The literary podcast that has been giving new life to old books since 2015. For show notes visit backlisted.fm and get an extra two shows a month by supporting the pod at patreon.com/backlisted
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The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Corner That Held Them (1948) is the subject of this episode, almost ten years since Backlisted covered the same author's classic debut Lolly Willowes (1926). Joining Andy, Una and Nicky to discuss this magnificent and inimitable historical novel - and to consider what, if anything, we have learnt during the last decade - is our friend Tanya Kirk, author, editor and the Librarian of St John's College, Cambridge; Tanya appeared on previous episodes about Winifred Holtby's South Riding and Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes. Described by one commentator as the ultimate workplace novel, if your workplace happens to be a medieval convent, The Corner That Held Them reflects Sylvia Townsend Warner's love of nuns, nouns and nonconformists. It is a story without a plot that somehow grips the reader from beginning to end; a work of fiction, according to the author, written "on the purest Marxian principles", that foregrounds the struggle of the individual within enclosed systems i.e. a hastily-constructed nunnery; and an epic novel spanning two centuries of religious persecution, plague, murder, famine and betrayal, that still locates humour in the bleakest, dampest prospect. It is a truly magical book and it was an absolute delight to return to it here, for the first time.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive music writing, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Summer books 2025
Books we think you might enjoy on a plane, by the pool or in the park. Andy, Nicky and our old friend Una McCormack discuss the following fantastic beach reads - Birch reads? - and a novel from Backlisted's own backlist: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre); The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, trans. Adriana Hunter (Penguin); Poetry in the Making by Ted Hughes (Faber); and The Lowlife by Alexander Baron (Faber). This is Backlisted's 10th anniversary year, so over the summer, we'll be revisiting a few old favourites or titles by much-loved authors that somehow slipped through the cracks. We last discussed The Lowlife on Episode 64 back in 2018, but it has just been republished and is back in bookshops now. PS. Andy would like it to be known that books can also be enjoyed indoors.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive writing, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend
The wonderful Nina Stibbe, award-winning novelist and diarist, joins us for a discussion of Sue Townsend's classic comic creation. When it was first published in 1982, the confidential journal of Leicester's foremost teenage poet and intellectual was an overnight success, eventually going on to become the best-selling British novel of the 1980s. Four decades on, we can see it for what it truly is: a masterclass in the art of writing comic prose and a work of political satire that stealthily made its way into several million British homes. Nina, Andy, John and Nicky celebrate Sue Townsend's life and career, laugh at her jokes, and make the case for her to rank alongside Charles Dickens, Stella Gibbons, George Grossmith and E.M. Delafield in the pantheon of British writers.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive writing, become a Patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Image of Her by Simone de Beauvoir
To discuss The Image of Her (1966) by Simone de Beauvoir we are joined by writer and translator Lauren Elkin, whose previous books include Flâneuse: Women Walk the City, Scaffolding and Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art. Best known as the author of The Second Sex, Beauvoir was also a prolific novelist. In The Image of Her—newly translated by Elkin after more than forty years— reads like a dispatch from the smooth surface of a life coming quietly undone. Laurence is a successful advertising executive with a picture-perfect Parisian existence—handsome husband, lover, chic flat, weekends in the country—but when her daughter starts asking difficult questions about injustice, that surface begins to crack.
We trace the novel’s shifting reception—from period piece to prescient critique—and consider Beauvoir’s voice as a novelist: ironic, exacting, and unexpectedly funny.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive writing, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Monkey King: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en
Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time, joins John and Andy for a tour of Monkey King: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, the sixteenth-century fable widely regarded as one of the most important Chinese novels ever written, newly translated by Julia Lovell. The Monkey King's powers include shape-shifting, immortality and "being incredibly rude"; listeners of a certain age will be familiar with his legendary exploits - and those of his travelling companions Pigsy, Sandy and Tripitaka - from the 1980s cult TV series Monkey, a staple of BBC2's week-night schedule. The book itself is a hugely entertaining combination of action caper, farce and religious allegory, analogous in some ways to The Pilgrim's Progress but with a lot more jokes and fighting. We throughly enjoyed chatting with Kaliane about Monkey King, her own writing and also her day job as an editor at Penguin Classics and we think you will feel the Monkey Magic too. All together now: "the spirit of Monkey was irrepressible!"
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive writing, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
“A masterpiece I don’t fully understand—and don’t need to.” This week’s book is The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, a bold, baffling, and darkly funny novel that has confounded and enchanted readers since its publication in 1995. Joining us to explore it is Chris Chibnall, award-winning screenwriter, playwright, and now novelist, best known for Broadchurch and Doctor Who, and author of the new detective novel Death at the White Hart.
Written in the wake of Ishiguro’s Booker-winning The Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled follows Ryder, a famous pianist, through an unnamed European city where nothing is quite as it seems.
We talk about Ishiguro’s decision to “go electric” with this daring experiment in narrative structure and tone; how the novel grew from critical confusion to cult classic; and why its unresolved tensions and emotional obliqueness are part of its power.
For anyone who’s ever had to perform while still in their dressing gown, this one’s for you.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive writing, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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What Remains by Hannah Arendt
Elif Shafak and Lyndsey Stonebridge join John and Andy for a discussion of the life and work of Hannah Arendt, the historian and philosopher whose books include The Human Condition, The Origins of Totalitarianismand Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. This being Backlisted, we approach Arendt's formidable oeuvre and truly extraordinary biography via an intriguing route: her poetry. The book Elif and Lyndsey have chosen for this special episode is What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt (Norton), published in November 2024. Arendt wrote poetry from a young age; she kept the manuscript of many of these poems with her as a refugee from Nazi Germany, in the camps and on the boat to America. What did they represent to their author? And as the world finds itself once again grappling with the threats of populism and totalitarianism, what can we learn from Hannah Arendt? We hope you will enjoy this fascinating, thought-provoking conversation as much as we did.
Elif Shafak's new novel There Are Rivers In The Sky (Penguin) is available now. Lyndsey Stonebridge's We Are Free To Change the World: Hannah Arendt's Lessons in Love and Disobedience (Vintage) was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2024.
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes and original writing, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A Compass Error by Sybille Bedford
Sybille Bedford's A Compass Error (1968) is a classic coming-of-age novel, a love story, a family saga and a study in psychological suspense rolled into one. Joining us to discuss it are the novelist Francesca Reece and Krista Cowman, Professor of History at the University of Leicester. The late Hilary Mantel described A Compass Error, Bedford's third novel, as 'a powerful and merciless book ... which visits on its heroine a series of humiliations that cut to the quick'. We explore the book in the context of Bedford's remarkable life and body of autobiographical work, which encompassed fiction, travel writing, reportage and memoir. Where does her "Riviera lesbian thriller" - copyright, Francesca Reece - fit into it all?
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A Life by Elia Kazan
We explore Elia Kazan's memoir A Life (1988) with veteran biographer and critic John Lahr, author of Notes on a Cowardly Lion, Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton and Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, amongst others. Kazan enjoyed a dazzling career in both theatre and film, directing the original stage productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman, before making a series of cinematic masterpieces: On the Waterfront, East of Eden, A Face in the Crowd, Wild River. He discovered both Marlon Brando and James Dean. But his decision to testify in front of the House Unamerican Activities Committee compromised and complicated his artistic legacy. In A Life, Kazan comes out swinging; his personality is stamped on every page of this fascinating, pugnacious and still-controversial book, echoing the defiant words of Terry Molloy at the climax of On The Waterfront: "I'm glad what I done".
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Biography and Memoir
A Backlisted Special dedicated to biographies and memoirs, with books by Nancy Mitford, Roger Lewis, Elizabeth Jane Howard, P.D. James and Jean Rhys.
John Mitchinson talks to the writer and friend of the show Laura Thompson about five of her favourite books – two of them biographies (Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford and The Real Life of Laurence Olivier by Roger Lewis) and three memoirs (Slipstream by Elizabeth Jane Howard; Time to Be in Earnest by P.D. James and Smile Please by Jean Rhys).
The discussion explores the difference between writing about someone else’s life and writing about your own; the various motivations that lead writers to produce memoirs, and the relationship between both forms and fiction. Laura Thompson is herself the writer of both biography and memoir. She has written a life of Agatha Christie, and books about the Mitford sisters and the Lord Lucan case, as well as a memoir of her grandmother, The Last Landlady. This is her fifth appearance on Backlisted, after joining us for episodes on Nancy Mitford, Antonia White, P.D. James and Agatha Christie.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Riddley Waker by Russel Hoban - Rerun
Classic literary sci-fi novel set in a post-apocalyptic Kent – this is a rerun of 2019 episode recorded live at the Port Eliot Festival.
Riddley Walker is widely considered to be a post-war masterpiece. Anthony Burgess included it in his list of the 99 best novels published in the English language since 1939 saying ‘this is what literature is meant to be.’ Harold Bloom included it in his book The Western Canon, an examination of the work of 26 writers central to the development of Western literature. Hugh Kenner called it a book ‘where at first sight all the words are wrong, and at a second sight not a sentence is to be missed.’
To discuss it we were joined by the novelist Max Porter and the writer and critic Una McCormack.
Max is the author of four novels. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He has appeared on episodes of Backlisted dedicated to Joyce Cary and Tarjei Vesaas.
Una is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling science fiction writer who has written more than twenty novels based on TV shows such as Star Trek and Doctor Who. She has appeared on ten Backlisted episodes as well as this one, those dedicated to Georgette Heyer, Anita Brookner, William Golding, Tolkien, Terrance Dicks, Noel Streatfield, Winifred Holtby, Octavia Butler and our Sci-Fi special.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Notes from Under the Floorboards by Fyodor Dostoevsky - Rerun
The 1864 novella that invented dystopian fiction.
In an episode first published in November 2021, we are joined by authors Alex Christofi (Dostoevsky in Love) and Arifa Akbar (Consumed: A Sister's Story) for a discussion of one of Russia's greatest writers Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was born in Moscow on November 11 1821, 200 years ago this month. We concentrate on his pioneering novella Notes From Under the Floorboards AKA Notes From Underground (1864) and consider its impact and continuing relevance to modern life. Also in this episode John enjoys Dark Neighbourhood, the debut collection of stories by Vanessa Onwuemezi; and, having let it settled for a few months, Andy unveils his favourite novel of the 2021, Gwendoline Riley's My Phantoms.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Winter Reading 2025
Happy new year! We kick off 2025 - and Backlisted's tenth anniversary year - with our traditional Winter Reading episode, in which Andy, John and Nicky recommend a selection of favourite books to see you through the next few months: fiction and non-fiction, old, new and not yet published. "May you go farther sooner."
Discussed in this episode and available to purchase from bookshop.org/backlisted, if in print.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Moby-Dick; or the Whale by Herman Melville
Join the Backlisted crew as we navigate the swells and surges of Moby-Dick; or the Whale by Herman Melville. That's right, Moby Dick is a Christmas book! Andy, John and Nicky welcome aboard novelist Jarred McGinnis and writer and editor Erica Wagner to discuss and celebrate this legendary literary leviathan, one that has sunk many a podcast before us. We enjoy a challenge on Backlisted, however; and there are few novels as challenging or rewarding as Moby Dick. So set sail with us in pursuit of Melville's white whale, with readings, songs and truly dreadful puns, on the Backlisted Christmas Special 2024: the Pequodcast that gives new life to an old - and magical - book.
Bonus audio! We Wish You a Moby-Dickmas and Ahabby New Year! Andy compiled this playlist to tie in with the Backlisted Christmas Special 2024. It is sequenced to follow (loosely) the plot of Moby-Dick. WARNING! The final track is definitely NSFW i.e. Naughtily Subverting Free Willy. Do not play if there are small children around.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Voices of the Old Sea by Norman Lewis
We are joined by the poet Katrina Porteous and the writer and editor Patrick Galbraith to discuss Norman Lewis’s account of the of the three summers he spent working in Farol, a remote fishing village on the Costa Brava in the late 1940s. His book records the intricacies of life in a small community whose rhythms are based on the shoals of sardines and tuna, and whose beliefs and rituals have remained unchanged for a thousand years. But change does arrive in the shape of a black marketeer who buys up two-thirds of the village and opens a garish tourist hotel. Within a year, the ancient Spain that Lewis loves begins to sink beneath the tidal wave of greed, commercialism and liberal attitudes that package holidays and unfettered tourism unleash.
Lewis wrote his book thirty-five years after he’d lived in Farol. We are now 40 years on from its publication in 1984. Do his stories still resonate? We discuss why his sharply observed and artfully written books aren’t better known today, and put his writing in the context of the travel writing boom of the 1980s. Katrina also brings a fresh perspective to Lewis’ experience– she has lived in the fishing village of Beadnell on the Northumbrian cost for the past thirty years, where similar erosion of culture., language and tradition has taken place.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Moon's a Balloon by David Niven
Rupert Everett joins us to discuss David Niven's memoir The Moon’s a Balloon. This show represents the fulfilment of a long cherished ambition: to dedicate a whole Backlisted to a book that Andy and John consider to be the most entertaining ever written. And who better to join them as a guest than an actor, writer and director who has had his own tussles with Hollywood and who has published a series of bestselling volumes of memoir and short stories? First published by Hamish Hamilton in 1971, The Moon’s a Balloon has sold over five million copies and set the standard for actorly reminiscences for generations to come. But few have equalled Niven’s knack for combining hilarious anecdotes about the Golden Age of Hollywood with unsentimental and sometimes deeply moving incidents drawn from his own life. Has the book's charm endured? Does it still seem, as the Guardian recently voted it, the number one Hollywood memoir of all time? We hope you have as much fun making up your mind up as we did during the recording - the episode is worth listening to for Rupert's readings alone. We also discuss our guest's latest collection of short stories, The American No, which comes highly recommended from us both. Think of this episode as Christmas come early, or better still, ‘the English Yes’.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Grinny & You Remember Me! by Nicholas Fisk
Sam Leith, author of The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading, returns to Backlisted to discuss two novels by Nicholas Fisk, Grinny (1973) and its sequel, You Remember Me! (1984). Fisk's SF thrillers were tremendously popular with young readers during the 1970s and 1980s but his work is now rather forgotten, an error we wish to correct as a matter of urgency. The plot of You Remember Me! may be summarised as follows: a TV celebrity becomes the head of a mass populist movement in the UK, leading their country into fascism at the behest of an alien power. As such, Fisk's novel has something to tell us (and our children) right now, which is why we have released this episode early. Our conversation was recorded on Friday 8th November 2024, in the immediate aftermath of the US election results; in addition to Grinny and You Remember Me!, Sam, John and Andy offer suggestions of other books written for young people that warn of the reality of life under fascist regimes, including The Once and Future King, Watership Down and V for Vendetta. Just don't call it an emergency podcast. In the words of Timothy Snyder in his book On Tyranny: 'When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading. So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books.'
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Round the Fire Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle
Happy Hallowe'en 2024! Join John, Andy and Nicky, plus guests Andrew Male and Dr Laura Varnam - AKA the Backlisted Irregulars - for this year's Hallowe'en special, celebrating Arthur Conan Doyle's "grotesque and terrible" Round the Fire Stories, first published in 1908. As he was the first to point out, there was much more to Conan Doyle than merely being the creator of Sherlock Holmes; he was a multifaceted and energetic man, a true force of human nature. In addition to being the quintessential 'ripping yarns', these tales of mystery and suspense reveal their author to us in ways he did not intend, from his anxiety about the colonial expansion of the British Empire to his obsessive determination to prove the existence of an afterlife. Please note: in this episode, there is an impromptu séance, much discussion of the immortal soul of 221B Baker Street, plus Andy's most terrifying quiz yet. Scared yet? You will be. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at Foyles Charing Cross Road on 23rd October 2024.
