Featured in the episode
Uwe Tellkamp (Author)
In derelict Dresden a cultivated, middle-class family does all it can to cope amid the Communist downfall. This striking tapestry of the East German experience is told through the tangled lives of a soldier, surgeon, nurse and publisher. With evocative detail, Uwe Tellkamp masterfully reveals the myriad perspectives of the time as people battled for individuality, retreated to nostalgia, chose to conform, or toed the perilous line between East and West. Poetic, heartfelt and dramatic, The Tower vividly resurrects the sights, scents and sensations of life in the GDR as it hurtled towards 9 November 1989.
Emma Healey (Author)
'Elizabeth is missing', reads the note in Maud's pocket in her own handwriting.
Lately, Maud's been getting forgetful. She keeps buying peach slices when she has a cupboard full, forgets to drink the cups of tea she's made and writes notes to remind herself of things. But Maud is determined to discover what has happened to her friend, Elizabeth, and what it has to do with the unsolved disappearance of her sister Sukey, years back, just after the war.
A fast-paced mystery with a wonderful leading character: Maud will make you laugh and cry, but she certainly won't be forgotten.
Colm Tóibín (Author)
Nora Webster is recently widowed. Unmoored by her sudden loss and the needs of her children which she now must raise alone, she faces a future that was never meant to be. But within Nora is a strength - a quiet resolve not to succumb to others' expectations and, through the discovery of music and the gift of friendship, she may just find a way to live again.
Featuring one of the most memorable heroines in contemporary fiction, in Nora we find a woman who will be ultimately redefined by her love and her loss.
Jeremy Paxman (Author)
Life for the British during the First World War was not at all what you think...
Using a wealth of first-hand source material and his characteristic flair for story-telling, Jeremy Paxman brings to life the day-to-day experience of the British over the entire course of the war, from politicians, newspapermen, campaigners and Generals, to Tommies, factory-workers, nurses, wives and children, explaining why we fought it so enthusiastically, how we endured it so doggedly and how it transformed everything, such as women's suffrage, new surgery techniques, lower-class 'officer gentlemen', a powerful press, sexually transmitted diseases and British Summer Time.
Mary Berry (Author)
Mary Berry is our very favourite cookery writer and presenter. She has shared her skills, experience and tips through a varied and fascinating career, covering almost every aspect of cookery, for over sixty years. Yet few people know the professional and personal story behind her success.
Now, in her charming, life-affirming memoir, Mary tells us about her life, a life in some ways reassuringly ordinary, yet at the same time completely extraordinary.
It is a life of juggling that working mums everywhere will recognize; the life of a giver, who has always tried to do the best and right thing; a life that inspires in its determination to achieve despite obstacles along the way; a life that proves that you really can be a style icon and at the pinnacle of your career in your 70s.
The life of a delightfully traditional, but thoroughly modern, British woman.
