Straight talking

I had to rush into the house from the car so as not to miss a word. Two virologists were talking with Sue MacGregor about their favourite books on last week’s A Good Read (Tuesday, Radio 4), and came up with such unusual choices and spoke with such matter-of-fact appreciation, so different from the usual literary fare, that it made me want to read all their choices immediately.

It was an inspired decision by Sue and her producer (Jolyon Jenkins) to invite not just one but two science professors on to the programme in the same week; like giving an Alka-Seltzer to an old favourite after it’s ingested just one too many finely crafted novels. John Oxford, a world expert on the flu virus, reminded us of the fascination of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, but with admirable candour stressed that it’s ‘a dipping book. I would never read it from beginning to end.’