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday Sep 25th where we will be discussing The Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler, with guests Salena Golden and Una McCormack
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Nico: Songs They Never Play On the Radio by James Young
Author Will Hodgkinson and actress and director Caroline Catz join Andy and John to discuss James Young's Nico: Songs They Never Play On the Radio, first published in 1992. This is the story of Nico, former model, film actress, erstwhile singer with the Velvet Underground and darling of Andy Warhol's Factory. After a decade of heroin addiction, by the early 1980s she was living in Manchester, concerned mainly with feeding her habit. A local promoter persuaded her to play a few shows in Italy. Hired straight from university as her keyboard player, James Young was both witness to, and participant in, this tour and those that followed. Fellow spirits including John Cale, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and John Cooper Clarke are among those who appear in his classic memoir of this period, a comedy of tragic proportions and vice versa. As the author of a recent highly acclaimed memoir of an errant would-be rock star, Street-Wise Superstar: A Year With Lawrence, Will offers his insights into the challenges presented to the writer by such a mercurial subject; while Caroline, who directed and starred in a film about neglected composer Delia Derbyshire, discusses the obstacles faced by female artists then and now. Please be aware that this episode, just like the book it describes, contains both strong language and scenes of a sordid nature; fortunately, it is also very funny.
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday Sep 25th where we will be discussing The Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler, with guests Salena Golden and Una McCormack
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here
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Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
This episode features a live recording made at Foyles in London, where John was joined on stage by Una McCormack, making her record breaking tenth appearance on Backlsited, and Salena Godden, who returns eight years after blowing us away in the episode on Hubert Selby Jr. The book under discussion is The Parable of the Sower a 1993 novel by the American science fiction writer, Octavia Butler. For those of you don’t know her work, you are in for a roller coaster ride. As fellow American novelist Junot Diaz has written, Butler is ‘one of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century.’ This episode examines what makes her so important and why her reputation has taken time to establish itself, particularly in the UK. The novel is set in a superficially familiar California, a place that is rapidly descending into violence and mob rule, and is told through the eyes of Lauren Olamina, a teenage girl who has the ability to feel the pain of others as her own. The discussion covers the themes of religion and its uses in the novel, and the disfiguring legacy of slavery that Butler’s work constantly returns to. It provides an excellent introduction to the work of a writer whose books become more relevant with each passing year.
An extended bonus episode on Parable of the Sower will be available on 12/10/25 for our Patrons on the Locklisted level - www.patreon.com/backlisted
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted
*Tickets are now on sale for our next live show in London where we will be discussing Round The Fire Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle on 23/10/2025
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Her First American by Lore Segal
This episode explores the third novel by the nonagenarian American writer Lore Segal which was originally published in 1985 by Knopf and is due to be released in the UK for the first time by Sort Of Books in 2025. We are joined by Sort Of Book’s publisher and co-founder Nat Janscz, who made her Backlisted debut back in 2018 on the Tove Jansson episode. She is joined by the distinguished American novelist and short story writer Jeffery Renard Allen, who was a student of Lore Segal’s.
The story of Her First American follows the Jewish refugee Ilka Weissnix, who arrives in America having just turned twenty-one, after spending a decade escaping from Hitler’s Europe and becoming separated from her family in the process. Speaking barely any English she rooms with her cousin in New York’s Upper West Side and soon embarks on a relationship with Carter Bayoux, a Black middle-aged alcoholic poet and intellectual – who she first encounters randomly in a bar in Cowtown, Nevada – and who becomes ‘her first American’.
The novel is the record of their always touching, often funny and inescapably sad relationship. Segal, whose own life story resemble Ilka’s in many ways calls the book ‘her favourite child’. The New York Times review went further declaring that: ‘Lore Segal may have come closer than anyone to writing the Great American Novel’ Intrigued? You’ll have to listen to the end to find out whether we reach the same conclusion…
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday Sep 25th where we will be discussing The Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler, with guests Salena Golden and Una McCormack
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Season 3 Prequel
The waiting is nearly over! Ahead of Backlisted Season 3 - and our tenth anniversary year - John, Andy and Nicky get together to chat about books, vintage vinyl, what they did on their holidays, but mostly books: Sarah Perry's novel Enlightenment, recently longlisted for the Booker Prize; The Haunted Wood, Sam Leith's fascinating new history of childhood reading; I Will Die in a Foreign Land, Kalani Pickhart's timely exploration of the roots of the war in Ukraine; and The Cooler (1974), a newly-republished thriller by George Markstein, co-creator of the classic 1960s television series The Prisoner (and available direct from plumeriapics.co.uk). Plus this episode contains details of the subjects of our next half dozen shows, so get in there quick before the library reservation queue snakes round the block and prices on the secondhand market go through the ceiling. As Nicky says, this Locklisted-like episode of Backlisted is the recap before the new season begins in earnest next week. Be seeing you.
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday Sep 25th where we will be discussing The Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler, with guests Salena Golden and Una McCormack
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice - Rerun
A classic episode from 2018 with a new introduction.
This week John and Andy are joined by actor and director Sam West and writer and academic Sophie Ratcliffe to talk about Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal. The poem was composed in the autumn of 1938 while Britain awaited the declaration of the Second World War. Other books under discussion are Katharine Kilalea's OK, Mr Field and Francis Plug: Writer in Residence by Paul Ewen.
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London at Foyles Bookshop on Wednesday Sep 25th where we will be discussing The Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler, with guests Salena Golden and Una McCormack
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can also sign up to our free monthly newsletter here
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Absolute Beginners - Rerun
Slang lexicographer extraordinaire Jonathon Green joins John and Andy in this episode originally recorded in 2016 to discuss Absolute Beginners, the classic novel of London teenage life set around Soho and Notting Hill.
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday Sep 25th where we will be discussing The Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler, with guests Salena Golden and Una McCormack
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here
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Summer Reading 2024
Despite the team's somewhat complex relationship with the idea of ‘summer’, this episode is full of seasonal recommendations. Andy previews Intermezzo, the new Sally Rooney (out in September) and enjoys A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria by the guest on our Agatha Christie show, Caroline Crampton. John chooses Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott, a re-issue of a controversial 1929 bestseller from Faber Editions and A Spell of Good Things, the latest chronicle of modern Nigerian life by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ while Nicky enjoys Daunt Books reissue of Ann Schlee’s 1981 Booker shortlisted novel, Rhine Journey and ends with a general appreciation of David Nicholls, and his latest bestseller, You Are Here, in particular.
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at seriousreaders.com/backlisted
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday Sep 25th where we will be discussing The Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler, with guests Salena Golden and Una McCormack
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here
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Endless Night by Agatha Christie
At long last, it's our Agatha Christie show! We are joined by Caroline Crampton, writer and host of the Shedunnit podcast, and Laura Thompson, author and Christie biographer, for an investigation of Endless Night (1967), a late entry in the Queen of Crime's extensive catalogue and perhaps her last truly great novel of suspense and surprise. NB. Whilst we refrain from revealing the killer's identity (just about), there are enough clues sprinkled throughout the podcast that listeners may be advised to read the book first; you don't need to be Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple to work out whodunnit. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at Foyles in Charing Cross Road, London, on 17th July 2024. If you would like to hear more, including some excellent contributions from members of the audience, subscribe to our Patreon at the Locklistener level or above; we will be making this part of our conversation available next weekend as a bonus podcast.
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at http://seriousreaders.com/backlisted
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here
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Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr
Children's writer Rachael King and novelist Richard Blandford join John and Andy for a discussion of Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr, the eerie, disturbing tale of two sick children who meet in a realm of nightmares. First published in 1958, the book is now considered by critics to be a sui genesis classic. Storr was a prolific author, with dozens of titles to her name; her work for children often mixes fantasy and horror with her extensive professional knowledge of child psychology. In 1972, Marianne Dreams was adapted for television as Escape Into Night; in 1988, a film version entitled Paperhouse was released; and in 1999 the author herself turned the novel into an opera libretto. What is it about this story that speaks to successive generations of readers, viewers and listeners? Only the stones - and our guests - know for sure...
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at http://seriousreaders.com/backlisted
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot
Author Rose Ruane (This Is Yesterday, Birding) picks Gaining Ground AKA Abra (1978) by Canadian feminist writer Joan Barfoot. One day, seemingly on a whim, a woman walks out of her home and her marriage, forsaking her family for a life of near-solitude and self-sufficiency. Many years later, her daughter, now grown-up, comes to find her and to ask a simple question: why? But there are no easy answers... In a long and distinguished literary career, Barfoot has won the Marian Engel Award and been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, for Critical Injuries (2002). Her debut novel, however, seems to have vanished almost as thoroughly as its female protagonist; as you will hear from our discussion, we think the book richly deserves to be rediscovered.
*For £100 off any Serious Readers HD Light and free UK delivery use the discount code: BACK at http://seriousreaders.com/backlisted
*Backlisted will be live at Foyles in London on 17th July with guests Caroline Crampton and Andrew Male - on Agatha Christie's Endless Night - tickets are available now via the Foyles website
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the subject of this episode of Backlisted. Dr Martin Shaw and Dr Laura Varnam (hwaet Laura!) join Andy and John to discuss this late 14th-century chivalric romance - or subversion thereof - written in Middle English alliterative verse, author unknown. We discuss the poem's chequered history and a variety of translations by Simon Armitage, J.R.R. Tolkien, Marie Borroff and Dr Shaw himself. We also take a look at some of the film, TV and radio adaptations of the poem, the most recent of which is The Green Knight (2021), starring Dev Patel. This show was recorded in front of a live audience at Foyles in Charing Cross Road, London, on 12th June 2024. Locklisted subscribers will be able to hear more Gawain chat next weekend, including some terrific contributions and questions from members of the audience. In other words, it's a bumper bonus Backlisted bonanza from the blokes and broads who brought you Beowulf. Bye!
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday July 17th where we will be discussing Endless Night by Agatha Christie, with guests Caroline Crampton and Andrew Male
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts by Douglas Adams
The work of Douglas Adams - comic genius, futurologist and erstwhile hitchhiker - is the subject of this episode of Backlisted, in particular The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts, first published by Pan Books in 1985. H2G2, as it is known to fans, was a cultural phenomenon in the true sense of that degraded term: first a hit radio show, then a bestselling novel, then a double LP, then a stage adaptation, then a second radio series, then another novel, then a video game, then a TV series, then another LP, then a third novel… you get the idea. We have chosen the scripts of the original radio series as our entry point into the Hitchhiker multiverse because each of us brings our own unique, informed perspective to the saga: longtime Adams fan Joel Morris has written a new book entitled Be Funny or Die: How Comedy Works and Why It Matters; author Gail Renard was a friend and colleague of Douglas’s and an eyewitness to the irresistible and highly improbable success of Hitchhiker; as a publisher, John has worked on several books by or about the great man; and Andy cheerfully admits to having borrowed many of his best ideas from The Guide. Please consider this, then, our loving tribute to a true giant of literature, comedy, technology and being an actual giant, Douglas having been one of the only people in history tall enough to break his nose with his own knee.
*Tickets are now on sale for our next two LIVE shows in London on Wednesday the 12th June, on the subject of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with guests Dr Laura Varnam and Dr Martin Shaw.
And Endless Night by Agatha Christie with Caroline Crampton and Andrew Male on Weds 17th July.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
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The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
Novelist Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient, The Fury) joins Andy and John to discuss Ford Madox Ford's classic novel The Good Soldier (1915), a tale of passion in which, owing to a narrator of almost comic unreliability, nothing can be taken for granted. It is a book that seems to change on every reading, both a kaleidoscopic psychological drama and 'the saddest story I have ever heard'. During his lifetime 'Fordie' was, variously, a prolific author, a publisher of historical note, a notable polyamorist and a serial liar; we consider the extent to which the character of John Dowell inThe Good Soldier may be considered a self-portrait. This episode was recorded live on stage at Foyles, Charing Cross Road in London on the evening of 15th May 2024 and is the first date of a monthly residency.
*Tickets are now on sale for our next LIVE show in London on Wednesday the 12th June, on the subject of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with guests Dr Laura Varnam and Dr Martin Shaw.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
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Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
John Grindrod, author of Concretopia, joins John Mitchinson and Andy Miller to discuss Memento Mori, the third novel by Muriel Spark. They also pay tribute to the author and agent David Miller, who passed away recently, and read a short story in his memory.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
3'00 - Food For All Seasons by Oliver Rowe
9'30 - Good Evening, Mrs.Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes
18'44 - A State of Denmark by Derek Raymond*
To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
This is an old episode of Backlisted from 2019 which we have re-published to fix an edit.
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Locklisted - Book Recommendation Special
This episode is a free sample of our subscriber only show, Locklisted, because the next episode of Backlisted has been delayed through illness (though given that its subject is the radio scripts of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, this tardiness may not come as a complete surprise). A conversation about shelftalkers in bookshops leads to a broader discussion about where we get our book recommendations and Andy runs a quiz based on the principle of algorithmic recommendation. There is also a discussion inspired by Thomas Bernhard’s pitch black 1980’s novel The Cheap Eaters (translated by Douglas Robertson) and John Boorman and Bill Stairs’ 1974 novelisation of the cult film, Zardoz.
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday May 14th where we will be discussing The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, with guest Alex Michaelides.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly Locklisted episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A Marsh Island by Sarah Orne Jewett
For this episode we are joined by the writer, Noreen Masud, author of the acclaimed memoir, A Flat Place (currently shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction). The book she has chosen to discuss is A Marsh Island, a 19th century American novel by Sarah Orne Jowett, who is usually considered one of the foremost proponents of American regionalism – an assumption this episode investigates. The book was first serialised in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1885 and published by Houghton Mifflin later that year. The story centres on Dick Dale, a wealthy young urban bohemian artist who finds himself billeted with a traditional farming family in the middle of New England’s Great Salt Marsh. His impact on the small community over the course of a harvest provides what plot there is – but the novel is rich in atmosphere and interior reflection, exploring the complex tensions between rural and urban ways of life in late 19th century East Coast America. It was written at a moment in Jewett’s own life when she had just begun an unconventional relationship with another woman and the episode also explores how that plays out in the subversive presentation of the relationships in the novel.
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday May 14th where we will be discussing The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, with guest Alex Michaelides.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Children of Men by P.D. James
Novelist Andrew Hunter Murray and biographer Laura Thompson join us to discuss The Children of Men (1992), a dystopian thriller by the late P.D. James. The author is probably best remembered as one of Britain's greatest exponents of detective fiction, an heir to the Golden Age of female novelists such as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers et al. In The Children of Men, however, James depicts a nightmare near-future in which the world is literally coming to an end. The book became a bestseller; in 2006, it was adapted for the big screen by the Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón. We look at the ways in which James explored issues that seem eerily contemporary: the societal impact of an uncontrolled virus, falling fertility rates, an ageing population, the rise of populism and accompanying exploitation of migrant labour. She also knew how to grip her readers to the very last page. Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, lived a long and remarkable life and it was a pleasure for all of us to revisit her work and biography in this episode.
*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday May 14th where we will be discussing The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, with guest Alex Michaelides.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton
Award-winning poet Emily Berry joins us to consider the work and troubled life of Anne Sexton. We focus on her brilliant second collection All My Pretty Ones (1962). Sexton was a trailblazing American poet of the so-called 'confessional' school of the 1960s, one whose writing continues to provoke controversy and debate; her friends and contemporaries included Sylvia Plath and John Berryman. We hear from Sexton herself, in recordings of readings and interviews, and fronting own experimental jazz-rock ensemble, Anne Sexton and Her Kind, and also from her daughter Linda. Please note: Anne Sexton was an unflinching chronicler of her own struggle with mental illness, and this episode contains extensive discussion of suicide and sexual abuse.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here which has book recommendations from our hosts and guests.
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Coffee Table Books
This fully illustrated, lavishly produced episode of Backlisted represents the last word in coffee table books. Join John, Andy and Nicky as we dip into the origin, design and continuing appeal of specialist hardcover publishing, via some of our favourite cookery books, exhibition catalogues and sumptuous volumes simply too beautiful to leave on the shelf. As you will hear, we loved making this show, which is as deep as it is long. And remember: a coffee table book is for life, not just for Christmas.
