Books and Authors BBC Radio 4

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 Gilbert
Two 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
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Irenosen Okojie talks to Johny Pitts about her new book, Curandera.

BOOKS:
WISHFUL DRINKING by CARRIE FISHER
FORBIDDEN NOTEBOOK by ALBA DE CESPEDES
YELLOWFACE by REBECCA F KUANG
Harriett'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

Johny Pitts speaks to Garth Risk Hallberg about his new novel, The Second Coming.

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.

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 Gilbert
Two 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
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