‘What was that book featured on the radio the other day?’
This week on BBC Radio 4’s ‘A Good Read’ with Harriett Gilbert, authors Gill Hornby and Paul Burston talk with Harriett about their favourite books.
Gill Hornby chooses ‘Commonwealth’ by Ann Patchett.
It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited and notices a heart stoppingly beautiful woman. When he kisses Beverly Keating, his host’s wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families, whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later. In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story…
Paul Burston loves Armistead Maupin’s ‘Tales of the City’.
Mary Ann is twenty-five and arrives in San Francisco for an eight-day holiday.
But then her Mood Ring turns blue.
So obviously she decides to stay. It is the 1970s after all.
Fresh out of Cleveland, naive Mary Ann tumbles headlong into a brave new world of pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, spaced-out neighbours and outrageous parties. Finding a job as a secretary at an ad agency, Mary Ann wants to start her own life, away from her parents and with the flower-power freedom to make her own friends and her own decisions.
The saga that ensues introduces vignettes that are manic, romantic, tawdry and touching – unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin.
This week, Harriett chooses ‘Tin Man’ by Sarah Winman.
This is almost a love story. But it’s not as simple as that.
It begins with two boys, Ellis and Michael,
who are inseparable.
And the boys become men,
and then Annie walks into their lives,
and it changes nothing and everything.