To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get two extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A Life in Movies by Michael Powell
This episode of Backlisted is devoted to A Life in Movies (1986), the first volume of memoirs of the filmmaker Michael Powell who, with his partner Emeric Pressburger, is responsible for some of the finest, most magical and soulful films ever to come out of the UK: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and many more. Joining us for a discussion of Powell's life and work - and his vision of cinema as a space in which all the other arts may find expression - are memoirist and critic James Cook and film writer and academic Melanie Williams. We focus on four productions of the Archers that between them tell the story of Powell and Pressburger's achievement: The Spy in Black, A Matter of Life and Death, "I Know Where I'm Going!" and Gone to Earth. If for some reason you have yet to see these films, or any of Michael Powell's work, set aside some time for your next personal obsession. You'll be glad you did.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter
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Scouse Mouse by George Melly
This episode was recorded in the great city of Liverpool and celebrates the life and work of a great Liverpudlian: George Melly, sometime writer, jazz and blues singer, artist, critic, lecturer and aficionado of surrealism. We are joined by two resident experts: the writer Jeff Young and the playwright and screenwriter, Lizzie Nunnery. The book under discussion is Melly’s Scouse Mouse, which is chronologically the first part of Melly’s memoirs. It was first published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1984 and was the third to be released despite covering the first fourteen years of Melly’s life, painting a vivid portrait of growing up in a middle-class Liverpool family, tinged with eccentricity and theatricality, and his painful experiences at boarding school. Subtitled ‘I Never Got Over It’, it was preceded by Rum, Bum & Concertina, an account of his time in the navy, published in 1977, and Owning It, which covers his years as an aspiring musician in the jazz world of the 1950s, first published in 1965. The final volume, Slowing Down was published in 2005, two years before Melly died.
Scouse Mouse was his Melly’s personal favourite of the four: ‘I don’t know why the events of over sixty years ago should be so much clearer than those of yesterday afternoon, but they are.’ He also adopted that ever-useful motto for the memoirist: ‘Life is lived forwards but understood backwards.’ How much this classic childhood memoir helps us understand the outrageous, complex and multi-faceted life of the grown-up George Melly is just one of the things the panel explore. They also revisit his brilliant book on the pop culture of the1960s, Revolt into Style, a book Andy first discussed back on episode 22 on Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family.
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Love On The Dole by Walter Greenwood
We are joined by the writer Andrew Hankinson to discuss Walter Greenwood’s classic novel of Northern working-class life. First published in 1933, Love on the Dole, revolves explores the fortunes of the Hardcastle family, who live in industrial Salford in the 1930s, just as the Depression is beginning to bite. Greenwood’s authentic portrayal of the corrosive effects of mass unemployment and poverty was well received by critics, but it wasn’t until the 1934 stage version had become a hit, that the book became a bestseller. It is estimated that a million people has seen the play by the end of 1935 and the book has remained in print ever since. However, it had to wait until 1941 before being made into a classic film which featured Deborah Kerr in her first starring role. We discuss the books connections to other working-class novels, its wider cultural impact and its influence on the gritty social dramas of the 1960s, the interesting differences between the book and the film adaptation, and we ask why, despite the classic status accorded to Love on the Dole, Greenwood himself and his nine other novels have faded into obscurity.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence
For this first episode of 2024 we are joined by the chair of Virago Press, Lennie Goodings to discuss a novel by her fellow Canadian, Margaret Laurence. First published in 1964, The Stone Angel is a landmark in modern Canadian fiction. The narrator is the unforgettable Hagar Shipley, a spiky, sharp-tongued, proud and profane ninety-year-old who is trying to resist her family’s attempts to transfer her into a nursing home. This battle is interwoven with memories of her long and difficult life, much of it spent in the Manitoban prairie town of Manawaka, a place closely based on Laurence’s own home town of Neepawa and which would provide the setting for three more novels and a collection of stories. We discuss the book’s place in the Canadian pantheon and speculate on why it hasn’t become and established classic outside Canada (it is no longer in print with Virago). We also discover some unexpected coincidences among Margaret Laurence’s neighbours during the years she lived in England in the late sixties and early seventies. This is a book that deserves to find many more new readers.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter
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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
For this year’s Backlisted Christmas Special we are joined by the poet and novelist Clare Pollard and our producer Nicky Birch to discuss not just a book, but adaptations of a book – and there are hundreds to choose from – and all have contributed to making it perhaps the most famous Christmas story of them all: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Written in six weeks in 1843, it was a massive and immediate success, selling out its first run of 6,000 copies by Christmas Eve. It has been in print ever since and has come to define the festive period for millions of readers, listeners and viewers. We explore why and how this fable – terrifying in parts, warm and reassuring in others – has exerted such a hold on our collective imagination. We each pick a favourite version (you’ll have to listen to find out which) but also range over others from Richard Williams’ celebrated 1971 animation to those featuring Mister Magoo and Ebeneezer Blackadder. Plus Andy has compiled a special festive playlist for you to listen to over the mulled wine and marzipan fruits. There never was such an episode!
And finally, on this most special of days, we’d like thank you all for your support during the year and to wish you: A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter
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Briggflatts by Basil Bunting
Today’s episode focusses on a single long poem – Briggflatts by the Northumbrian poet Basil Bunting. It was recorded live in St Mary’s Church, Woodstock in Oxfordshire, as part of the Woodstock Poetry Festival. Andy and John are joined by Neil Astley, the founder of Bloodaxe Books, who knew and published Bunting, and Kirsten Norrie, a poet and composer who writes and performs under her Highland name, MacGillivray. The episode begins and ends with recordings made in 1977 of Bunting reading from the poem, which was first published in 1966. Until that time, Bunting, who in the 1930s had been a friend to W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound, was living in semi-obscurity in rural Northumbria. It was his live readings of the poem, subtitled ‘An Autobiography’ at the medieval Mordern Tower in Newcastle that transformed his reputation. We discuss his remarkable and sometimes controversial life – before his exile he was at various times a music critic, a sailor, a balloon operator, a wing commander, a military interpreter, a foreign correspondent, and a spy – and its relationship to his work, and particularly Briggflatts, now regarded as one of the greatest English poems of the 20th century.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, join in the books conversation, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter
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Trustee From The Toolroom by Nevil Shute
For our 200th episode, we are joined by Richard Osman: television presenter, longtime Backlisted listener, and one of the bestselling authors in the world today. We discuss Trustee from the Toolroom (1960), the final novel by Nevil Shute Norway, whose other books include A Town Like Alice (1950) and On the Beach (1957), widely read in his lifetime but now somewhat forgotten or ignored. How did Shute's long and distinguished stint as an aeronautical engineer fit with his parallel career as a prominent and much-loved author? And what do his tales of ordinary people doing extraordinary things have to offer us in the 21st century? Richard also shares with John and Andy what he's been reading this week; and if you've been with us from the start, you will appreciate his choices all the more.
Thank you all so much for your continued support over the last 200 episodes.
Andy, John and producer Nicky
*If you'd like to sign up to our forthcoming monthly newsletter which will feature book recommendations from our guests and hosts, please click this link here.
*For those in the South / West of the UK, Backlisted will be appearing live at the Woodstock Poetry festival near Oxford on Sat Dec 2nd with an episode on Briggflatts by Basil Bunting. Tickets are available to buy here.
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Plays, Books and Stories: Samuel Beckett
In this episode, we feature the life and work of Samuel Beckett, one of the most important and influential voices of 20th century literature. We discuss Beckett’s writing across five decades, including his essays, short stories, novels and plays: ‘Dante… Bruno. Vico… Joyce’; ‘More Pricks Than Kicks’; ‘The Unnamable’; Krapp’s Last Tape’; and the late masterpiece ‘Company’. And we also ruminate on the fact that Backlisted has now been going on (it must go on, it can’t go on, it’ll go on) for eight years, notching up nearly 200 episodes. We hope you enjoy this memorable and moving recording AKA Spool #199. John, Andy and Nicky
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary by M.R. James
Pour yourself a glass of sherry and light a candle, as we dedicate this year's Halloween special to Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), the first collection by M.R. James, probably the most celebrated and influential exponent of the weird tale. With the help of undead guests Andrew Male and Laura Varnam we illuminate the life and work of a strange and singular author, one whose writings, like the engraving in 'The Mezzotint', have truly taken on a life of their own.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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What Have We Been Reading? - October 2023
This is a new books special episode to fill the gap before we release the Hallowe’en episode next weekend and as part of our episode 200 celebrations. In it, we each select a book we’ve particularly enjoyed over the past year. Andy says The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan (Tyrant Books) is the best novel he's read since Gwendoline Riley's My Phantoms and also his favourite; Backlisted Editor, Nicky talks about Wifedom by Anna Funder (Granta), an genre-busting account of the life Eileen Maud Blair, the first wife of George Orwell, linking it back to the themes of The True History of the First Mrs Meredith episode; and John praises Cuddy by Benjamin Myers (Bloomsbury), a rich and formally audacious novel based on the life and legends of St Cuthbert, the patron saint of North East England. The discussion leads us in all kinds of unexpected directions in classic Backlisted fashion.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
00:00 Intro
04:22 The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan
19:32 Wifedom by Anna Funder
38:26 Cuddy by Benjamin Myers
The traditional Backlisted 'what have you been reading this week?' slot which used to appear at the start of each episode, has now been moved to our Patreon only show (for those subscribers on the Locklisted level). Subscribers can hear fortnightly programmes with John, Andy and Nicky talking about books they have been reading as well as films, music and TV they've enjoyed.
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
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The True History of the First Mrs Meredith by Diane Johnson
Episode #197 is dedicated to our late friend Carmen Callil, the founder of Virago, an author in her own right and, on a couple of memorable occasions, a former guest on Backlisted. Joining us are the writer Rachel Cooke and critic and editor Lucy Scholes. Under discussion: The True History of the First Mrs Meredith and Other Lesser Lives by Diane Johnson, first published in 1972 and reissued in 2020 by New York Review Books. Is this imaginative, funny, heartfelt, headstrong book a novel, a biography, an alternative history, a feminist polemic, a work of literary criticism or something else entirely? To which the answer is a far-from-straightforward: Yes. We hope you enjoy this conversation - and a unique book - as much as we did.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at patreon.com/backlisted
Here is a synopsis by the publisher of The True History of the First Mrs Meredith and Other Lesser Lives by Diane Johnson
"Many people have described the Famous Writer presiding at his dinner table, in a clean neckcloth. He is famous; everybody remembers his remarks. He remembers his own remarks, being a writer, and notes them in his diary. We forget that there were other family members at the table -- a quiet person, now muffled by time, shadowy, whose heart pounded with love, perhaps, or rage." So begins The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives, an uncommon biography devoted to the other people at the table, the lesser lives of the Famous Writer's dependents, lives that are treated as episodes, if treated at all, in the life of the Famous Writer. But as Diane Johnson points out, "A lesser life does not seem lesser to the person who leads one." Such sympathy, and curiosity, compelled Johnson to research Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith (1821-1861), the daughter of the artist Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) and first wife of the poet George Meredith (1828-1909). The life of the first Mrs. Meredith, treated perfunctorily and prudishly in biographies of Peacock or Meredith because it involved adultery and recrimination, is here exquisitely and unhurriedly given its due. What emerges is the portrait of a brilliant, well-educated woman, raised unconventionally by her father only to feel more forcefully the constraints of the Victorian era, and the contradiction between her capabilities and her circumstances. First published in 1972, Lesser Lives has been a key text for feminists and biographers alike, a book that reimagined what biography might be, both in terms of subject and style. Biographies of other "lesser" lives have since followed in its footsteps, but few have the wit, elegance, and empathy of Diane Johnson's seminal work.
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Esther Waters by George Moore
In this episode we discuss the controversial and ground-breaking novel, Esther Waters by the Irish novelist George Moore. We are joined by Tom Crewe, author of the prize-winning New Life (Chatto & Windus) and one of this year’s crop of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Esther Waters was first published in 1894 and is told almost entirely from the point of view of an illiterate working-class woman, who falls pregnant by a fellow servant, is abandoned by him, and decides to raise their child on her own. Telling her story allows Moore to catalogue the glamour and sordidness of 1890s London society in astonishing detail and his refusal to judge his heroine led to it being banned from W.H. Smith’s railway bookstores. Despite (or because of) this, it sold over 24,000 copies in its first year and has been in print ever since. We examine what sets Moore apart from other writers of the time, including Émile Zola, Thomas Hardy and George Gissing, why it has had such a positive influence on later admirers like James Joyce, Jean Rhys and Colm Tóibín, and how its simplicity of style and detailed presentation of Esther’s inner life feel so surprisingly contemporary.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Esther Waters plot summary (from Swift Editions)
The story of the life of a “fallen woman”, Esther Waters caused a sensation when it was first published in the late nineteenth century. Calls for it to be banned on account of its sexual frankness were rejected by Gladstone himself.
The plot follows the misfortunes of Esther, driven from home by a drunken stepfather and forced into domestic service at the age of seventeen. Esther is seduced by a fellow servant who deserts her, causing her to lose her position and descend into a life of poverty, hardship and humiliation in London, where she is forced to fend for herself and her baby boy. Her fortunes change for the better when she marries, but her husband is a bookmaker and publican operating outside the law and their luck is destined not to last . Set against a backdrop of horseracing, and the gambling and drinking that goes with it.
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Galapágos by Kurt Vonnegut
In this episode we are delighted to welcome 2023 Booker Prize Winner Shehan Karunatilaka to discuss Kurt Vonnegut’s eleventh novel, Galapágos. First published in 1985, it is one of his most radical, intricate and humorous works, a Darwinian satire narrated by a ghost from a million years in the future. As Lorrie Moore wrote about it at the time, Vonnegut’s ‘grumbly and idiomatic voice has always been his own, unfakeable and childlike, and his humanity, persisting as it does through his pessimism.’ We talk about where Galapágos book stands in Vonnegut’s long career, its continuing relevance to a world even more dominated by technology and the climate emergency, and whether with the two novels the followed (Bluebeard and Hocus Pocus) it represented a return to form. We discuss Vonnegut's second career as a quotable talk show guest and ponder the seeming mismatch between his enduring popularity with readers and his less stable critical reputation. Shehan also offers us frank and fascinating insights into the influence that this book and ‘Uncle Kurt’s work in general has had on his own work, particularly the Booker winner The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, also narrated by a ghost.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A Kestrel For a Knave by Barry Hines (from Green Man Festival)
Author and illustrator Rose Blake and writer and musician Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne) joined Andy and John at the Greenman festival in Wales on August 18th 2023 to discuss Barry Hines's second novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968) and, inevitably, the film adaptation Kes (1969), directed by Ken Loach from a screenplay by Hines himself. This episode was recorded in front of a large crowd of festivalgoers, most of whom had either read the book or seen the film, or both. Why does this apparently simple story of a boy and a bird continue to speak to us nearly 60 years after it was written? And what does that say about the changes in British society in the same period - or lack of them?
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Summer Reading Special
This week, to mix things up a little, it’s our annual round-up of books, old and new, you might enjoy over the summer. John, Andy and Backlisted’s producer Nicky discuss: O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker (W&N Essentials); Sheep’s Clothing by Celia Dale (Daunt Books); The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time by Catherine Taylor (Weidenfeld & Nicolson); Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (Faber); A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo (Canongate); and The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds (Weidenfeld and Nicolson).
