‘What was that book featured on the radio the other day?’
BBC Radio 4’s riveting ‘A Good Read’ with Harriett Gilbert this week featured broadcaster Janet Street-Porter and comedian Felicity Ward – both talk with Harriett Gilbert about their favourite books.
Janet Street-Porter chooses ‘The Bloater’ by Rosemary Tonks
The Bloater is a sparklingly ironic comedy of manners, of flirtatious gossips who love to hate and hate to love.
Min works at the BBC as a sound engineer, trying to create an authentic heartbeat sound effect, and ignore her colleagues. Min is theoretically married, but George is so invisible that she accidentally turns the lights off even when he’s still in the room.
Min is also being courted by an internationally renowned opera singer who she refers to as The Bloater (a swelled, salted herring). Disgusted by him and attracted to him in equal measure, her dilemma is whether to sleep with him or not.
Vain and materialistic, yet surprisingly tender, this is the perfect rediscovered Classic for today.
Felicity chooses ‘Seven Lessons on Physics’ by Carlo Rovelli
These seven short lessons guide us, with simplicity and clarity, through the scientific revolution that shook physics in the twentieth century and still continues to shake us today. In this mind-bending overview of modern physics, Carlo Rovelli explains Einstein’s theory of general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, elementary particles, gravity, and the nature of the mind. Not since Richard Feynman’s celebrated Six Easy Pieces has physics been so vividly, intelligently and entertainingly revealed.
