Books to show us who we are, chosen by Angela Scanlon, Cerys Matthews, DJ Spoony and Rob Rinder

13 March 2022

In each episode of Between the Covers, Sara Cox's guests reveal their own reading preferences. This week, discover four books that help us explore - and challenge - our identities.

In the latest series of Between the Covers, Angela Scanlon, Cerys Matthews, DJ Spoony and Rob Rinder tell us which titles have inspired them.

Episode one - Favourite books from our guests

The cover says: Part inspiration, part memoir, Untamed explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world, and instead dare to listen to and trust in the voice deep inside us. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is also the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honour our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts.

Angela says: I’ve been devouring self-development books for over a decade. Sometimes they can be a bit factual, but Untamed for me felt really personal.

It's got really short chapters which, as the mother of two young kids, I'm a big fan of - you can pick it up and put it down. It’s made up of short essays that are written in a stream of consciousness style. There are deeply personal confessions about things that she has experienced over the course of her life, but the themes remain universal.

Her previous book was about her broken marriage, and she had planned for this one to be about how she had cobbled that relationship back together. Instead, she falls in love with another woman and realises her attempts to rescue that marriage are futile. It’s about uncaging herself from the expectations that society has placed on her and the ideas of who she should be. It’s a bit of a rallying cry that is gently anarchic.

The cover says: Under Milk Wood is the emotive and hilarious account of a spring day in the fictional Welsh seaside village of Llareggub. We learn of the inhabitants' dreams and desires, their loves and regrets. The play introduces us to characters such as Captain Cat, who dreams of his drowned former seafellows, and Nogood Boyo, who dreams of nothing at all. It is a unique and touching depiction of a village that has 'fallen head over bells in love'.

Cerys says: The best books will travel with you throughout the rest of your life. The interesting characters, beautiful language, observations on life and what you learn about human beings when they live together as a community, it’s all in this little book.

It’s 24 hours in the life of a backwater village. You first meet them at night. They're all having these depraved dreams, no holds barred. Then they wake up and get on with their business. Their day can be as simple as a lazy afternoon and a trip to the pub. Then you put them to bed at night and they go back to their dreams.

It’s a beautiful book that really shows the beauty of language. He nails humans, their warts and all. I don’t think it matters if you’re from Wales, Taiwan or Cameroon, it’s all about human characters.

The cover says: From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers, race and class have shaped Akala's life and outlook. He takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have brought us where we are today, covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right.

DJ Spoony says: I love history and I think this is a book that everybody should read in their school history lessons.

There are elements of biographical detail mixed with historical detail. His view is that a lot of the problems of the world today don’t come down to race, black and white, but they’re actually down to rich and poor. I thought it was a truly fascinating read and insight.

Akala was brought up in a single-parent family in 1980s London. He’s a genius with mathematics, and his ability to write songs and music are incredible. He’s had so much success, when his upbringing and treatment at school should have taken the wind out of his sails and crushed his aspirations. He’s taken that hardship and used it to inspire him. The real success story behind this book is what Akala has done with his life.

The cover says: Bruce Chatwin's bestselling novel traces the fortunes of the enigmatic and unconventional hero, Kaspar Utz. Despite the restrictions of Cold War Czechoslovakia, Utz asserts his individuality through his devotion to his precious collection of Meissen porcelain. Although Utz is permitted to leave the country each year, and considers defecting each time, he is not allowed to take his porcelain with him and so he always returns to his Czech home, a prisoner both of the Communist state and of his collection.

Rob says: Like any art form I think that great writing has the capacity to speak to us in a completely different way. It can sing to the heart of your soul and it can enable you to know for sure that you're not alone. You share a thought with the writer and when that happens, that harmonic is like nothing else. This book does that for me and I know quite a few other people too.

At the heart of the piece is the question of our relationship with objects. He’s in this tiny flat surrounded by these porcelain objects, which speak so articulately about the regimes that humankind have created, how delicate and fragile they are. Mankind has constructed Nazi regimes and the communist regime, but it's all ultimately smashable because every single facet of human importance is in a tiny piece of work.

The economy of the sentences is extraordinary. There are some moments in this book that are so perfect. They make you stop, put the book down, breathe and want to weep with their perfection.