Here be dragons: Brilliant books and exotic creatures from Between the Covers

25 May 2022

BBC Two's book club Between the Covers welcomes a Dragon this week, as entrepreneur and Den investor Deborah Meaden joins comedians Stephen Bailey and Sukh Ojla, along with actor and presenter Richard E. Grant, to discuss favourite books with host Sara Cox. Crawdads, Gargoyles and a Mock Turtle are the other creatures to feature in this week's literary menagerie.

Each week we reveal the favourite books brought in by Sara Cox's guests on Between the Covers. For the third episode of the current series, Stephen Bailey, Richard E Grant, Deborah Meaden and Sukh Ojla share their literary recommendations.

Episode 3 - Favourite books from our guests

The cover says: For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.

Stephen says: “I have never read a book in my whole life where I can see the film as it's happening. I read this in two days. I loved it so much and it really asked so many questions… Are we how other people see us? If someone says you’re something over and over and over again, are you going to become it?

The people in the town know Kya as ‘Kya from the marsh’, and they have this opinion of her as a downtrodden marsh girl, but elsewhere, she's seen as something more. And so it's just really interesting to me how different people can have completely different views of the same person. I cried at the book, I really rooted for Kya. It gave me so many different emotions.”

• Stephen Bailey: One of Many on BBC Sounds
  A stand-up special about identity and what's in a name

The cover says: Curious Alice, the bossy White Rabbit, the formidable Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter are among the best-loved, most iconic literary creations of all time. Lewis Carroll's Alice has been enchanting children for 150 years.

Richard says: “I read it first when I was seven and I've read it every year since then. I'm now 64 and 11 months. I think that it's the best understanding that I have of the English class system and the sense of humour. Just everything about what it is like to live on this island is contained in this book. I think it's hilarious and funny and satirical and magical at the same time. And right at the beginning Alice says, ‘I want a book that has conversations and pictures’ and that's what I like.”

• Find out what happened when Richard E. Grant took a suitcase of books around the South of France in Write Around the World.

The cover says: A story of survival and war, love and madness, loyalty and forgiveness, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is an intimate exploration of Fuller’s parents, whom readers first met in Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, and of the price of being possessed by Africa’s uncompromising, fertile, death-dealing land.

Deborah says: “This is Fuller’s memoirs about her parents criss-crossing through Africa. They're in love with the colonial life. Her parents grew up in Kenya, and they spent a lot of time in Zimbabwe and obviously, they were in the war in Zimbabwe. They were originally farmers, but through the wars, they lost everything and eventually ended up working for the local chief. They start off as strongly colonial people and by the end of it, they're talking about, ‘well of course, Africa belongs to the Africans’.

Fuller tells it, I think with great fondness, although I'm not sure her mother would think that. Her mother and father are an extraordinary, vibrant couple. You can imagine everybody wanting them to be at their dinner parties. Her mother is resourceful, she's loving, she's interesting, she battles with her own demons. For me this story is told through this absolute love of the country that she grew up in.”

The cover says: A young man is fighting for his life. Into his room walks a bewitching woman who believes she can save him. Their journey will have you believing in the impossible.

Sukh says: “It opens with your protagonist who's nameless and he's driving down a very dark street, he’s under the influence of alcohol and drugs. He’s coming back from a party and he has a horrific car crash that leaves him with terrible burns pretty much all over his body. He almost dies and then he's put into the burns unit of a hospital. When he's there, all he's thinking is, as soon as I get out of hospital, I want to end this, I've got nothing to live for.

He's this incredibly beautiful, cynical man who's a model and an actor, he’s got the world at his feet. And then a woman appears at the foot of his bed, her name is Marianne, and she says, ‘we've known each other for 700 years and we were lovers in a previous life’. She is a sculptress, some people think she’s escaped from a psych ward, so you never quite know what's going on. It's absolutely stunning. It's not just about love, it's also about life and about change and making the most of things and art and creativity. It's the only book that I've read more than once in my life.”