Omid Djalili and Nikita Lalwani

A novel about compassion set against the backdrop of the Aberfan disaster is comedian and actor Omid Djalili's choice of a good read. A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe is a novel about a young man who becomes an embalmer and who goes straight from his graduation ceremony to help at the site of the tragedy in Aberfan to take care of the deceased's bodies. That experience is to shape the rest of his life and his relationships with his mother and wife as well as an early schoolfriend are all affected. Nikita Lalwani chooses a quirky book of short stories by Charles Yu called Third Class Superhero - the message of which seems to be it's OK to be mediocre. Harriett Gilbert's choice is Elena Ferrante's The Lost Daughter recently made into a film starring Olivia Coleman. It lays bare the complexities of motherhood and the mixed feelings it evokes.

Producer: Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio Bristol