Amanda Owen is best known as the Yorkshire shepherdess who runs a remote hillfarm and whose family life is featured on television's Our Yorkshire Farm. She is also a writer and has appeared on BBC 4's Winter Walks. Perhaps unsurprisingly her choice of a good read is the account of her role model Hannah Hauxwell whose life story is told in Seasons of My Life. Hannah lived a solitary existence without water and electricity on a farm high in the Yorkshire Dales. When television director Barry Cockroft made a programme about her in the 1970s she received fame and recognition as an extraordinary woman from a bygone age.

Most of us probably haven't given a lot of thought to the act of the handshake. Perhaps we only really considered its importance after we were told not do do it at the start of the pandemic. Harriett's choice of book is the fascinating and witty exploration of The Handshake by Ella Al-Shamahi.

Producer: Maggie Ayre