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A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
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The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
Novelist Linda Grant and critic and editor Lucy Scholes return to Backlisted for a discussion of Margaret Drabble's third novel The Millstone, a book which has remained in print ever since it was first published in 1965, when Drabble was 26 years old; it was adapted for the screen by the author herself in 1969 as A Touch of Love, starring Sandy Dennis, Eleanor Bron and, making his film debut, Sir Ian McKellen. This story of a shy but determined young woman's decision to keep her baby and raise the child alone remains as relevant as ever. But The Millstone also speaks volumes of the era in which it was written, during which Margaret Drabble was a rising star in the literary firmament; and Andy, John, Linda and Lucy were delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate both novel and author, who is now 84.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
We are joined on this episode by authors Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad) and Nell Stevens (Briefly, A Delicious Life), who last featured on Backlisted #170 discussing North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. This time the talk turns on The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope, the third instalment of the Palliser sequence. We explore the ways in which this novel and Trollope’s work in general confound expectation at every turn, a surprise perhaps when one considers the author’s reputation as a spokesman for the establishment.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
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The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet
We are joined by the crime novelist Mark Billingham to discuss his favourite book, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. First serialised in Black Mask magazine in 1929 and published the following year in book form by Alfred A. Knopf, it is widely considered to have inaugurated the hard-boiled genre of detective fiction. It introduces the tough, abrasive and morally ambiguous private detective, Sam Spade, who sent Dorothy Parker ‘mooning about in a daze of love such as I had not known for any character in literature since I encountered Sir Lancelot.’ The labyrinthine plot turns around the eponymous falcon of the title – a statuette so valuable that three people are killed in the search to retrieve it. But, as the discussion reveals, it is not the plot that has made the book a classic. Hammett’s San Francisco, filled with sharp-tongued dames, wise-cracking gumshoes, cops on the take and thugs on the lam, spawned a whole genre of noir novels and movies – including John Huston’s classic adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor in 1941. In 1995, the Mystery Writers of America voted The Maltese Falcon the third greatest crime novel of all time. In this episode, illuminated by Mark’s own long experience of writing in the genre, we try to find out why.
Timings (after any advert's):
08:43 - The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
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Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair by John Bossy
For this episode we are joined by the critic and former literary editor of the Independent on Sunday, Suzi Feay and the novelist and former Deputy Literary Editor of the Observer, Stephanie Merritt. Both are fans of the history-cum-detective story, Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair, by the late great historian of English Catholicism, John Bossy.
The book was a departure from Bossy’s weightier academic publications – in it he attempts to pin down the identity of the shadowy Elizabethan spy known only as ‘Henry Fagot’. As well as creating a vivid picture of the complex and treacherous world of London during the Elizabethan ‘cold war’ in the years leading up to the Armada, Professor Bossy makes a persuasive case for Henry Fagot being none other than the Italian philosopher, poet, cosmological theorist and dabbler in the hermetic arts, Giordano Bruno, who spent two years in London between 1583 and 1585, during which he wrote his most important books and became friends with Sir Philip Sidney and the magus, John Dee. First published in 1991 by Yale University Press, Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair went on to win both the 1991 Wolfson History Prize and the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction.
As well as discovering how Bossy’s Bruno inspired Steph Merritt to launch her career as a novelist, we also discuss how the role of a literary editor for a national newspaper has changed over the past three decades.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
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Graham Greene
The whole of the next hour and a bit is dedicated to the work of Graham Greene – a writer we have long wanted to tackle. We cover several representative pieces – not necessarily the most famous of Greene’s work – and try to apply a fresh perspective to his long and sometimes controversial career.
We start somewhere near the beginning with The Name of Action from 1930, a book Greene himself wanted suppressed…
The books featured (with rough timings where they appear in the show) are:
The Name of Action, 1930 (11'34)
The Ministry of Fear, 1943 (18'15)
The Quiet American, 1955 (30'32)
May We Borrow Your Husband? & Other Comedies of the Sexual Life, 1967 (45'46)
Lord Rochester’s Monkey, 1976 (58'01)
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
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Rerun: All The Devils Are Here by David Seabrook
Rachel Cooke, Observer writer, New Statesman TV critic and author joined John, Andy and former host Mathew way back in 2016 to discuss All The Devils Are Here, the astounding travelogue through Kent and the depths of human behaviour from David Seabrook. Plus, the drinking habits of Carry On stars, and what to read in Iceland.
Timings (may differ if adverts are included)
07'44 - Dalva by Jim Harrison
12'48 - Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair
22'10 - All the Devils Are Here by David Seabrook
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
This is our last rerun for a while as normal Backlisted service will resume in a fortnight. Thanks for you patience.
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American Books Special
Welcome to the fourth Backlisted Special. While Andy and Nicky are both ‘gathering’ for the new season which will resume at the end of the month, John and Tess are joined by the writers and critics Erica Wagner and Sarah Churchwell who boast a total of 12 previous appearances between them, covering books from Alan Garner and Nella Larsen to Thomas Pynchon and Anita Loos.
The format of these specials differs from the main show in that they feature guests choosing a number of books in an area they know and care about. For this hour-long special, Erica and Sarah have selected six pieces of modern American literature that they either love, or find interesting, or both. As you will discover, despite the eclectic nature of their choices, some surprising connections begin to emerge…
Rough Timings (may vary due to adverts):
06'32: Free to be You and Me – Marlo Thomas and Friends
15'30:‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ – F.Scott Fitzgerald
24'12: The Magician's Assistant – Ann Patchett
33'20: Charlotte Temple – Susanna Rowson
41'22: A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L'Engle
49'03: Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell - rerun
John introduces a rerun of an episode from November 2016, where Costa First Book nominee for My Name Is Leon, Kit de Waal joins John & Andy to discuss So Long, See You Tomorrow, the final novel by author and New Yorker literary editor William Maxwell.
Rough Timings:
11'27 - You Took the Last Bus Home: The Poems of Brian Bilston
17'43 - My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal
24'47 - So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Archive Books Special
Welcome to the third Backlisted Special. John and Nicky are joined by literary agents Becky Brown and Norah Perkins returning for their third appearance, having previously discussed the work of Barbara Pym and Dorothy B. Hughes. Becky and Norah are joint custodians of the Curtis Brown Heritage list of literary estates, so they have selected seven books from the archive – by women novelists, queer gardeners and anti-fascists - that they feel should be better known and more widely read and discussed. The timings may differ due to adverts:
10'50 One Fine Day - Mollie Panter-Downes
18'38 Mistletoe Malice - Kathleen Farrell
27'51 The Charioteer - Mary Renault
36'03 The Land and The Garden - Vita Sackville-West
43'11 Merry Hall - Beverley Nichols.
50'08 Conversations in Sicily - Elio Vittorini
57'30 The Light and the Dark - C.P. Snow
These specials are designed to fill the gap before the main show returns later in the Spring and feature guests discussing books drawn from an area they know and care about.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys - rerun
This is the third in our re-released episodes – and only the second one we ever recorded. Has Jean Rhys’s reputation and influence grown since then? Does a seven-year-old Backlisted still pass muster? All this (and more) are considered in Andy’s new introduction. Enjoy!
John and Andy are joined by novelist Linda Grant and Unbound's Mathew Clayton to discuss Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys, first published in 1939. Rhys is still best known for her 1966 novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, but as well as making a strong case for her earlier work, there is a lively discussion of perfume, the previously unheard-of genre of Scandinavian magic realism, and Andy spots a mistake in the best selling science book of all time.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
1'49 - A Winter Book by Tove Jansson
9'46 - A Brief History of Time by Prof Stephen Hawking
17'30 - Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Science Fiction Special
Welcome to our second Backlisted special of 2023. Today we’re joined by the best-selling writer Una McCormack, returning for a record-breaking ninth appearance, having most recently participated in the Christmas episode dedicated to Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield.
These specials are designed to fill the gap until the show proper returns in April. They differ from the usual Backlisted format in that they feature just one guest choosing a number of books in an area they know and care about.
This discussion covers five books that have inspired Una as a writer of science fiction from childhood onwards. The books are:
Sylvia Engdahl, The Far Side of Evil
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Octavia Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories
Katharine Burdekin, Proud Man
Vonda N. McIntyre, Star Trek: The Voyage Home
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at patreon.com/backlisted
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Fungus The Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs - Revisited
In memory of Raymond Briggs we are replaying the episode where John and Andy were joined by author-illustrator Nadia Shireen and writer Andrew Male for a smellybration of Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) by the great Raymond Briggs. The much-loved and bestselling picture book Andrew describes as "the children's Anatomy of Melancholy". We consider Briggs's life and work in full: Father Christmas, The Snowman, When the Wind Blows, Ethel & Ernest and the sepulchral Time For Lights Out (2019), his latest - and perhaps last - book; we also hear several times from the (often very funny) author himself.
Also in this episode Andy talks about issues raised by reading Laugh a Defiance, a long out-of-print memoir by campaigner Mary Richardson; while John shares his enthusiasm for Jessica Au's new novel, Cold Enough For Snow (Fitzcarraldo).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
10:12 - Laugh A Defiance by Mary Richardson
17:56 - Cold Enough For Snow by Jessica Au
23:31 - Fungus the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at patreon.com/backlisted
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Backlisted Special - The books of our childhood
Welcome to our first Backlisted special of 2023. Today we’re joined by the award-winning novelist and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce, an official friend of Backlisted, who returns for the first time since his appearance on the Christmas 2021 episode on The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit, one of our most popular shows. These specials are designed to fill the gap until the show proper returns in April. They differ from the usual Backlisted format in that they feature just one guest choosing a number of books in an area they know and care about. The discussion covers examines what inspired Frank’s love of reading when he was growing up, and includes favourite books by T.H. White, Ursula K. Le Guin, Joan Aiken, Tim Hunkin and Richmal Crompton.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Image Credit: Archives New Zealand from New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0
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The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins - rerun
In memory of the great Carmen Callil, we are replaying the first of her two appearances on Backlisted. Joining Andy and John in this episode is Carmen Callil, the legendary publisher and writer, who is best know for founding the Virago Press in 1972. Once described by the Guardian as ‘part-Lebanese, part-Irish and wholly Australian’, Carmen settled in London in 1964 advertising herself in The Times as ‘Australian, B.A. wants job in book publishing’. After changing a generation’s taste through her publishing at Virago, and in particular the Virago Modern Classics, which continues to bring back into print hundreds of neglected women writers, Carmen went on to run Chatto & Windus and became a global Editor-at-Large for Random House. In 2006 she published Bad Faith: A History of Family & Fatherland, which Hilary Spurling called ‘a work of phenomenally thorough, generous and humane scholarship’. Appointed DBE in 2017, she was also awarded the Benson Medal in the same year, awarded to mark ‘meritorious works in poetry, fiction, history and belles-lettres’. The book under discussion is one of her favourite novels, The Tortoise & the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins, first published by Gollancz in 1954 and triumphantly reissued by Virago Modern Classics in 1983. Also in this episode we explore the new audio version of one our favourite writer’s best novels - The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson, famously published in a box containing 27 randomly ordered sections in 1969. And last but very much not least: this episode also features our very first canine guest - Effie, Carmen’s extremely well-behaved border terrier.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
8'10 - The Unfortunates by B.S.Johnson
21'16 - The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
Merry Christmas Everyone! This year’s Backlisted Christmas special celebrates Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, a classic of children’s literature and the childhood favourite of our producer, Nicky Birch. We are joined by the writer Una McCormack and Tanya Kirk, the Lead Curator of Printed Heritage Collections (1601-1900) at the British Library, who are both lifetime Streatfeild fans. Ballet Shoes was an immediate bestseller upon publication and the runner-up for the inaugural Carnegie Medal. It has never been out of print and was the first in a series of ‘Shoes’ books by Streatfeild. It has been adapted many times both as an audiobook and for film and television and in 2019 BBC News included Ballet Shoes on its list of the 100 most influential novels of all time. We discuss why this might be the case and much more besides and even hear from Miss Streatfeild herself. And it being a Christmas episode, there is a fiendish festive quiz. We also feature two other classic books by writers best known through their writing for children. John discusses A Giant in the Snow by John Gordon, an eerie Puffin classic from 1968, while Andy revels in the darkness of John Christopher’s The Death of Grass, first published in 1956, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, definitely written for adults and perfect for cutting through your post-lunch torpor. Enjoy!
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
16:39 A Giant in the Snow by John Gordon
22:04 The Death of Grass by John Christopher
29:32 Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Awakening is an American classic, first published in 1899. The novel’s focus is the inner life of Edna Pontellier, a 29 year-old a married woman and mother of two boys, whose husband Léonce is a New Orleans businessman of Louisiana Creole heritage. The book’s notoriety derives from Edna’s refusal to accept the role that American society of the late 19th century has allocated to her. After the controversy that greeted it on publication, The Awakening sank from view until it was rediscovered by a new generation of readers after the Louisiana State University Press published Chopin’s collected works in 1969. Now acclaimed as a feminist classic – it was published in the UK in 1978 by The Women’s Press and is now both a Penguin and an Oxford classic, a Canongate Canon, and one of the most popular university set texts in America. We’re joined by the Irish American writer Timothy O’Grady and publisher Rachael Kerr to find out why. This episode also finds Andy revelling in Beware of the Bull, a new biography of the incomparable Yorkshire singer-songwriter Jake Thackray (Scratching Shed), while John enjoys Louise Willder’s Blurb Your Enthusiasm, the product of her twenty-five years as a copywriter at Penguin.
Timings may vary as a result of adverts:
04:57 Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Willder
11:00 Beware of the Bull: The Enigmatic Genius of Jake Thackray by Paul Thompson and John Watterson
18:59 The Awakening by Kate Chopin
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
The Ice Palace or Is-slottet by Tarjei Vesaas is a 20th century classic by one of Norway’s greatest modern writers. First published by Gyldendal in 1963, it went on to win the Nordic Council Literary Prize in 1964. In 1966, it was published in Elizabeth Rokkan’s English translation by Peter Owen who described it as the best novel he ever published. To discuss it we’re joined by friend of the show Max Porter – who’s surprised it isn’t the most famous book in the world – and by another great Norwegian, Karl Ove Knaussgård, who agrees but who also think’s Vessas’s The Birds ( or Fuglane), published six years earlier, might be even better. We discuss both books in their English translations (recently released as Penguin Modern Classics) and Karl Ove treats us to a reading from the beginning of The Ice Palace in Norwegian. This episode also features Andy sharing his pleasure and deep amusement at Bob Dylan’s latest book – The Philosophy of Modern Song (Simon & Schuster) while John is moved by Emergency, Daisy Hildyard’s darkly beautiful novel about a rural Northern childhood overshadowed by presentiments of the coming climate disaster (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
4:18 - The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan
12:35 - Emergency by Daisy Hildyard
17:16 - The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm * If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Springs of Affection by Maeve Brennan
There can be few writers more deserving of Backlisted’s attention than the Irish writer, Maeve Brennan. An adopted New Yorker, Brennan died there in 1993 and was by that time so thoroughly forgotten in her native land, that she received no obituaries in any Irish papers. We are joined by the writers Sinéad Gleason and David Hayden to discuss her collection, The Springs of Affection – subtitled ‘stories of Dublin’ – which was first published posthumously by Houghton Mifflin in 1997, although all but one of these first appeared in the New Yorker, where Brennan was a staff writer for twenty-seven years. It was the enthusiastic praise from other writers including Alice Munro, Edna O’Brien and Mavis Gallant among others, that helped get The Springs of Affection the kind of international attention that the two collections published in Maeve’s lifetime failed to achieve. Since then, Maeve Brennan’s reputation has grown steadily, and her stories are now regularly and favourably compared to those of Joyce, Chekov and Colette. In Ireland, in particular, she has won the admiration of a new generation of women writers, who in Anne Enright’s phrase, see her as ‘a casualty of old wars not yet won.’ This episode also features Andy revisiting the Linda Nochlin’s classic 1971 essay, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? while John is impressed by Orlam, P.J. Harvey’s dark and brooding verse novel, written entirely in Dorset dialect.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
08:44 - Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? by Linda Nochlin
16:16 - Orlam by P.J. Harvey
22:46 - The Springs Of Affection By Maeve Brennan
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Altar of the Dead and Other Tales by Henry James
This Hallowe’en episode of Backlisted focusses on the collection of ‘uncanny’ stories by Henry James, first gathered together under the title The Altar of the Dead and Other Tales to form the seventeenth volume of the New York Edition of his Collected Works in 1917. We are joined, as ever, by our resident spook-master Andrew Male, and by acclaimed novelist and Henry James aficionado Tessa Hadley. We each choose a story to present and read from - these are tackled in chronological order to better trace the evolution of James’s famously dense and challenging late style . Before that Andy confesses his admiration for I Used to Live Here Once, Miranda Seymours’ new biography of Jean Rhys and reads a short Jean Rhys ghost story, while John revisits Giving Up the Ghost, Hilary Mantel’s haunting (and haunted) memoir.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
5:49 - I Used to Live Here Once by Miranda Seymour
12:19 - Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel
19:38 - The Altar of the Dead and Other Tales by Henry James
* If you'd like to purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For more information about the show visit www.backlisted.fm
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Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy
Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle by the Irish travel writer Dervla Murphy was first published in 1965 and is the first of Dervla Murphy’s twenty-six books. It's a journal she kept on the 3,500 mile, six-month journey she made by bicycle from her home in Lismore, Ireland to Delhi in India in 1963, Ireland, traversing Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan on her trusty bike, Ros. Joining us to discuss the book are Felicity Cloake, food writer and the award-winning author of the Guardian’s long-running ‘How to Make the Perfect’ series and Caroline Eden, author and journalist, whose latest book, Red Sands is a reimagining of traditional travel writing using food as the jumping-off point to explore Central Asia. This episode also features Andy reading from Craig Brown's new collected works, Haywire, while John has been enjoying In Search of One Last Song: Britain’s disappearing birds and the people trying to save them by Patrick Galbraith.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
07:25 - Haywire by Craig Brown
14:41 - One Last Song by Patrick Galbraith.
