Books to Read and Re-Read
Books and Authors
BBC
4.2 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2024
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this final edition of Open Book, Johny Pitts and Chris Power celebrate some of the outstanding novels from the last twenty six years.
They are joined by Kamila Shamsie, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2018 for her novel Home Fire. Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton, and one of this year's Booker Prize judges. Ted Hodgkinson, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, and previous chair of the International Booker.
Kamila, Sara and Ted pick out some of the books, including Wolf Hall, Lincoln in the Bardo and On Beauty, which have stood out for them: books they'd recommend to others, and re-read again and again.
Producer: Kirsten Locke
Books List:
Best of Friends – Kamila Shamsie Burnt Shadows – Kamila Shamsie Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie The Confessions of Frannie Langton – Sara Collins In the City by the Sea – Kamila Shamsie Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro Seasonal Quartet – Ali Smith The Bee Sting – Paul Murray Maps for Lost Lovers – Nadeem Aslam In Memoriam – Alice Winn On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one. |
| 0:06.5 | I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:11.2 | I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects, |
| 0:16.0 | relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life. |
| 0:22.4 | So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature, |
| 0:28.3 | and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience, and maybe that's you. |
| 0:33.6 | So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.5 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:43.3 | Hello, and welcome to Radio 4's new programme devoted to reading of all kinds, magazines, as well as books, with some regular hints for the would-be writer. |
| 0:51.9 | Today, we meet classic science. |
| 0:53.6 | No, my accent hasn't changed that much over three years on Radio 4. |
| 0:57.6 | That was the late Humphrey Carpenter on the first ever edition of Open Book back in 1998. |
| 1:03.0 | I was still at Harry's school in Sheffield back then reading Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea |
| 1:07.1 | wondering where all the grammar would just been taught was. |
| 1:09.3 | What were you up to in 98, Chris? |
| 1:11.6 | I was at university reading a lot less than I was supposed to, actually. |
| 1:15.0 | But now, a quarter of a century on, we've come to the final chapter of Open Book. |
| 1:19.3 | And during that time, we have been reading, tirelessly reading, from white teeth to |
| 1:23.6 | Woolfool, Atonement to Americana. And we've spoken to everyone from winners of the Booker |
| 1:28.6 | and the Nobel to writers of whom you might otherwise never have heard. One of the great pleasures |
| 1:33.8 | of reading is that we all choose our own paths through the shelves. But the question we've set our |
| 1:38.6 | impeccably well-read panel is to think about what stood out the most for them, books they'd |
... |
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