A Good Read

Comedians Heidi Regan and Neil Delamere discuss their favourite all-time books with Harriett Gilbert. Heidi chooses a non-fiction book on the cult of positive thinking by the late Barbara Ehrenreich, called Smile or Die. Neil suggests a novel by Ronan Hession about two unambitious friends in their thirties; Leonard and Hungry Paul, and Harriett picks the novella Foster by Irish writer Claire Keega...

The comedian Ria Lina - who's appeared on the BBC’s Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News for You and Mock the Week - joins Otegha Uwagba - author of Little Black Book, Whites and We Need to Talk About Money - to talk to Harriett Gilbert about the books they love. Ria chooses Moll Flanders, the 18th-century classic by Daniel Defoe. Otegha picks the popular romance story Like Water for Chocolate by M...

Poet Patience Agbabi and the writer and podcaster Andy Miller advocate for their favourite books. Andy wrote a memoir about reading fifty great books, so it can't have been an easy choice. He plumps for My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley. Patience loves The Animals in that Country, Laura Jean Mackay's novel which starts with a pandemic but soon moves in to less familiar territory. Harriett talks abou...

Writers Damian Barr and Ben Fergusson recommend books to Harriett Gilbert. Damian chooses the second volume of Janice Galloway's memoir, All Made Up. Ben talks about The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen, and Harriett has gone for Hilary Spurling's biography of Sonia Orwell, The Girl from the Fiction Department. Producer Sally Heaven

Broadcaster John Wilson and comedian Chloe Petts choose books to recommend to Harriett Gilbert. John has chosen Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, which features a character based on the other Elizabeth Taylor. Chloe has gone for The Topeka School by Ben Lerner and Harriett goes for Hilary Mantel's first novel, Every Day is Mother's Day. Producer Sally Heaven

Writers Duncan Campbell and Mark Hodkinson discuss their favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. Duncan chooses the Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm, a book on the ethics of journalism with a very provocative opening sentence. Mark has gone for Contempt, Italian novelist Alberto Moravia's portrait of a disintegrating marriage. Harriett stays in Italy and introduces The Beautiful Summer...

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 vi...

Columnist Melanie Reid adores This is Not About Me by Janice Galloway, a tragicomic account of her turbulent childhood in mid-century Scotland. Presenter Harriett Gilbert thinks John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a true masterpiece, and sports broadcaster (and famous dog owner) Andrew Cotter recommends The Wild Places by fellow mountain-lover Robert Macfarlane. Produced for BBC Audio in...

Writer Sophie Hannah and journalist Viv Groskop join Harriett Gilbert to discuss favourite books by Agatha Christie, Mikhail Bulgakov and Eileen Atkins. The Rose and the Yew Tree by Agatha Christie (writing as Mary Westmacott) Publisher HarperCollins Will She Do? by Dame Eileen Atkins Publisher Virago The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov trans by Michael Glenny Publisher Vintage First broadcast...

The broadcaster Petroc Trelawny, host of the Radio 3 Breakfast show, and the crime writer Stuart MacBride, author of the bestselling Logan McRae and Ash Henderson crime thrillers, talk to Harriett Gilbert about books they love. Petroc's choice is dystopian JG Ballard novel The Drought, Stuart's is the Hollywood memoir by David Niven, The Moon's A Balloon, and Harriett's is Borges and Me by Jay Par...

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is a guide to spiritual enlightenment and preaches the importance of being in the moment. Alex George has found it an invaluable guide when he has suffered periods of anxiety and poor mental health. Ella Al-Shamahi chooses a first hand account of being imprisoned in Yemen by Abdulkader Al-Guneid, a medical doctor taken from his home and locked up for over a year f...

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

Novelist Dreda Say Mitchell and the writer and podcaster Emma Gannon talk about their favourite books with Harriett. Dreda chooses An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole, a romance set during the American Civil War. Emma has gone for the mouth watering memoir Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent, and Harriett transports us to a very wet Scottish holiday in Sarah Moss' Summerwater. Producer Sally He...