20:48 - Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Roadside Picnic, first published in 1972, is the best-known work of Russia’s most famous modern science fiction writers, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, together the authors of 26 novels and scores of short stories. To discuss it we are joined by the writer and radio presenter Jennifer Lucy Allan, and the publisher and translator Ilona Chavasse. The book is based on the premise that Earth has been briefly visited by an alien civilisation that have left behind them six ‘Zones’, places strewn with their debris, some of it lethal to humans; all of it fascinating and perplexing. The Zones feed a black market in artefacts supplied by ‘Stalkers’ who are prepared to risk their lives and sanity by entering the forbidden areas to retrieve them. We consider why the book is still considered one of the greatest of all SF novels, how it came to be read as a dark foreshadowing of the Chernobyl disaster and why it has proved itself so ripe for adaptation, both as a series of video games and, most famously, as the basis for Andrei Tarkovsky’s classic 1979 film, Stalker. This episode also finds Andy returning to a haunting novel he read earlier this year: The High House (Swift Press) by former guest Jessie Greengrass, while John is carried away by Everybody (Picador), Olivia Laing’s magnificent book about freedom and the human body.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
08:17 - The High House by Jessie Greengrass.
17:04 - Everybody by Olivia Laing
23:32 - Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South is Elizabeth Gaskell’s fourth novel and considered by many to be her best. It tells the story of Margaret Hale, a principled young middle-class woman from the rural South whose family are obliged to re-settle in the Northern industrial town of Milton. Joining us to discuss the novel’s contemporary relevance, are two new guests: Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad and Nell Stevens, author of the memoir, Mrs Gaskell & Me. We cover the books presentation of labour relations at the height of the Industrial Revolution, the changing position of women in society, the reasons for Elizabeth Gaskell’s uncertain reputation, her unsentimental treatment of death and – spoiler alert – whether the novel’s ending works. Also in this episode, Andy is impressed by No Document, Australian writer Anwen Crawford’s ground-breaking work of elegiac non-fiction and John enjoys the exquisite imagination on display in Chloe Ardijis’s Dialogue with a Somnambulist, the Mexican novelist’s recent collection of stories, essays and pen portraits.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
04:20 - No Document by Anwen Crawford.
10:40 - Dialogue with a Somnambulist by Chloe Aridjis.
16:42 - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Authors Jay Griffiths and Geoff Dyer are our guests for a discussion of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Annie Dillard was only twenty-nine when her first prose book was published in 1974; it went onto win the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction the following year. To discuss this classic of observational nature writing and spiritual enquiry, we are joined by two writers making their Backlisted debuts: Jay Griffiths, the author of Wild: An Elemental Journey and Geoff Dyer, whose most recent book The Last Days of Roger Federer, featured on the Gormenghast episode. By coincidence, Andy has been reading Pages from the Goncourt Journals (NYRB Classics), a spicy, gossip-rich glimpse into 19th century French literary life which has a foreword by Geoff, while John immerses himself in the inner world of John Donne, through regular Backlisted guest Katherine Rundell’s widely acclaimed biography: Super Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (Faber).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
08:12 - Pages from the Goncourt Journals by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt.
16:45 - Super Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell.
22:29 - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt
The second novel by by literary wunderkind, Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods is probably the most challenging book we’ve yet featured on Backlisted. Usually described as a satire on American capitalism, it is the diasarmingly upbeat and funny tale of Joe, a struggling salesman, who develops a new office product that he believes serves an urgent need in modern corporate life. Quite what that product is and how it works requires a delicacy in description and a warning for listeners: this is not one for family listening. We are joined by returning guests, novelist and playwright Marie Philips and writer and performer, Ben Moor. The episode also features Andy rediscovering a lost folk horror classic from the 1970s - The Autumn People (also known as The Autumn Ghosts) by Ruth M. Arthur while John is blown away by the force of Sarah Churchwell’s incandescent and incisive account of an American classic: The Wrath to Come: Gone With the Wind and the Lies America Tells.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
13:21 - The Autumn Ghosts by Ruth M. Arthur.
18:34 - The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells by Sarah Churchwell.
24:42 - Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
* If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
It's sixty-five years since John Wyndham published The Midwich Cuckoos, the fourth in his hugely successful series of science fiction novels that began in 1951 with The Day of the Triffids. Many people’s first introduction to The Midwich Cuckoos is through the classic film from 1960, which was renamed The Village of the Damned and starred George Sanders. We’re joined for this episode by the writer and director David Farr, who has just produced the most recent adaptation of the novel: a seven-episode series for Sky. As well as assessing the merits of the book – sometimes obscured by its popular success – we discuss the process of adapting a classic novel for a modern audience. This episode also features Andy sharing his holiday read – The Feast by Margaret Kennedy (author of The Constant Nymph which we featured last year). The novel is set in Cornwall, which was exactly where Andy found himself when he read it. John also introduces a new independent publisher, Hazel Press, whose exquisite small, environmentally friendly books include The Wren by Julia Blackburn, a haunting sequence of short journal entries and prose poems.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
11:00 - The Feast by Margaret Kennedy.
18:01 - The Wren by Julia Blackburn.
22:48 - The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Kingdom by the Sea by Paul Theroux
Forty years ago the writer Paul Theroux hoisted his knapsack on his back and set off on a journey on foot around the coast of the United Kingdom; the effects of Thatcherism were being felt in earnest and the Falklands War was in progress. The Kingdom by the Sea, Theroux's grumpy, funny account of this journey, was published the following year (1983) and caused outrage in many of the seaside towns the author had passed through and seemingly written off. In this episode the Backlisted team - Andy, John, Nicky and Tess - revisit the book, and a few books like it, to discuss whatever happened to travel writing; how Britain has changed since 1982; and what Theroux got right - and wrong - about his adopted country. In addition, John enjoys a more recent travelogue, Felicity Cloake's new book Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey (Mudlark); while Andy reads two poems from Fiona Benson's stunning new collection Ephemeron (Cape Poetry).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
08:16 - Fiona Benson. Ephemeron.
15:44 - Felicity Cloake's new book Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey.
22:28 - The Kingdom by the Sea by Paul Theroux
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake
Novelist Joanne Harris (Chocolat, A Narrow Door) is our guest for a celebration of Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950) and Titus Alone (1959) by Mervyn Peake, three novels which are often referred to, erroneously, as the Gormenghast Trilogy. With Joanne's expert guidance, John and Andy revisit Peake's visionary work for the first time in decades and are surprised and delighted by what they discover. Also in this episode, Andy marks the belated UK publication of Maud Martha, the sole novel by poet Gwendolyn Brooks (Faber); while John enjoys Geoff Dyer's new book about tennis and much more, The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings (Canongate).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
07:52 - Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks.
13:51 - The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings by Geoff Dyer.
18:03 - Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Tessa Hadley (Free Love, Late in the Day) joins us for a discussion of The Death of the Heart (1938), the sixth novel by Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen; as you'll hear, Tessa has been reading and rereading Bowen's work since she discovered it in her local library when she was 12 years old. We go deep into the glorious idiosyncrasies (and idiosyncratic glories) of Bowen's style and consider why her reputation has waxed and waned in the years since her death in 1973. Also in this episode, John celebrates his recent trip to New Orleans with a reading of Nine Lives (Random House US), Dan Baum's book about the city; and Andy navigates his way round Géricault's painting The Wreck of the Medusa using Tom de Freston's new book Wreck (Granta) as his compass.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
07:20 - Wreck by Tom de Freston.
14:40 - Nine Lives by Dan Baum.
21:36 - The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
Our guest is Stephen Fry, writer, actor and polymath, who last week joined John and Andy in person to discuss Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, the essay addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas 'from the depths' of Wilde's incarceration in Reading Gaol in 1897. It has been described by Colm Tóibín as 'one of the greatest love letters ever written'; it is also Wilde's most powerful testament of the sacred duty of the artist as he conceived it. We discuss the work's convoluted publication history, Wilde's posthumous reputation and his ongoing relevance in the 21st century. In addition, Andy has been reading Hayley Campbell's fascinating All the Living and the Dead (Raven Books), which he describes as "a work of true rigour mortis"; while John digs enthusiastically into Villager (Unbound), the new novel from writer and former Backlisted guest Tom Cox.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
14:25 - All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell.
21:09 - Villager by Tom Cox.
25:51 - De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg
Publisher Marigold Atkey and journalist Emily Rhodes join us for a discussion of Lessico famigliare, Natalia Ginzburg's novelistic memoir or autobiographical novel, first published in Italy in 1963 and most recently translated by Jenny McPhee as Family Lexicon (Daunt/NYRB). Ginzburg had a long and distinguished career in Italian literature, theatre and politics. This episode explores her fascinating life and asks why her work is finding new readers and admirers in the 21st century, amongst them Rachel Cusk and Sally Rooney. Also in this episode John enjoys How To Gut a Fish (Bloomsbury), a debut collection of short stories by Shelia Armstrong; while Andy reflects on Vashti Bunyan's pilgrimage to the Outer Hebrides, as recounted in Wayward (White Rabbit), her memoir of the 1960s and beyond.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
12:57 - Wayward by Vashti Bunyan.
21:24 - How To Gut A Fish by Shelia Armstrong.
27:17 - Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Escape to an Autumn Pavement and Jamaica by Andrew Salkey
Our guests are both new to Backlisted: the legendary publisher, editor, writer Margaret Busby and the award-winning poet, Raymond Antrobus. They join us to discuss the work of the Caribbean writer, Andrew Salkey, in particular his 1960 Hampstead ‘bedsit novel’, Escape to An Autumn Pavement, and his epic poem Jamaica, which explores the historical foundations of Jamaican society and was first published in 1973 by the pioneering press, Bogle L’Ouverture. As you will discover, Salkey was a consummate live performer - as are both our guests – and the episode make a strong case for his work to be revisited. It also features Andy enjoying the graphic novel and memoir, All the Sad Songs by Summer Pierre, while John is blown away by Aftermath, Preti Taneja’s brave and uncompromising account of recovering from a public tragedy.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
09:44 - All The Sad Songs by Summer Pierre.
15:36 - Aftermath by Preti Taneja.
22:16 - Escape to An Autumn Pavement & Jamaica by Andrew Salkey
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Our guests are both Backlisted old hands: Professor Sarah Churchwell, Professor in American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London and Sam Leith, literary editor of the Spectator. We are discussing the 1966 postmodern novel The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, by some way his shortest book, but no less complex and intriguing for its relative brevity. Sound the muted post horn! Also in this episode, Andy extols the subtle virtues of former guest Susie Boyt’s novel, Loved and Missed while John discovers the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky’s dramatic sequence, Deaf Republic, which tells the stories of a fictional town falling under foreign occupation.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
07:38 - Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt.
14:43 - Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky.
22:16 - The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Fungus the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs
We are joined by author-illustrator Nadia Shireen and writer Andrew Male for a smellybration of Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) by the great Raymond Briggs, the much-loved and bestselling picture book Andrew describes as "the children's Anatomy of Melancholy". We consider Briggs's life and work in full: Father Christmas, The Snowman, When the Wind Blows, Ethel & Ernest and the sepulchral Time For Lights Out (2019), his latest - and perhaps last - book; we also hear several times from the (often very funny) author himself. Also in this episode Andy talks about issues raised by reading Laugh a Defiance, a long out-of-print memoir by campaigner Mary Richardson; while John shares his enthusiasm for Jessica Au's new novel, Cold Enough For Snow (Fitzcarraldo).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
07:58 - Laugh a Defiance by Mary Richardson.
15:42 - Cold Enough For Snow by Jessica Au.
