Books and Authors

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Favourite books selected by our guests

Former Eastenders and present-day Archers actor Lucy Speed, and comedian Sarah Mills talk about books set in wartime London, a 1990s underground train, and Graham Greene's MI6. Lucy's choice is Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave, Which tells the tale of Mary, a woman who becomes a teacher at the beginning of the war, only for her life to take some unexpected turns during the Blitz. Sarah has selected 253 by Geoff Ryman, the novel originally published on the Internet which tells the stories of 253 passengers on a London Underground train. Harriett proposes a lesser known a Graham Greene novel, The Human Factor, which takes in apartheid South Africa and communism as well as espionage. Producer for BBC Audio Bristol: Sally Heaven Join the conversation on Instagram: agoodreadbbc

Actor Nina Sosanya and prize winning poet and writer Joelle Taylor talk favourite books with Harriett. Nina chooses Sally Jones and the False Rose by Jakob Wegelius, a children's novel with a mute gorilla engineer as its protagonist. The book appeals to Nina's love of engineering, and the city of Glasgow! Joelle nominates Booker Prize winning The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka, about a man killed in the Sri Lankan civil war, seeking answers in the afterlife. Harriett's choice is Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz, a novel set in the German countryside at the tail end of summer, featuring two women with mysterious back stories. Two of the choices are novels in translation, which prompts a chat about whether translated books are becoming more common Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven Follow us on instagram: agoodreadbbc

Crypto, childhood and a very personal history of the world: writers Sara Collins and Oliver Burkeman share books they love with Harriett Gilbert.