A novel about compassion set against the backdrop of the Aberfan disaster is comedian and actor Omid Djalili's choice of a good read. A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe is a novel about a young man who becomes an embalmer and who goes straight from his graduation ceremony to help at the site of the tragedy in Aberfan to take care of the deceased's bodies. That experience is to shape the rest...

Julie Hesmondhalgh is a well known face on television and stage. Recently she has been in The Pact on BBC1 and played Hayley in Coronation Street. Her choice of book is Notes To Self by Emilie Pine - a raw and powerful memoir of life for a young Irish woman. It's not a 'mis-mem' or misery memoir as Julie is keen to point out, rather a life affirming and honest account of womanhood, a book she has...

BAFTA winning actor Joanna Scanlan champions The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe's tale of Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters and US counter culture. Writer Sabine Durrant's favourite is Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, a simple but powerful story of a man's moral predicament in a small Irish community. Harriett enjoys Georgette Heyer's romance set in 1816, The Grand Sophy. Producer S...

Comedian Jessica chooses The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, by Will Storr, provoking a discussion about whether you can empathise with someone, no matter what they believe. Harriett loves The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell, leading to speculation about which of them would be sent to an asylum had feminism not moved things on somewhat. Writer Molly's choice of Y...

Actor Alistair Petrie, from TV series Sex Education, found Joan Didion's meditation on grief, The Year of Magical Thinking, unexpectedly uplifting. Writer Alex Wheatle, subject of one of Steve McQueen's Small Axe films, found Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island a means of escape from the horrors of his childhood, and presenter Harriett Gilbert enjoyed Men Don't Cry, by Faiza Guene. Producer S...

Radio 1 and CBBC presenter Katie Thistleton and historian and author Dr. Suzannah Lipscomb join Harriett Gilbert to discuss their favourite books. Suzannah's choice is Nicci Gerrard's 'What Dementia Teaches Us about Love". Harriett opts for 'The Good Doctor' by Damon Galgut, and Katie's pick is 'And Now for the Good News' by Ruby Wax. Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Toby Field

CHVRCHES frontwoman Lauren Mayberry and comedian and writer Rob Deering are Harriett Gilbert's guests this week. Rob picks a staple of the literary canon, 'Mansfield Park' by Jane Austen, a frothier read than perhaps anyone remembers featuring the "Indiana Jones of 19th century social graces”. Lauren chooses the Japanese dystopian novel 'The Memory Police' by Yōko Ogawa, which she says draws paral...

Gillian Burke and Dee Caffari discuss their favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. Gillian picks 'Braiding Sweetgrass' by Robin Wall Kimmerer which explores the author's relationship with the natural world. Dee's choice is 'Turn the Ship Around' by L. David Marquet, which is a submarine Captain's account of how he changed the leadership style aboard the USS Santa Fe. Harriett's pick is 'O Caledoni...

Katherine Rundell and Nathan Filer bring their favourite reads to Harriett Gilbert. Katherine has chosen the poetry of John Donne, Nathan loves The Shapeless Unease by Samantha Harvey, and Harriett is keen to hear everyone's views on Sylvia Plath's only novel, the Bell Jar. Producer Sally Heaven

'How can you feel fed up?' when you read PG Wodehouse is Alan Titchmarsh's answer when asked why he chose Summer Lightning. Harriett remarks that Wodehouse has been chosen on the programme twice in the last year and wonders if many of us are seeking the simplicity of Wodehouse's writing about the pre-internet days of rural Shropshire as 'comfort reading' during worrying times. Amanda Owen is best...

Three strange, fantastical novels, all very different, are the book choices for this week. Liam Williams is perhaps best-known for the BBC series 'Ladhood'. He picks 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' by Herman Melville, a dark tale about the monotony of office work and people who quietly buck the system. The musician Kate Stables AKA This is the Kit is a self-confessed huge fan of Ursula K. Le Guin, and s...

Kaffe Fassett is perhaps best known for his colourful knitwear designs but he is also a quilt maker, painter and ceramicist. His choice of book is Kandahar Cockney: A Tale of Two Worlds by former foreign correspondent James Fergusson. It's the story of Mir an interpreter Fergusson meets and hires while on assignment in Afghanistan in the late 1990s as the country fell to the Taliban for the first...