20:51 - Fungus The Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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South Riding by Winifred Holtby
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Winter Reading II: Short Stories
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Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
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Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat by Stephen Sondheim
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Winter Reading 2022
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The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
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Deadwood by Pete Dexter
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The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde
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Notes from Under the Floorboards AKA Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Welcome to the 150th episode of Backlisted! To mark the occasion we are joined by authors Alex Christofi (Dostoevsky in Love) and Arifa Akbar (Consumed: A Sister's Story) for a discussion of one of Russia's greatest writers Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was born in Moscow on November 11 1821, 200 years ago this month. We concentrate on his pioneering novella Notes From Under the Floorboards AKA Notes From Underground (1864) and consider its impact and continuing relevance to modern life. Also in this episode John enjoys Dark Neighbourhood (Fitzcarraldo), the debut collection of stories by Vanessa Onwuemezi; and, having let it settled for a few months, Andy unveils his favourite novel of the year, Gwendoline Riley's My Phantoms (Granta).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
12:20 - My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
19:24 - Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onmuewez
26:24 - Notes From Under The Floorboards by Fyodor Dostoevsky
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
This is a Backlisted special, recorded at the Bodleian Library in Oxford to celebrate the publication of Treacle Walker the new novel by Alan Garner (Fourth Estate). The panel discussion features Erica Wagner, writer and critic and editor of First Light, an anthology of pieces about Alan Garner’s work; Dr Melanie Giles, archaeologist and the author of Bog Bodies, the definitive account of the phenomenon which plays a significant role in the book’s story; and Professor Bob Cywinski, physicist, whose conversations with Alan Garner about time, landscape and local legend provided the inspiration for the novel.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Something in Disguise by Elizabeth Jane Howard
For this year's Hallowe'en special we're joined by Backlisted's old fiends Andrew Male and Laura Varnam, following previous guest appearances on episodes dedicated to Beowulf (2020) and Daphne du Maurier's The Breaking Point (2019). Together we explore the work of the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, specifically her ghost stories, tales of horror and accounts of psychological terror: Something in Disguise (1969), Odd Girl Out (1972), Mr Wrong (1975), Falling (1999), and We Are For the Dark (1951), the volume of strange stories she co-authored with previous Backlisted subject Robert Aickman. NB. THIS EPISODE IS PACKED WITH SPOILERS and you may wish to read Something in Disguise before you listen to the podcast. Also this week, Andy is gripped by Heike Gessler's Seasonal Associate (Semiotext), the novelist's account of working in Amazon's warehouse in Leipzig, while John enjoys being unsettled by Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1980-1940, edited by Melissa Edmundson, the first in a series of 'Weird' anthologies published by Handheld Press.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
08:41 - Women's Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1980-1940, edited by Melissa Edmundson
14:26 - Seasonal Associate by Heike Gessle
21:00 - Something in Disguise by Elizabeth Jane Howard
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
Our guests are publisher Alexandra Pringle and Simon Thomas, editor and co-host of the Tea or Books? podcast. They are here to discuss Cassandra at the Wedding, the fourth and final novel by Dorothy Baker, first published in 1962 by Houghton Mifflin in the USA and Victor Gollancz in the UK. What is it about this darkly funny tale of two devoted sisters that continues to appeal to generations of readers? Also in this episode John enjoys Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietila, newly reissued by Sort Of Books, while Andy returns to early 1980s London via Michael Bracewell's new book Souvenir (White Rabbit).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
15:36 - Souvenir by Michael Bracewell
20:49 -Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson
27:07 - Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Dream Songs by John Berryman
Joining us on Backlisted this week is novelist and memoirist Susie Boyt (My Judy Garland Life, Loved and Missed). The book Susie has chosen for us to discuss is The Dream Songs (1969) by John Berryman, the publication of which briefly made its author the most famous poet in America but also, unfortunately, hastened his decline and ruin. But the work shines on. Also in this episode Andy is struck by the contemporary resonance of Vivian Gornick's The Romance of American Communism while John drinks in Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub edited by David Knight and Cristina Monteiro. Please note, this episode contains references to suicide.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
08:06 - The Romance of American Communism by Vivian Gornick
15:27 - Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub edited by David Knight and Cristina Monteiro
20:24 - The Dream Songs by John Berryman
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee
We are joined by novelist Mary Costello for a special episode recorded live at Galway International Arts Festival in Ireland on September 10th 2021. The book we're debating is Elizabeth Costello (2003) by South-African born Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee, a novel that politely asks the reader to consider, amongst other matters, animal rights, the power of faith and the limits of fiction itself. Also in this episode, new books by two Irish authors: Sally Rooney's novel Beautiful World, Where Are You and John Moriarty’s The Hut at the Edge of the Village, a collection edited by Martin Shaw and published by the Lilliput Press.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
40:06 - The Hut at the Edge of the Village by John Moriarty
09:09 - Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
16:04 - Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Summer Reading 2021
It’s time for our annual look at what we’ve been reading over the summer break. John, Andy and Nicky discuss David Keenan’s fourth novel Monument Maker; Open Water, a promising debut novella from Caleb Azumah Nelson; Deborah Levy’s three-volume ‘living autobiography’, Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate; a reissue of Percival Everett’s satirical diatribe Erasure; Life With a Capital L, Geoff Dyer’s selection of essays by D.H. Lawrence; and Vivian Gornick’s The End of the Novel of Love and Unfinished Business, in which the author re-reads favourite classic books and comes to fresh conclusions about them.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
06:12 - Monument Maker by David Keenan
17:47 - Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
25:24 - Erasure by Percival Everett
33:38 - Things I Don’t Want to Know; The Cost of Living; Real Estate by Deberah Levy
40:55 - Life With A Capital L: Essays by D.H. Lawrence by Geoff Dyer
48:33 - The End of the Novel of Love; Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Fat City by Leonard Gardner
Perhaps the greatest boxing novel ever written, Leonard Gardner's Fat City was first published in 1969; it was shortlisted for the National Book Award; Joan Didion and Denis Johnson are amongst those who have sung its praises. The book was made into a film in 1972 starring Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges, directed by John Huston from a screenplay by Gardner himself. In this episode Andy, John and Nicky explore both the novel and the film and the ways in which Gardner shows the reader the whole of a society through the prism of sport. We also hear from the author as to why he has never published another novel. Plus in this episode John reignites his love of D.H. Lawrence with Frances Wilson's acclaimed new biography Burning Man, while Andy shares an extract from Leonora Carrington's magical novel The Hearing Trumpet, read by actress Siân Phillips.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
06:06 - The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
11:19 - Burning Man by Frances Wilson
17:10 - Fat City by Leonard Gardner
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Heart of the Original By Steve Aylett
Joining us on Backlisted this week is writer John Higgs, whose fascinating new book William Blake Vs The World is out now. We were thrilled John chose Steve Aylett's guide to originality, creativity and individuality, Heart of the Original, first published by Unbound in 2015 and as original, creative and individual a book as we have ever featured on this podcast; be prepared to experience a "small-particle tulpa storm" of ideas. Also in this episode, John enjoys the waspish melancholy of Elizabeth Hardwick's Sleepless Nights, while Andy introduces a reading from Black Teacher by Beryl Gilroy, a trailblazing Guyanese woman's memoir of post-war London.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
09:46 - Black Teacher by Beryl Gilroy
14:52 - Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick
19:46 - Heart Of The Original by Steve Aylett
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
Returning to Backlisted this week are literary agents Becky Brown and Norah Perkins, joint custodians of the Curtis Brown Heritage list of literary estates and previously our guests on episode #109, Excellent Women by Barbara Pym. This time we are discussing the work of crime novelist Dorothy B. Hughes and in particular her suspenseful and subversive novel In a Lonely Place (1947), freely adapted as a classic film noir by director Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. Also in this episode Norah and Becky pitch titles by Kay Dick, Stella Gibbons and R.C. Sherriff to Andy, John and Nicky. Make sure you have a pen and paper to hand...
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
15:00 - Starlight by Stella Gibbons
19:10 - The Fortnight In September
26:56 - In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Are You Somebody? by Nuala O'Faolain
Joining John and Andy this week is novelist and host of the books podcast Sentimental Garbage, Caroline O'Donoghue (Promising Young Women, Scenes of a Graphic Nature, All Our Hidden Gifts). We are discussing Nuala O'Faolain's revelatory memoir Are You Somebody? (1996), the original publication of which caused a sensation in her native Ireland. The book went on to top the New York Times bestseller list for six weeks; it still has the power to astonish. Also in this episode Andy has been exploring John Higgs's new book William Blake Vs The World and John is moved by Consumed: A Sister's Tale, the family memoir of Arifa Akbar, a former guest on Backlisted.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
10:08 - William Blake Vs The World by John Higgs
14:44 - Consumed: A Sister's Tale by Arifa Akbar
20:33 - Are You Somebody by Nuala O'Faolain
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A Goat's Song by Dermot Healy
Joining John and Andy this week are novelist Patrick McCabe (The Butcher Boy, Breakfast on Pluto, Winterwood) and Unbound's editor-at-large Rachael Kerr. We got together to discuss Dermot Healy's remarkable second novel A Goat's Song (1994) and the peripatetic life of its author, one of the great Irish writers of recent times. Patrick, Rachael and John all knew, worked and occasionally drank with Dermot Healy and this special episode reflects their personal connections with a much-loved and much-missed man. Also in this edition Andy considers the most recent novel of another legendary Irish writer, Girl by Edna O'Brien; while John shares his admiration for Shola Von Reinhold's Lote, winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses 2021.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
07:56 - Lote by Shola Von Reinhold
13:27 - Girl by Edna O'Brien
19:26 - A Goats Song by Dermot Healy
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Evenings by Gerard Reve
Joining John and Andy this week are novelist Marie Phillips (Gods Behaving Badly, Oh, I Do Like To Be...) and novelist, screenwriter and poet Joe Dunthorne (Submarine, O Positive). The book we are discussing is Gerard Reve's debut novel De Avonden AKA The Evenings, which caused a sensation when published in the Netherlands in 1947 and is now considered a classic. In the words of Herman Koch, it may be 'the funniest, most exhilarating novel about boredom ever written'. Reve was only 24; he went on to have a long, successful and frequently scandalous career but only a handful of his books have been translated into English. Also in this episode John digs Bella Bathurst's new book Field Work: What Land Does to People & What People Do to Land and Andy surveys Landscapes of Detectorists and discovers prose to treasure.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
10:26 - Landscapes of Detectorists by Innes M. Keighren & Joanna Northcup
16:29 - Field Work: What Land Does to People & What People Do to Land by Bella Bathurst
22:07 - The Evenings by Gerard Reve
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald
Joining John and Andy this week are Natasha McEnroe, the Keeper of Medicine at the Science Museum in London, and novelist Lissa Evans, Backlisted's old friend and the show's Original Guest, both of whom are Betty MacDonald superfans. The Plague and I (1948) is the author's unflinching and hilarious memoir of the nine months she spent as a patient at a TB sanatorium in the Pacific North West of America. We discuss this book and the eventful life of its million-selling author (The Egg and I, Anybody Can Do Anything, Onions in the Stew), are exposed to a selection of TB-related public information films and music, and there is even a 'communicable disease in literature' quiz. Also in this episode Andy is grabbed by Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper (1943) by Donald Henderson, reputedly Raymond Chandler's favourite crime novel; while John has been enjoying Olivette Otele's recently published history African Europeans, which traces a long African European heritage via the lives of individuals both ordinary and extraordinary.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
08:16 - Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper by Donald Henderson
15:49 - African Europeans by Olivette Otele
20:37 - The Plague And I by Betty Macdonald
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman AKA Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is the subject of this years-in-the-making episode of Backlisted. Published in nine volumes between 1759 and 1767, Sterne's cock and bull story has entertained, baffled, enchanted, infuriated and inspired readers ever since; needless to say, at Backlisted we love it. Joining John and Andy to celebrate this great, hilarious, digressive novel - or is it a series of great, hilarious, digressive novels? - are award-winning children's author Katherine Rundell and our friend Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who adapted Tristram Shandy for the big screen in 2005 as A Cock and Bull Story. As a bonus, you'll hear Steve Coogan, the star of that film, read from the book(s) - exclusively for Backlisted listeners. Also in this episode, Andy enjoys a "relentless excursion into style" with Fun in a Chinese Laundry (1965), the autobiography of film director Josef von Sternberg; while John takes a sounding of Jennifer Lucy Allan's fascinating new book The Foghorn's Lament.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
07:53 - Fun in a Chinese Laundry by Josef von Sternberg
12:42 - The Foghorn's Lament: The Disappearing Music of the Coast by Jennifer Lucy Allan
21:33 - The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Água Viva by Clarice Lispector
Clarice Lispector's Água Viva is the subject of this episode of Backlisted. Like several of Lispector's remarkable novels, this slim book caused a sensation when first published in her native Brazil in 1973. Exquisitely written and daringly abstract, it stands as one of its author's masterpieces with Near to the Wild Heart (1943), Family Ties(1960), The Passion According to G.H. (1964) and The Hour of the Star (1977). Joining John and Andy to explore this truly iconic author's life and work are writers Wendy Erskine and David Keenan. Also in this episode, John has been reading Peter Blegvad's recent book Imagine, Observe, Remember, "a way to look at different ways of looking and seeing"; Andy, meanwhile, digs Excavate! The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall, a new anthology of essays, artwork and ephemera edited by Tessa Norton and Bob Stanley.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
06:04 - Imagine, Observe, Remember by Peter Blegvad
10:25 - Excavate! The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall by Tessa Norton
16:29 - Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness
The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness is the subject of this episode. The book was first published in Iceland as Brekkukotsannáll in 1957, two years after Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Joining John and Andy to discuss this ideosyncratic, unforgettable novel and the remarkable life of its author - spanning nearly all of the twentieth century - is author, poet and podcaster Derek Owusu. Also in this episode, John delves into Brian Dillon's new book Suppose A Sentence, while Andy reads A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell's memoir of life during the London Blitz.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
06:08 - Chelsea Concerto by Frances Faviel
11:21 - Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon
16:06 - The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness.
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Daddy's Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer
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Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
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Job: The Story of a Simple Man by Joseph Roth
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Locklisted: Teenage Books Special
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Karoo by Steve Tesich
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The Bloater by Rosemary Tonks
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Locklisted: Children's Books Special, Part One
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The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
Susan Cooper's magical novel The Dark Is Rising (1973) is the subject of a bumper Christmas special episode of Backlisted. Joining John and Andy to discuss this classic winter solstice read, and the four other books that make up the Dark Is Rising sequence, are writer Robert Macfarlane and writer and illustrator Jackie Morris, co-authors of The Lost Words and The Lost Spells and fellow Susan Cooper devotees. And because it is Christmas, John also talks about a beautiful ice-and-snow bound story from the Chuckchi people of the Bering Sea, When the Whales Leave by Yuri Rytkheu, and Andy reads The Tree Room, a poem from Caroline Bird's new collection The Air Year that seems to sum up the spirit of Christmas 2020. Wherever this podcast finds you in the world, Merry Christmas from us all. When the dark comes rising, six shall turn it back...
Music in todays episode is:The Dark is Rising album by Handspan https://handspan.bandcamp.com/album/the-dark-is-rising
Hard Road by Johnny Flynn http://johnny-flynn.com/
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski
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The Compleet Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans & Ronald Searle
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Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius by Terrance Dicks
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Beowulf
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Silence by Shūsaku Endō
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The Odd Women By George Gissing
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Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola
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I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd
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Summer Reading 2020
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The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
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How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher
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The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
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The Inheritors by William Golding
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The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy
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Frost in May by Antonia White
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The World According to Garp by John Irving
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The Journal of a Disappointed Man by W.N.P. Barbellion
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Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
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A La Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust
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Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett
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Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith
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The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
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The Breaking Point by Daphne du Maurier
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Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
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The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor
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Of Walking in Ice by Werner Herzog
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The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
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Books about The Beatles
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Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
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The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
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Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson
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The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
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The Prince of West End Avenue by Alan Isler
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Beloved by Toni Morrison
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The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G.B. Edwards
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A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
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Last Train to Memphis/Careless Love by Peter Guralnick
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Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
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Utz by Bruce Chatwin
This episode is about Utz, Bruce Chatwin's final novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1988. John and Andy are joined by writer and journalist Jonathan Wilson and Unbound's editor-at-large Rachael Kerr, who worked for Chatwin's publisher Jonathan Cape and knew him well. Other books discussed include Valerie Luiselli's Tell Me How It Ends and Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
5'48 - Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli
10'55 - By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart
20'05 - Utz by Bruce Chatwin
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
On this episode John and Andy are joined by novelist and critic Amanda Craig and novelist and memoirist Alice Jolly to discuss Rebecca West's debut novel The Return of the Soldier, published in 1918 when West was still in her mid-twenties. In addition John talks about Julia Blackburn's new book Time Song, while Andy shares his thoughts on Strip Jack Naked, Alexander Baron's little-read and extremely rare sequel to The Lowlife, itself the subject of an episode of Backlisted from 2018.
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Hemlock and After by Angus Wilson
John and Andy are joined by writer, dandy and erstwhile musician Dickon Edwards to discuss Hemlock and After, Angus Wilson's debut novel, originally published in 1952. Wilson was considered one of the preeminent writers of his days but both his books and reputation have fallen into neglect - we consider why this happened and also what his work offers the contemporary reader. Also discussed in this episode are Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Léger and Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey ("her early funny one").
