caledonian Road follows art historian and public intellectual Campbell Flynn as a friendship with a young student calls into question the complacency of his much-cherished liberal credentials. With an epic Dickensian cast from drill artists to the wealthy Russian oligarchs in bed with British politicians, the book spools out to encompass a wide canvas of contemporary British life.Alex also talks to the Australian writer Helen Garner as three books from her back catalogue have been reissued: The Monkey Grip, chronicling a young mother’s life in bohemian Melbourne in the 1970s; This House of Grief, a true crime story of a murderous father; and her most widely renowned novel, The Children’s Bach, which takes us into the lives of a family turned upside down by the forces of sexual desire and the impulse toward freedom.And, DJ turned novelist, Annie Macmanus shares the Book She'd Never Lend
Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2024
THE RED PARTS by Maggie Nelson (Vintage), chosen by Carol Morley INVISIBLE CITIES by Italo Calvino (Vintage), chosen by Will Hislop ORDINARY PEOPLE by Diana Evans (Vintage), chosen by Harriett Gilbert Film director Carol Morley chooses a memoir called The Red Parts, in which author Maggie Nelson tries to make sense of the horror, grief and scepticism of her own aunt's murder trial. A book that blurs the boundaries between personal memoir, psychoanalysis and true crime. Comedian Will Hislop chooses Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, which transports us to 55 different fictional reincarnations of Venice through a series of beautifully detailed and occasionally absurd vignettes. Calvino's prose poems are ordered by theme and, as a reader, you can choose how you want to navigate his matrix of the chapters. Harriett's choice takes us to London with a novel by Diana Evans called Ordinary People, in which two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning, an intimate study of identity, parenthood and the fragility of love. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert Producer: Becky Ripley
Transcribed - Published: 26 March 2024
Carys Davies on her new novel, Clear. Plus Annie Ernaux and photography
Transcribed - Published: 24 March 2024
Alex Clark talks to novelist Jonathan Buckley about his novel, Tell. The story is told as a monologue by an unnamed narrator, the gardener of self-made businessman and would-be art collector, Curtis Doyle. Doyle has gone missing from his Scottish estate and many stories about his rags to riches life are being constructed. Tell is a novel concerned with the nature of storytelling, narrative form and the inherent unreliability of memory.Critic and writer Lauren Oyler and fiction editor of the TLS, Toby Lichtig, discuss the impact of online reviewing on professional literary criticism. Plus David Baddiel on his ten years of writing books for children.
Transcribed - Published: 21 March 2024
JUST KIDS by Patti Smith, chosen by Lindsey Hilsum MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor E. Frankl (trans. Ilse Lasch), chosen by Christopher Eccleston TOWARDS THE END OF THE MORNING by Michael Frayn, chosen by Harriett GilbertThe television journalist and actor share favourite books with Harriett Gilbert.Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor of Channel 4 News, loves Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids, her account of coming to New York as a young woman and of her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. It's a coming-of-age story set against the heady backdrop of 1970s counterculture; it's a story of becoming an artist; and it's a love story that turns into an elegy.The actor Christopher Eccleston chooses Man's Search for Meaning, the psychotherapist Viktor Frankl's account of his time in Nazi concentration camps and how those experiences informed his belief that man's deepest need is to search for meaning and purpose. It's a powerful book about retaining one's humanity in the face of unimaginable suffering and degradation.And Harriett Gilbert chooses Towards the End of the Morning, Michael Frayn's 1967 satire about journalists working on a newspaper during the heyday of Fleet Street.Produced by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio
Transcribed - Published: 19 March 2024
CHESS by Stefan Zweig (Faber), chosen by Katy Hessel MAUD MARTHA by Gwendolyn Brooks (Penguin), chosen by Amy Blakemore THE PIER FALLS by Mark Haddon (Vintage), chosen by Harriett Gilbert Art historian Katy Hessel chooses a book that she read in one sitting because she couldn't put it down: Chess by Stefan Zweig. A novella about the limitless possibilities of the game, and of the human mind. Author Amy Blakemore chooses Maud Martha by the American poet Gwendolyn Brookes, a story of a life told with such a brevity and beauty of prose that it is almost poetry. Harriett's choice is a collection of short stories called The Pier Falls by the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon, who is not afraid to disturb. Presenter: Harriett Gilbert Producer: Becky Ripley
Transcribed - Published: 12 March 2024
"Last night I dreamt of Manderley again..." begins Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier one of the most well-loved novels of the 20th century. As part of the Daphne du Maurier: Double Exposure season on Radio 4, Open Book looks again at her hugely popular novels to reveal the enduring qualities and appeal of her writing.From the pirates, smugglers and bewitching Cornish wilds of Jamaica Inn and Frenchman’s Creek, to the gender politics and class commentary of Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel, du Maurier’s reputation as a romance novelist misrepresented the true breadth of her work. Octavia Bright is joined by Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City, Funny Weather and Crudo; novelist, short story writer and Cornish resident Wyl Menmuir and Dr Laura Varnam of Oxford University, an expert on du Maurier’s life and work, to strip away some of the undermining labels she struggled to shake in her lifetime.
Transcribed - Published: 10 March 2024
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