Hosted by Beth and Freya. Guest appearance from Helen Lederer - comedian, writer and founder of the Comedy Women in Print book prize.

In this episode Freya and I are discussing the award-winning books for our book bingo challenge, I’ll be talking to witty woman and founder of the Comedy Women in Print book prize, Helen Lederer about this year’s award and comedic women in literature, and then we’ll be setting our next book bingo challenge.

Book Bingo Discussion – Award-winners

Freya speaks about Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, winner of the Man Book Prize 2017. This is an experimental novel which explores and develops the story of Willie Lincoln, President Lincoln’s son, after his untimely death as he explores purgatory.

· Read the e-book from BorrowBox

· Listen to the e-audiobook from BorrowBox

Beth speaks about Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize 2016. It’s an exploration into human behaviour in response to grief and follows a man and his two sons as they come to terms with their mother.

· Listen to the e-audiobook from BorrowBox

Comedy Women in Print book prize

Helen Lederer tells us about the Comedy Women in Print book prize, a prize created to celebrate witty women in literature

We discuss the importance of promoting female writers of comedy and using comedy to start difficult conversations

Helen speaks about Witty Wednesday interviews with shortlisted authors

We talk about the shortlisted candidates:

· Frankissstein: a love story by Jeanette Winterson

· Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

· Big Girl Small Town by Michelle Gallen

· Reasons to be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe

· The Flat Share by Beth O’Leary

· The Blessed Girl by Angela Makholwa

· The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

Book Bingo

· We pick the next category we will be reading for our book bingo. We would love to get your recommendations so please comment or message us on Twitter or Facebook @EssexLibraries.

Thanks for listening.

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