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
4'28 - Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger
7'43 - Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
19'11 - Hemlock and After by Angus Wilson
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Imogen by Jilly Cooper
John and Andy are joined by author and podcaster Daisy Buchanan and poet and lecturer Dr Ian Patterson to discuss Imogen, Jilly Cooper's 1978 novel of a young librarian finding romance - and all that goes with it - amongst the jet set in the south of France. Also discussed in this episode are the late children's illustrator John Burningham and J.L. Carr's idiosyncratic football yarn How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won The F.A. Cup.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
6'04 - How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup by J.L. Carr
11'17 - Champagne & Remembering John Burningham, Imogen by Jilly Cooper
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence
In our first podcast of 2019 we tackle D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow, a novel that has divided opinion since it was first published (and banned) in 1915 - and sure enough opinion was divided between John and Andy on this one. To discuss the book they are joined by writer and critic Catherine Taylor and Unbound editor-at-large Rachael Kerr. Also on this episode Backlisted listeners' favourite 'old' books of 2018.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
19'23 The Rainbow by DH Lawrence
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
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Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell
John and Andy are joined by novelist Philip Hensher and biographer Hilary Spurling for a discussion of Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell, first published in 1971, the tenth instalment of A Dance to the Music of Time. This special Christmas episode was recorded live at the LRB Bookshop in London on December 6th 2018.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
2'48 - A Dance To The Music Of Time by Anthony Powell
17'41 - Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx with Rowland Barber
John and Andy are joined by Dan Schreiber, writer, producer and co-host of the No Such Thing As A Fish podcast, to discuss Harpo Marx's autobiography Harpo Speaks! (1961). Also discussed are titles by Neil Tennant, Alice Jolly, Penelope Fitzgerald and Max Wall, amongst others.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
17'28 - Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
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The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
Andy and John are joined by Carmen Callil, publisher, writer and critic and founder of Virago Press, to discuss The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins, a novel first published in 1954 and then republished by Carmen in the 1980s as a Virago Modern Classic. Producer Nicky Birch also talks about her work on a new interactive adaptation of B.S. Johnson's novel The Unfortunates for BBC and Amazon Alexa.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
6'16 - The Unfortunates by B.S.Johnson
19'16 - The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson
This week John and Andy are joined by award-winning children's author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce and publisher and co-founder of Sort Of Books Natania Jansz to discuss Tove Jansson's final Moomin book, Moominvalley in November. Other books under discussion are Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon and Time Regained, the final volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Plus a visit to Somerset House in London, for a new exhibition of the work of Peanuts creator, cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
9'40 - In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
12'34 - Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
17'20 - Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Ghosts by Edith Wharton
It's Halloween and John and Andy are joined by novelist Lissa Evans and Backlisted's resident revenant, critic Andrew Male, to discuss Ghosts, Edith Wharton's selection of her best supernatural tales, first published in 1937. John also talks about Alan Garner's new memoir Where Shall We Run To? while Andy has been reading Daphne du Maurier's prophetic final novel Rule Britannia.6'57 - Rule Britannia by Daphne Du Maurier13'27 - Where shall We Run To? by Alan Garner17'40 - Ghosts by Edith Wharton
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice
This week John and Andy are joined by actor and director Sam West and writer and academic Sophie Ratcliffe to talk about Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal. The poem was composed in the autumn of 1938 while Britain awaited the declaration of the Second World War. Other books under discussion are Katharine Kilalea's OK, Mr Field and Francis Plug: Writer in Residence by Paul Ewen.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
8'07 - Ok, Mr Field by Katherine Kilalea
12'24 - Francis Plug: Writer in Residence by Paul Ewen
23'33 - Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
This week John and Andy are joined by novelist and literary journalist Sarra Manning (author of The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp) to discuss Elaine Dundy's sparkling debut The Dud Avocado and its follow-up The Old Man and Me. Other books under discussion are Anna Burns's Man Booker-shortlisted Milkman and Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, published 150 years ago and still startlingly relevant.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
10'41 - Daniel Deronda by George Elliot
19'25 - Milkman by Anna Burns
24'11 - The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Ulverton by Adam Thorpe
For a special episode recorded at the End of the Road festival in Dorset, John and Andy are joined by author and critic Tom Cox to talk about Adam Thorpe's 1992 debut novel Ulverton. Other books discussed include Sally Rooney's new novel Normal People and Mott the Hoople singer Ian Hunter's recently reissued Diary of a Rock'n'Roll Star. Further details can be found via our website at backlisted.fm.
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin
For the final episode recorded at this year's Port Eliot festival in Cornwall, John and Andy are joined by authors Nina Stibbe and returning guest Simon Garfield to discuss Philip Larkin's second and final novel A Girl In Winter, and Larkin's place in the national psyche. Warning: this episode contains poetry readings, dentistry and a hip-hop remix of This Be The Verse.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
8'00 - A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Lion and the Unicorn by George Orwell
For the second of three episodes recorded at the Port Eliot festival in Cornwall, John and Andy are joined by songwriter and activist Billy Bragg and journalist and critic Suzi Feay to talk about George Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius. This special episode features audience participation on a scale never before heard on Backlisted - make sure you keep listening until the very end of the Q&A session...
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
0'00 - The Lion and The Unicorn by George Orwell
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard
For the first of three episodes recorded at this year's Port Eliot festival in Cornwall, John and Andy are joined by author Cathy Rentzenbrink and actor and writer Ben Moor to talk about Pierre Bayard's How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read. Three members of the panel have read the book and one hasn't - join the audience in trying to work out who is dissembling (and whether it matters).
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
7'06 - How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
John and Andy are joined by Unbound co-founder and co-author of Crap Towns Dan Kieran and returning guest Dr Una McCormack, NYT bestselling novelist and co-director of the Anglia Ruskin University Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy, to discuss J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King, the third part of The Lord of the Rings. Andy also talks about Russell Hoban's classic Riddley Walker, while John has been reading Crudo, the acclaimed new novel by Olivia Laing.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
6'15 - Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence6'32 - Happy by Nicola Barker
6'56 - The Krull House by Georges Simenon
7'51 As Time Goes By - Derek Taylor
8'17 Riddley Walker by Russel Hoben
13'45 Crudo by Olivia Laing
18'53 - The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
John and Andy are joined by writer and editor Nikesh Shukla to discuss Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer's groundbreaking collection of stories, first published in 2003. Andy also talks about Lissa Evans's new novel Old Baggage, while John has been reading Problems by Jade Sharma.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
7'36 - Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
14'07 - Problems by Jade Sharma
21'35 - Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Told by an Idiot by Rose Macaulay
This week John and Andy are joined by super-librarian Nancy Pearl, possibly the only librarian in the world to have their own action figure, to discuss Rose Macaulay's gloriously eccentric family saga Told by an Idiot. John has been reading Sally Bayley's acclaimed bibliomemoir Girl With Dove, while Andy waxes lyrical over Andrew Sean Greer's Pulitzer-winning novel Less (and has a surprise in store...) This episode was recorded in the library at the recent Stoke Newington literary festival.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
9'04 - Less by Andrew Shaun Greer
17'44 - *Unnamed Memoir* by Sally Bailey
32'04 Told by an Idiot by Rose Macaulay
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
For a special episode recorded at the Bath Festival, we discuss Angela Carter's astonishing collection The Bloody Chamber (1979), much of which was conceived while Carter lived in Bath. Andy and John are joined by novelist Rachel Heath, Boundless editor and critic Arifa Akbar, and journalist and artistic director of words and literature at the Bath Festival, Alex Clark. This episode also includes the panel's thoughts on Philip Roth, whose death had been announced that morning.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
11'25 - The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Hermione Lee joins John and Andy to discuss the work of American novelist Willa Cather and, in its centenary year, her pioneering novel My Ántonia. John also talks about Wilding by Isabella Tree and Andy revisits one his favourite books, Graham Greene's The End of the Affair.
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Fatal Englishman by Sebastian Faulks
The poet Rishi Dastidar joins John and Andy to talk about Sebastian Faulks' least known and first non-fiction title, The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives.Also in this episode Andy talks about the Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St Aubyn while John has been enjoying Folk by Zoe Gilbert.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
8'35 - The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St Aubyn
16'55 - Folk by Zoe Gilbert
21'45 - The Fatal Englishman by Sebastian Faulks
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Corregidora by Gayl Jones
Professor Sarah Churchwell introduces Andy and John to the phenomenal Corregidora by Gayl Jones, a book steeped in the blues and the American slavery legacy. Other books they've read are Rain on the Pavements by Roland Camberton and In Pursuit of Spring by Edward Thomas.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
13'00 - Rain on The Pavement by Roland Camberton
19'31 In Pursuit of Spring by Edward Thomas
24'30 Corregidora by Gayl Jones
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Lowlife by Alexander Baron
John and Andy are at the dogs this week, discussing the 1963 cult novel The Lowlife by Alexander Baron. They are joined by London enthusiast Peter Watts(the first person to write a biography of Battersea Power Station) and Gary Budden, author and director of ground-breaking indie Influx Press.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
8'06 - Ludo and the Star Horse by Mary Stewart
14'49 - Rex v Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders by Laura Thompson
20'36 - The Lowlife by Alexander Baron
*To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
*For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Something Happened by Joseph Heller
Authors Matt Thorne and Nikita Lalwani join John and Andy to discuss the ‘other’ masterpiece by Joseph Heller, Something Happened, first published in 1974. Also in this episode John talks about Brother, a new novel by David Chariandy, while Andy has been reading Ursula Bentley's 1983 debut The Natural Order.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
5'45 - The Natural Order by Ursula Bentley
17'11 - Brother by David Chariandy
21'24 - Something Happened by Joesph Heller
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Town House by Norah Lofts
This week John and Andy are joined by journalist and author Lucy Mangan, whose new memoir of childhood reading Bookworm has just been published by Square Peg. They discuss Norah Lofts' novel The Town House (1959), the first of her 'Suffolk house' trilogy. Andy also talks about Words Best Sung by Lee Stuart Evans, and John has been reading Emmanuel Carrère's The Kingdom.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
7'44 - Words Best Sung by Lee Stuart Evans
16'30 - The Kingdom by by Emmanuel Carrère
21'29 - The Town House by Norah Lofts
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Berg by Ann Quin
This week Andy and John are joined by Jennifer Hodgson, editor of 'The Unmapped Country', a collection of British experimental writer Ann Quin's lost work. They discuss Quin's debut novel, Berg, with its opening sentence: 'A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father. . . '. John also talks about Yorkshire: A Lyrical History of England's Greatest County by Richard Morris, and Andy has been reading Andrew Hankinson's You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat].
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
7'31 - Yorkshire: A Lyrical History of England's Greatest County by Richard Morris
12'49 - You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life (You Are Raoul Moat) by Andrew Hankinson
21'30 - Berg by Ann Quin
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
John and Andy welcome authors Chris Power and Erica Wagner to discuss the multiple interlocking stories in Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, including the phantasmagoric 'Car Crash While Hitchhiking'. In addition Andy has been reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke and John takes a look at Fen by Daisy Johnson.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
8'25 - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
15'53 - Fen by Daisy Johnson
21'33 - Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
Critic and editor of Boundless Arifa Akbar joins John and Andy to discuss Hilary Mantel's tale of mediums and malevolence in the M25 corridor, Beyond Black. Tony White's 'The Fountain in the Forest' and 'Mothers' by Chris Power are the books we've been reading this week.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
4'49 - The Fountain in the Forest by Tony White
10'55 - Mothers by Chris Power
18'34 - Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Music producer, gallery owner and now novelist Tot Taylor joins John and Andy to discuss James Hilton's 1933 novel about an earthly paradise in the far Himalayas. And the various iterations of the story that came after.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
4'22 - Lifting the Latch: A Life on the Land by Sheila Stewart
11'19 - Hearing Secret Harmonies by Anthony Powell
22'28 - Lost Horizon by James Hilton
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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À Rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans
In a special edition of the show recorded at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, John and Andy are joined by the bookstore's owner Sylvia Whitman and author Adam Biles to discuss Huysmans' novel of aesthetic isolation A Rebours.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
8'20 - An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It: A John Murray Original by Jessie Greengrass,
17'19 - Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz,
26'35 - À Rebours by J.-K. Huysmans
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming
In a special Christmas edition (which of course can be listened to at any time of year) John & Andy welcome Jude and James Cook to discuss Ian Fleming's most festive Bond novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. There's discussion of the films, the music, and the sometimes questionable attitude to women, the French and drinking. Also talked about in the 'What We've Been Reading' slot; Kindred by Octavia Butler and Alys Fowler's Hidden Nature.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
6'40 - Hidden Nature by Alice Fowler
14'40 - Kindred by Octavia Butler
21'20 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Fire & Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
Author and illustrator Alice Stevenson and her childhood friend, playwright Elinor Cook join John and Andy to talk about Diana Wynne Jones's novel of memory, childhood and friendship.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
4'02 - Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
10'14 - The Journey Home and Other Stories by Malachi Whittaker
17'13 - Fire & Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn
In a special edition recorded earlier this year live at the Durham Book Festival, John and Andy are joined by writers Adele Stripe and Ben Myers to discuss Gordon Burn's debut novel Alma Cogan. The 'WHWBR?' slots are occupied by Pevsner's guide to Durham and The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
2'45 - County Durham Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England by Roberts, Martin, Pevsner, Nikolaus, Williamson, Elizabeth
10'35 - The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
16'26 - Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield
Writer and author Jenny Colgan joins John and Andy to discuss R.F. Delderfield's epic of life in an English boarding school between the wars. Craig Brown's 'Ma'am Darling' and 'Priestdaddy' by Patricia Lockwood are the books we've been reading this week.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
7'42 - Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
8'30 - Priest Daddy by Patricia Lockwood
13'45 - Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown
21'31 - To Serve Them All My Days by R F Delderfield
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
For our annual Halloween episode John Mitchinson and Andy Miller are joined by Fiona Wilson and Andrew Male to discuss Shirley Jackson's final novel 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'. In this show's 'What We Have Been Reading' slot John discusses 'True Ghost Stories of Our Own Time' by Vivienne Rae-Ellis, while Andy puts forward 'Going on the Turn', the third memoir from Danny Baker.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
5'07 - True Ghost Sories Of Our Own Time by Vivienne Rae-Ellis
11'52 - Going On The Turn by Danny Baker
20'59 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
In a special live edition of Backlisted, recorded in front of an audience at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, John and Andy are joined by Mark Haddon, author of 'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time' and Sally Bayley, author and tutor in English at Balliol and St. Hugh's Colleges, Oxford. The panel discuss Jacob's Room, the third novel from Virginia Woolf.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
4'42 - Love, Madness, FIshing by Dexter Petley
9'30 - The Lucky Ones by Julianne Pachico
15'42 - Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
Simon Garfield, author of The Wrestling, The Nation's Favourite and A Notable Woman, amongst others joins John and Andy to discuss William Goldman's groundbreaking account of his life as a Hollywood screenwriter.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
35'23 - Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Look At Me by Anita Brookner
In a long awaited episode John Mitchinson and Andy Miller are joined by Una McCormack and Lucy Scholes to discuss Anita Brookner's third novel 'Look At Me', a tale of intergalactic piracy in a far off star syste... No, not really. 'The Cake And The Rain', Jimmy Webb's memoir of life in the 60's music industry, and 'We That Are Young' a reworking of King Lear set in India by Preti Taneja, are the books John & Andy have been reading.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
6'09 - The Cake and the Rain by Jimmy Webb
9'50 - We that are Young by Preti Taneja
18'16 Look At Me by Anita Brookner
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
John and Andy are joined by poet, radio presenter, playwright and genuine Tyke Ian McMillan to discuss Malcolm Lowry's unique work Under the Volcano. Also; The Factory of Light by Michael Jacobs, and more Rosemary Tonks. Do you have a problem with that?
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
3'57 - The Factory of Light by Michael Jacobs
8'54 - The Bloater by Rosemary Tonks
15'20 - Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Some Bits To Listen To While We Go On Our Holidays
Even your favourite podcasts need to take a holiday... but hopefully this collection of off cuts, tall tales, terrible name dropping and the occasional bit of literary chat will help tide you over until we return at the beginning of September
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Author William Fiennes joins Andy and John for a bumper edition to talk about 'Desperate Characters', Paula Fox's New York set novel of relationships and feral cats. Also; William's First Story charity, Adam Scovell's Folk Horror and Sarah Hall's story collection Madame Zero, plus more on the mysterious Rosemary Tonks.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
13'34 - Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange by Adam Scovell
22'15 - The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall
33'48 - Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
In this edition of the podcast that gives new life to old books novelist Joanna Walsh and critic and academic Sarah Churchwell join John & Andy to talk about Anita Loos' Jazz Age novel. Also discussed: The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, and Bedouin of the London Evening, an anthology of poems by Rosemary Tonks.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
6'14 - The Fact of a Body by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
12'45 - Bedouin of the London Evening by Rosemary Tonks
25'11 - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson
Author and critic Alex Preston and Rachael Kerr, Unbound's Editor at large, join John and Andy around the table to discuss Charles Sprawson's ground breaking 'Haunts Of The Black Masseur', together with all things aquatic. The subtitle of the book is 'The Swimmer As Hero' and Sprawson's book tells the tale of literary swimmers from Byron to Cheever. Also discussed; Outskirts by John Grindrod and Bleaker House by Nell Stevens.
Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)
7'19 - Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of The Greenbelt by John Grindrod
13'42 - Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel to the End of the World by Nell Stevens
23'52 - Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Father and Son by Edmund Gosse
Sarah Perry, bestselling author of The Essex Serpent, joins John and Andy to discuss Edmund Gosse's account of growing up the son of a widowed Victorian fundementalist preacher. The trio also talk about Attrib. and Other Stories by Eley Williams, and Spanish Crossings, the second novel by John Simmons.
