A Good Read

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A Good Read: Sebastian Faulks and Tessa Hadley

Sebastian Faulks and Tessa Hadley

BBC Radio 4 - A Good Read, Sebastian Faulks and Tessa Hadley

Two novelists share favourite books with Harriett Gilbert.

First loves and lost chances in post-war Italy; a haunting novel about Auschwitz's commandant; and a gripping novella on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Two authors on books they love.

VOICES IN THE EVENING by Natalia Ginzburg (trans. DM Low), chosen by Tessa Hadley
THE ZONE OF INTEREST by Martin Amis (trans. Jessica Moore), chosen by Sebastian Faulks
EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal, chosen by Harriett Gilbert

Two authors pick books they love with Harriett Gilbert.

Tessa Hadley (Late In The Day, Free Love, After The Funeral) takes us to post-war Italy with Voices In The Evening by Natalia Ginzburg. The drama, suffering and fascism are in the past, but traumas surface in the day-to-day, with first loves and lost chances.

Sebastian Faulks (Birdsong, Human Traces, The Seventh Son) chooses The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis, after watching the hit film by Jonathan Glazer and wanting to read the book it was inspired by. The haunting novel follows a Nazi officer who has become enamoured with the Auschwitz camp commandant's wife, and goes inside the minds of the commandant, who lives with his family right next to the concentration camp.

Harriett Gilbert brings Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, a gripping novella set on the Trans-Siberian Railway, with a chance encounter between a desperate Russian conscript and a French woman.

Produced by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio Bristol
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