A Good Read

Lively conversation around three book choices. Presenter Harriett Gilbert talks to two guests about books they love.
A SEVERED HEAD by Iris Murdoch, chosen by Lucy Kellaway
LITTLE BOY LOST by Marghanita Laski, chosen by Harriett Gilbert
SPECIMEN DAYS by Walt Whitman, chosen by John Bird
Lucy Kellaway, former Financial Times journalist turned secondary school teacher and founder of the charity Now Teach, chooses a slim novel by author-philosopher Iris Murdoch. A Severed Head (1961) centres on the marriage and affairs of Martin Lynch-Gibbon and his circle of friends and family.
Lord Bird MBE, more commonly known as John Bird, founder of The Big Issue and now a crossbench peer campaigning on homelessness and poverty prevention in the House of Lords, picks the American poet Walt Whitman's memoir Specimen Days (1882). Written when Whitman was in his sixties, it details, in fragmentary form, his experiences of the Civil War and his love of the natural world.
Presenter Harriett Gilbert brings Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski (1949), which follows Hilary Wainwright's search for his lost son amid the ruins of post-war France.
Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio Bristol
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Photo credit: The Big Issue

Lively conversation around three book choices. Presenter Harriett Gilbert talks to two guests about books they love.
Raymond Antrobus chooses Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
Guy Gunaratne chooses The Use of Photography by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie
Harriett Gilbert chooses The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Raymond Antrobus is a poet whose memoir The Quiet Ear, which investigates the intersection of race and deafness, was published in 2025. His choice for the programme, Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, is the startling story of a severely disabled woman who blogs pornography from her care home.
Guy Gunaratne is a prizewinning novelist who has chosen Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie's work which explores sex, ill health and photography over the course of their relationship.
Harriett nominates The Mars Room, a novel which looks at the lives, experiences and motivations of the inmates of an American women's prison.
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sally Heaven
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Photo credit: Marco Giugliarelli

Lively conversation around three book choices. Presenter Harriett Gilbert talks to two guests about books they love
EUPHORIA by Lily King
HUNGER PAINS by Derek Owusu
LOVED AND MISSED by Susie Boyt
Selina Brown has written three children's picture books. She is the founder and CEO of the Black British Book Festival. Her book recommendation is Hunger Pains by Derek Owusu - a novel that puts the growing trend of male obsession with appearance and fitness under the spotlight.
Fellow guest Andrea Wulf is author of eight books, including the Founding Gardeners and The Invention of Nature. Her latest, The Traveller, is about the life of ethnographer George Forster, She chooses the novel chooses Euphoria by Lily King. It's based on the life of the life of the American explorer and anthropologist Margaret Mead.
Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt is Harriett's choice - a poignant story about the fierce love of a grandmother who brings up her troubled daughter's child.
Producer: Maggie Ayre, BBC Audio Bristol
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Photo credit: Antonina Gern

Guests discuss books they love. This time: 
Loving and Giving by Molly Keane, chosen by podcaster and Archers actor Susie Riddell
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré, chosen by education activist Dr Vee Kativhu
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, chosen by presenter Harriett Gilbert
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sarah Goodman
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A sharing of book recommendations and lively discussion. Harriett Gilbert is joined by children's author Lauren Child and musician David McAlmont to talk about books they love by George Orwell, Elizabeth Strout and Alan Bennett.
The books are:
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout, chosen by Lauren Child
Burmese Days by George Orwell, chosen by David McAlmont
Killing Time by Alan Bennett, chosen by Harriett Gilbert
Producer for BBC Audio Bristol: Sally Heaven
Join us over on Instagram @agoodreadbbc