Timings (may differ due to variable advert length)
3'43 - Attrib. & Other Stories - Eley Williams
11'46 Spanish Crossing John Simmons
18'57 - Father and Son by Edmund Gosse.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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I'll Sleep When I'm Dead by Crystal Zevon
Author and editor Richard T. Kelly joins John and Andy in the studio to discuss 'I'll Sleep When I'm Dead' The Dirty Life And Times of Warren Zevon' by Crystal Zevon. They also discuss the art of the oral history, and run through some of their favourites, including Simon Garfield's The Wrestling and Edie - An Americana Biography by Jean Stein.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
9'57 - Edie by Jean Stein
17'20 - The Beatles Anthology
26'25 - The Wrestling by Simon Garfield
31'09 The Nations Favourite by Simon Garfield38'42 - I'll Sleep When I'm Dead by Crystal Zevon
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin
Novelist Niven Govinden joins John and Andy to discuss James Baldwin's 1968 novel 'Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone'. Also discussed: 'The World My Wilderness' by Rose Macaulay, and 'The Gallows Pole' by Ben Myers. Oh, and Lissa Evans' scene stealing turn in 'The Finest', the film adaptation of her WWII set novel.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
11'01 - Infinite Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff by Michael Nesmith
12'16 The World my Wilderness by Rose Macauley
15'51 - The Gallows Pole - Ben Myers
29'10 - Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Gift - Vladimir Nabokov
Writer and critic Catherine Taylor joins John and Andy to discuss Vladimir Nabokov's parting love letter to Russia and it's literature, The Gift. Also; singing with nightingales and reading Richard Mabey's book about the same bird, David Storey's Booker Prize winning 'Saville', and Bob Dylan's song and dance routine.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
9'22 - The Book of Nightingales by Richard Mabey
14'56 - Saville by David Storey
25'04 - The Gift - Vladimir Nabokov
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Honeymoon by Patrick Modiano
Novelist Rupert Thomson joins John & Andy to talk about the work of French author Patrick Modiano, who's work explores the effect of the German occupation of his homeland during the Second World War. There's also a special edition of 'What I've Read This Week', where John talks about 'Identity of England' by Robert Colls, while Andy sets a bit of a puzzle...
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
5'17 - Anon. by Anon.14'04 - Identity of England by Robert Coles
21'39 - Narcissism for Beginners by Martine McDonagh
24'00 - Honeymoon by Patrick Modiano
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
Novelist and writer Elizabeth Day joins John & Andy to discuss Rosamond Lehmann's 1936 novel of a young woman's affair with a married man. Also featured: Magnus Mills record store day novel 'The Forensic Record Society' and Clover Stroud's memoir 'The Wild Other'.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
5'06 - The Forensic Records Society by Magnus Mills
10'26 - The Wild Other by Clover Stroud
14'41 - The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Patrick Hamilton Extra Episode
Following on from the Slaves Of Solitude episode, here is an extra half hour of conversation about Patrick Hamilton. Please listen the the main episode before this one.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
Novelists Lissa Evans and Stuart Evers join Andy & John to discuss Patrick Hamilton's 1947 tale of boarding-house life in wartime. Also, this week Andy has been reading Keith Waterhouse, while John talks about Padgett Powell's 'The Interrogative Mood'. If you like this episode, the 'Hamilton Extra' edition continues the discussion, with even more gin & it...
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
4'40 - The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? by Padgett Powell
10'45 - Palace Pier by Keith Waterhouse
17'38 - The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Lincoln in the Bardo minicast
A little something extra for you, the lovely Backlisted listeners, and a departure from our usual subject matter - a new(ish) book! After recording the upcoming show on Patrick Hamilton's 'Slaves Of Solitude' with guests authors Lissa Evans and Stuart Evers, John & Andy took the opportunity to ask them what they thought of George Saunders' debut novel. Normal service will be resumed next week.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter
Andy & John are joined by literary agent Claire Conville and writer and author Rowan Pelling to discuss James Salter's 1967 novel of lust and imagination. The book, a description of an affair between an American college drop out and a French shop girl, has been acclaimed by critics as 'nearly perfect' and 'extraordinary'.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
5'08 - Rhapsody by Dorothy Edwards
9'54 - The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen, A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Snow Ball by Brigid Brophy
Novelist, critic & lecturer Jonathan Gibbs (a/k/a @Tiny_Camels) joins John & Andy to discuss The Snow Ball, Brigid Brophy's novel of seduction, aging and Mozart.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
5'15 - A Shepherd's Life - W H Hudson
10'31 - Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
19'07 - The Snow Ball by Brigid Bardo
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary
Max Porter, author of 'Grief Is The Thing With Feathers', joins John and Andy to talk about The Horse's Mouth, Joyce Cary's story of the life of the itinerant artist. Also discussed are Dark Money, Jane Mayer's account of the nexus of politics & wealth in the US, and Doreen by Barbara Noble, reissued by Persephone.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
5'47 - Doreen by Barabar Noble
13'07 - Dark Money by Jane Mayer
22'51 - The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Red Shift by Alan Garner
Critic and author Erica Wagner and novelist S.F. Said join John and Andy to discuss 'Red Shift', the fifth novel by Alan Garner. Also discussed: 'Brave New Weed' by Joe Dolce (no, not that one) and 'Nomad' by Alan Partridge (yes, that one).
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
8'05 - Brave New Weed by Joe Dolce
10'01 - Alan Partridge: Nomad by Steve Coogan
18'03 - Red Shift by Alan Garner
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Venetia by Georgette Heyer
This show sees John and Andy joined by Una McCormack and Cathy Rentzenbrink to discuss Venetia, one of the Regency Romance novels by Georgette Heyer. Includes mild language and various Georgian terms for drunkenness.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
5'41 - Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis
13'59 - Mad Shepherds by L.P. Jacks
18'41 - Venetia by Georgette Heyer
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A State of Denmark by Derek Raymond
In a bid to get our fear and creeping dread about the state of the world in early for 2017, author Travis Elborough (A Walk in The Park, The Bus We Loved, and The Long Player Goodbye) joins us to discuss A State of Denmark, the dystopian vision of England by Derek Raymond (a/k/a Robin Cook). Worst. Happy New Year. Programme. Ever. Enjoy!
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
3'00 - Food For All Seasons by Oliver Rowe
9'30 - Good Evening, Mrs.Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes
18'44 - A State of Denmark by Derek Raymond
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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A Long Way from Verona by Jane Gardam
John and Andy are joined by Laura Cumming, the art critic for The Observer and author of 'The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez', and Hilary Murray Hill, CEO at Hachette Children's Books, to talk bout Jane Gardam's debut novel 'A Long Way from Verona'.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
5'39 - The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
6'28 - Hark the Herald by Magnus Mills
6'55 - Christmas Day at the Work House by Angus Wilson8'00 - What to Look For In Winter
8'26 - An Advent Calendar by Shena MacKay
12'03 - Between the Lights by E F Benson
17'18 - A Long Way from Verona by Jane Gardam
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
Costa First Book nominee for My Name Is Leon, Kit de Waal joins John & Andy to discuss So Long, See You Tomorrow, the final novel by author and New Yorker literary editor William Maxwell.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
7'42 - You Took the Last Bus Home: The Poems of Brian Bilston
13'57 - My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal
21'14 - So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard
Monocle culture editor Robert Bound joins John and Andy to discuss JG Ballard's Spanish set thriller Cocaine Nights. Also, The Ballard-Bond connection, Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad, and the phrase you never want to hear John Mitchinson say in person...
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
4'10 - The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
11:51 - Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman
In a special Halloween edition, John Mitchinson and Andy Miller are joined by Andrew Male to discuss Cold Hand In Mine, a book of 'strange stories' by British writer Robert Aickman.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
5'34 - Autumn by Ali Smith
11'00 - British Popular Customs by Rev T.F. Thiselton Dyer
16'46 - Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Holiday by Stevie Smith
Recorded live at the Durham Book Festival 2016, John and Andy are joined by Sally Bayley (author, The Private Life Of The Diary) to discuss Stevie Smith's third and final novel The Holiday.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
13.28 - The Holiday by Stevie Smith
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell
Novelist, editor and critic Erica Wagner joins the Backlisted team to discuss one of her favourite books - The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell. Revolt Into Style, George Melly's groundbreaking discourse on pop culture, and Exmoor Village, a Mass Observation publication from 1947.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
3.46 - Exmoor Village by W. J. Turner
14.05 - Revolt In Style by George Melly
20.51 - The Animal Family
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Summer Reading Special - What We Read On Our Holidays
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Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes
Slang lexicographer extraordinaire Jonathon Green joins John and Andy in this episode to discuss Absolute Beginners, the classic novel of London teenage life set around Soho and Notting Hill.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
13'25 - Beast by Paul Kingsnorth
19'06 - Absolute Beginners by Colin Macinnes
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Crack Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In a special edition recorded at Port Eliot Festival, the Backlisted team welcome comedy writer Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show, Fresh Meat, The Thick Of It, Four Lions)to discuss F. Scott Fitzgerald's posthumously published collection of essays 'The Crack-Up'.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
2'38 - The Crack Up by F Scott Fitzgerald
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr
Author and poet Saleena Godden joins John Mitchinson, Andy Miller and Mathew Clayton to discuss Hubert Selby Jr's legendary transgressive novel of dead end life in working class 50's Brooklyn. WARNING: contains obligatory reference the The Fall.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
4'02 - Spire by William Golding
6'51 - Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
17'57 - Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Maiden Voyage by Denton Welch
Richard King, author of 'How Soon Is Now' and 'Original Rockers', visits Backlisted to talk about Maiden Voyage, an extraordinarily vivid memoir by Denton Welch of his early life in England and China.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
8'08 - Tristomania - Jay Griffiths
16'25 Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was by Sjon
24'02 Maiden Voyage by Denton Welch
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist by Jill Tweedie
Writer and journalist Alex Clark joins John Mitchinson and Andy Miller in a stormy (and then hammery) podcast to discuss 'Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist', a collection of very funny columns by Jill Tweedie, originally published in The Guardian.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
8'56 - The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger
15'23 - A Life Discarded by Alexander Masters
26'14 Letters From a Fainthearted Feminist by Jill Tweedie
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
Author Lloyd Shepherd joins the Backlisted crew in their small but functional vessel to discuss what some regard as the first ever spy novel 'The Riddle of the Sands' and the extraordinary life of its author Erskine Childers. You can read more about Lloyd's plans to recreate the books journey at The Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club page here: https://unbound.co.uk/books/riddle-of-the-sands
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
9'26 - Six Facets of Light by Ann Wroe
16'04 - Different Class by Joanne Harris
23'50 - Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
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The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns
Writer, academic and contributing editor of Bookanista Lucy Scholes joins Andy, John and Mathew on the pod to talk 'The Vet's Daughter', the extraordinary novel of an extraordinary girl in late Victorian South London. Also, how some books just shouldn't be turned into musicals, and the best name for a dog ever.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
6'19 - First Signs by Barry Hinds
13'40 - The North Water by Ian Maguire
21'09 - The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys & Girls by Terry Jones and Michael Palin
Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris, the creators of the Grown Up Ladybird series of picture books, join Andy Miller and Mathew Clayton to discuss Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls by Michael Palin and Terry Jones.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
7'37 - Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys & Girls by Terry Jones and Michael Palin
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin
Journalist, broadcaster and former editrice of The Erotic Review Rowan Pelling joins John, Andy and Mathew on the show to explain her love of Nigel Balchin's novel of the London Blitz, Darkness Falls From The Air.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
4'00 - Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
8'47 - The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner
16'55 Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
All the Devils Are Here by David Seabrook
Rachel Cooke, Observer writer, New Statesman TV critic and author joins John, Andy & Mathew to discuss 'All the Devils Are Here', the astounding travelogue through Kent and the depths of human behaviour from David Seabrook. Plus, the drinking habits of Carry On stars, and what to read in Iceland.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
3'36 - Dalva by Jim Harrison
8'46 - Life and Death of Harriett Frean by May Sinclair
17'55 - All the Devils Are Here by David Seabrook
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The High Window by Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler's 'The High Window', his third book featuring world weary detective Philip Marlowe, is introduced to Backlisted by Mojo magazine's Andrew Male. Plus the joys of walking in the rain in England, remembering Anita Brookner, and JG Ballard's unintentional mind games...
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
4'38 - Rain by Melissa Harrison
13'58 - Latecomers by Anita Brookner
21'53 - The High Window by Raymond Chandler
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Information by Martin Amis
Kill Your Friends author John Niven joins John, Andy & Mathew in the pod to discuss The information by Martin Amis, on the way answering the question 'if this book were a Britpop album, which Britpop album would it be?' This may or may not become a regular feature. There's also talk on how writers write, and the epoch defining moment when Andy met a punk rock legend.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
2'37 - The Devasting Boys by Elizabeth Taylor
6'37 - Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
13:06 - The Information by Martin Amis
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Sylvia Townsend Warner's debut novel 'Lolly Willowes' is the main book under discussion in this episode. It's nominated by journalist, author & playwright Samantha Ellis, and she discusses witchcraft, spinsters and the Chilterns with John, Andy and Mathew. Also touched on: epic poetry on Dartmoor in the rain, and J.B. Priestley's influence on David Bowie.
Timings:
3'41 Snowy Tower by Martin Shaw
11'23 - English Journey by J B Priestly / The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford
20'51 - Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
Author and playwright Alice Jolly joins the Backlisted crew to discuss The Great Fire by Australian author Shirley Hazzard. Also, AA Gill and Spike Milligan have been Read This Week, and why it might be too late to start listening to jazz in your 50's.
Timings:
3'04 - Puckoon by Spike Milligan
10'49 - Poor Me: A life by AA Gill
17:53 - The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Passing by Nella Larsen
In episode 6 of the Backlisted Podcast we're joined by Sarah Churchwell, professorial fellow in American literature and chair of public understanding of the humanities at the School of Advanced Study, the University of London (phew) to discuss 'Passing' by Nella Larsen. Also, John and Andy discuss the book they've both been reading this week, Breakdown by John Bratby.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
7'29 - Breakdown by John Bratby
20'16 - Passing by Nella Larsen
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
* If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson
Emmy award winning writer and broadcaster David Quantick (Veep, The Thick of It, TV Burp) joins John and Andy in the Unbound offices to discuss his favourite novel, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson. Plus how to pronounce Velasquez, Silbury Hill, the death of the possessive apostrophe in retail, and Mathew Clayton's tenuous link.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
4'23 - On Silbery Hill by Adam Thorpe
9'29 The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velazquez by Laura Cumming
15'21 - Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Blessing by Nancy Mitford
John, Andy and Mathew Clayton discuss Nancy Mitford's novel 'The Blessing' with Nancy's biographer Laura Thompson. Plus, what it feels like to finish 'Finnegans Wake', 'bloke's books', and the rudest word in the Gloucestershire dialect.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
2'34 - Finnigans Wake by James Joyce
5'06 - Third Girl by Agatha Christie
10'37 - Zero Zero Zero by Roberto Saviano
16'12 - The Blessing by Nancy Mitford
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It Had To Be You by David Nobbs
Andy Miller and John Mitchinson, a/k/a/ Leavis & Butthead, return with another episode of the podcast which gives new life to old books. In this episode they're joined by Jonathan Coe, author of The Rotter's Club and Oh! What A Carve Up amongst others, to discuss the life and work of David Nobbs, best known as the creator of Reginald Perrin.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
2'12 - Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
9'08 - The Holly Tree - Charles Dickens
16'34 - It Had To Be You by David Nobbs
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
John Mitchinson and Andy Miller are joined by author Linda Grant and Unbound's Mathew Clayton to discuss 'Good Morning, Midnight' by 'Wide Sargasso Sea' author Jean Rhys. Plus perfume, the previously unheard of genre of Scandinavian magic realism, and a mistake in the best selling science book of all time.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
1'49 - A Winter Book by Tove Jansson
9'46 - A Brief History of Time by Prof Stephen Hawking
17'30 - Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
In the first episode of a new podcast about books, John Mitchinson and Andy Miller are joined by novelist Lissa Evans and Unbound's Mathew Clayton discuss JL Carr's 'A Month in the Country'.
Timings: (may differ due to adverts)
1'58 - Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
19'03 - A Cotswold Village by J Arthur Gibbs
29'30 - A Month in the Country by J L Carr
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Podcasten Backlisted är skapad av Backlisted. Podcastens innehåll och bilderna på den här sidan hämtas med hjälp av det offentliga podcastflödet (RSS).
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.