Brilliant books from Jen Brister, Mel Giedroyc, Jordan North and Rhys Stephenson

15 June 2022

Two friends brought together by tragedy, an adopted boy's search for his real identity, a fraudulent financier's web of intrigue, and an old man's fight with a giant fish. Which of this week's celebrity book recommendations will take your fancy on BBC Two's Book Club Between the Covers?

Each week we reveal the favourite books brought in by guests on Between the Covers. In the sixth episode of the current series, Jen Brister, Mel Giedroyc, Jordan North and Rhys Stephenson share their literary recommendations.

Episode 6 - Favourite books from our guests

The cover says: John Irving’s poignant, provocative, funny, and inspiring modern classic; A Prayer for Owen Meany tells the story of two boys eternally bonded in childhood by a bizarre accident. Linked by tragedy and mystery, they make their way together through the extraordinary events of their lives toward an unavoidable martyrdom that must ultimately separate them in an unforgettable tale of destiny, devotion, and faith that is Irving at his very best.

Jen says: “I've read almost all of John Irving’s books but this is definitely my favourite. I read it in my 20s when I was backpacking around Vietnam. I was alone, and this book was my companion.

It's about two friends, John and Owen, and it's written in the first person by John who's talking about his best friend Owen, who is an odd boy - he is very, very small, he has almost iridescent, luminescent skin and a very, very odd voice. A sort of high-pitched nasal voice which is illustrated in the book every time that Owen speaks - it's in capital letters! I can hear him.

At the beginning of the book an accident happens, where Owen hits a foul ball in baseball and accidentally kills his best friend's mum. From there on the boys’ relationship is very close. Owen is convinced, through these dreams that he's having, that he is an instrument of God. So it's a lot about faith, it's about friendship, but it's also about destiny. And this child can already see his own death. I absolutely love it to this day.”

The cover says: The Way We Live Now is Anthony Trollope's radical exploration of the dangers associated with speculative capitalism.

Augustus Melmotte is a fraudulent foreign financier who preys on dissolute nobility - using charm to tempt the weak into making foolish investments in his dubious schemes. But as Melmotte climbs higher in society, his web of deceit begins to unravel.

Mel says: “It's absolutely brilliant. It was written in 1875 and it's just very pertinent for today. The main character, Augustus Melmotte, is an absolutely nasty piece of work, but he's like a kind of blazing, corrupt cowboy that strides across the pages of this incredible book.

I think Trollope had been abroad and then he came back to Britain when he wrote this book and he was really shocked to see a kind of society where ‘oligarchs’ were ruling.

Suddenly there was a lot of money; there was this huge amount of richness and bling, people living in these crazy kind of palaces, and it's a satire on how evil money is, and how empty money is. I'm obsessed with Trollope: the 19th century classic - you just learn so much. Get in guys, get in!”

The cover says: The last of his novels Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the most enduring works of American fiction. The story of a down-on-his-luck Cuban fisherman and his supreme ordeal - a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream - has been cherished by generations of readers.

Rhys says: “Hemingway tells the story of this old Cuban fisherman, who is sort of past his prime, and he goes out one day determined to catch a fish.

He sees this incredible marlin - a massive fish longer than his boat - and decides, ‘I'm going to catch this thing and prove to myself that I can still do it. Even though I don't have the strength of my youth, I've still got the wits and the knowledge to accomplish what I need’.

You really find yourself rooting for him. So much happens in this book. You come away from it feeling like you’ve read a big novel, even though it’s so short, but it's because Hemingway just sticks to the details and the action, he doesn't waste too much time on exposition.

It's simple, and it's effective. And I love that it's an example that you can tell an incredible story and it doesn't have to take you weeks to finish it, you can do it in an afternoon.”

The cover says: Cyril Avery is not a real Avery — or at least, that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his many years, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more.

Jordan says: “I absolutely love this book, it's storytelling at its finest. From start to finish, it’s heart-warming, harrowing and just one of the best books, if not the best book, I've ever read.

It starts off with a lady called Catherine, who is 16 years old and she gets pregnant. She's from a strict Catholic family in Ireland. It's all about society and attitudes.

Catherine moves to Dublin, she has a baby called Cyril and she gives him up for adoption. The book is basically about their two lives, her life and his life, and they’re both treated as outcasts. Because she never got married but had a child that she had to give up for adoption, and Cyril is this boy who grows up with his adoptive parents, who were really eccentric – one’s an author who chain smokes.

Cyril has no relationship with his adoptive father. Then you learn that he's struggling with his sexuality, so he's growing up in an Ireland that’s still really strict.

One minute you will be crying at a chapter and then next you will be howling: it is probably one of the funniest books I've read, as well as one of the saddest. The best way to describe it, is that it’s like Ricky Gervais’ Afterlife but in a book. You know in Afterlife when in one scene you’re crying your heart out, and the next you’re proper laughing.

It's just it's so well written and beautiful, and the ending is perfect. It's just one of those books that you don't want to end.”