Our host Vick Hope is joined by comedian, actor and writer Cariad Lloyd.
Cariad is the creator and host of the award-winning podcast Griefcast and the smash-hit improv show Austentatious. She has starred in TV shows such as Alan Partridge, Peep Show, Inside No. 9 and featured on Have I Got News For You. Cariad’s first book You Are Not Alone was a New Statesman, The Times and Express book of the year in 2023. Her new children’s book, The Christmas Wish-Tastrophe, is out now.
Listen to the full episode here and read on to see Cariad’s top five most influential books written by women.
I came back to this book during one of the lockdowns, I think it was during the second winter and we were all like “Oh God, not again” – I just remember London felt Dickensian to me, like the streets were empty and it was bitterly, bitterly cold. As a performer and a creative I thought my world might have gone, like everything was gone. And I started reading this book to my daughter – it soothed my soul so wholeheartedly […] I think this is such an amazing metaphor for sadness, for grief, that you can cope with it, you can survive it. Spring is coming, snow will melt.
I loved this book when I was at university, it spoke to every part of my deep romantic soul. I think it’s also a book that a lot of people haven’t heard of, even though it’s sort of known as a feminist classic but it got lost along the way […] It’s all written in poetic prose and it’s deeply over-the-top and emotional in a way that only someone in young love can write. It makes your heart sing and I remember reading this book at university after a breakup and just feeling like “Yes, yes, somebody understands what this devastation feels like!”
I don’t have the words for what she does in this book – it’s so sublime, it’s so genius. I am angry this book isn’t on syllabuses. As someone who grew up interested in history and still didn’t know about this – I felt embarrassed, I felt ashamed, I felt shocked […] You could hand this to a British person and get them to understand Britain’s involvement in countries, why they were involved in 1960 after Nigeria became an independent state […] This book just tore me inside out.
Hilary Mantel makes you feel like [the characters] are gonna notice you. I would read this book and be like “I’ve got to be quiet in case Thomas Cromwell sees me, because I’m hearing a conversation I should not be hearing” – you feel like you’re genuinely eavesdropping on these people! I had to constantly remind myself this was fiction – she makes characters so real.
The synopsis doesn’t tell you very much – she’s working in Naples, she meets an Italian woman, she has an affair with this man. If I describe what it’s about it doesn’t sound very thrilling but it’s the way she tells that story. I think it’s really nice that her books are about small things, are really gently observant and aren’t asking you to follow a grand plot – but to have someone who’s looking at eye movements and finger movements, and how someone’s breathing in a room. That can be a really nice place to spend with a writer.
