Art historian Kate Bryan and comedian Mark Steel talk to Harriett Gilbert about their favourite books. Kate loves Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing, an inspiring collection of essays which make a case for why art matters. Mark is a big fan of Stalin Ate My Homework by Alexei Sayle, a comedic memoir about growing up in a Jewish atheist communist family in Liverpool. And Harriett puts forward Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss, in which a present-day story converges with ancient rituals to provoke a discussion about how far we have come from the “primitive minds” of our ancestors. Comment on instagram: @agoodreadbbc
Produced by Becky Ripley

A Good Read: Kate Bryan and Mark Steel

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.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

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

Open Book - Maggie Nelson

Sarah Perry talks to Shahidha Bari about her new novel, Enlightenment

Open Book - Sarah Perry

Hari Kunzru talks to Shahidha Bari about his new novel, Blue Ruin

Open Book - Hari Kunzru

Sunjeev Sahota talks to Alex Clark about his new novel, The Spoiled Heart

Open Book - Sunjeev Sahota

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 March Hagstone 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

A Good Read: Kate Bryan and Mark Steel

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