248. The Eye of the Beholder by Marc Behm

Emmy Award-winning writer David Quantick (Veep, The Thick of It) joins Andy and Una for a discussion of Marc Behm's surreal thriller The Eye of the Beholder (1980). David last appeared on Backlisted almost ten years ago, waaay back on episode 5. On that occasion he brought with him Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson. It is no exaggeration to say The Eye of the Beholder gives that novel a run for its money in terms of sheer audacity, originality and mystery. Marc Behm himself was hardly less enigmatic. He won an Oscar for his screenplay for Stanley Donen's film Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn; in 1965 he co-wrote the Beatles' second feature film Help! As a novelist, he was hugely popular in France, while remaining virtually unknown in America and the UK. We take a close look at The Eye of the Beholder and the long view of his remarkable and unique career. 

On Mon 27th Oct 2025, Backlisted is recording a show at 92NY in New York, on William Maxwell at the New Yorker. Tickets are available now from https://www.92ny.org

On Wed 29th Oct 2025, we are recording a second show at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, NYC, a special episode on books by Bob Dylan, including Tarantula and Chronicles Vol. 1. Tickets are available now from: https://bitterend.com

Books mentioned:

Mark Behm - The Eye of the Beholder; Afraid to Death
David Quantick - And Other Stories; Ricky’s Hand; Night Train
B.S. Johnson - Christy Malry’s Own Double Entry
Andy Miller - The Kinks' The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
John Swartzwelder - Dead Detective Mountain

Other links:

Help! (Richard Lester, 1965)
Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963)
The Eye of the Beholder (Stephan Elliott, 1999)

246. The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

Leonora Carrington's charming and surreal novel The Hearing Trumpet (1976, probably) is the subject of this episode. Joining Una, Andy and Nicky is author and lecturer Dr Paul March-Russell, who offers insights into all aspects of Carrington's career. Leonora Carrington lived a long and extraordinary life; we discuss the ways in which her biography intersects not just with her books, but her remarkable paintings and sculptures, which at auction now fetch tens of millions of dollars. How did the daughter of a Lancashire industrialist become first a muse to the Surrealists, and then an artist in her own right, whose visionary work will probably outlast theirs? How did the many challenges she faced - institutional, sexist, financial and health - shape her writing? And why, as Paul suggests, is Leonora Carrington so relevant to young artists today? Point your hearing trumpets at wherever you get your podcasts.

On Mon 27th Oct 2025, Backlisted is recording a show at 92NY in New York, on William Maxwell at the New Yorker. Tickets are available now from https://www.92ny.org.

On Wed 29th Oct 2025, we are recording a second show at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, NYC, a special episode on books by Bob Dylan, including Tarantula and Chronicles Vol. 1. Tickets are available now from https://bitterend.com.

Books mentioned
Leonora Carrington - The Hearing Trumpet; The Debutante and Other Stories; The Milk of Dreams
Gabriel Weisz Carrington - The Invisible Painting: My Memoir of Leonora Carrington
Joanna Moorheard: The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington
Dr Paul March-Russell - The Short Story: An Introduction; Modernism and Science Fiction; J.G. Ballard’s “Crash”

Other links
Goldsmiths Press / Gold SF - https://mitpress.mit.edu/series/goldsmiths-press-gold-sf/

245. A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney

Dave Haslam and Melanie Williams join us to discuss A Taste of Honey (1958), Shelagh Delaney's first play, written and produced when the author was not yet 20 years old. To describe this as an expert panel would be an understatement: Dave Haslam is a former resident DJ at the legendary Haçienda club in Manchester and the author of Manchester, England: The Story of the Pop Cult City; Melanie Williams is a professor of film studies at UEA whose most recent book was the BFI monograph on the big screen adaptation of A Taste of Honey (1961). How did a Salford teenager change the face of British theatre? Nearly 70 years on, why do the play's themes and characters continue to resonate in the 21st century? And what did Shelagh Delaney do for an encore (and why do so few people know about it)? This show will open your eyes. 

On 27th Oct 2025 Backlisted is recording a show at 92NY in New York, on William Maxwell at the New Yorker. Tickets are available now from https://www.92ny.org.

Books mentioned
Shelagh Delaney - A Taste of Honey; The Lion in Love; Sweetly Sings the Donkey
Dave Haslam - Manchester, England: The Story of the Pop Cult City; Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor: Music, Manchester, and More;
Melanie Williams - Female Stars of British Cinema; A Taste of Honey: BFI Film Classics

Other links
Charlie Bubbles (film)
The House That Jack Built (TV series) 
The White Bus (short film) 

244. The Ballad of Halo Jones by Alan Moore

The writer Alan Moore is the subject of this long-awaited episode. Joining Andy and Una is the author and dramatist Simon Guerrier, who has chosen The Ballad of Halo Jones, Moore's collaboration with illustrator Ian Gibson. It was first appeared in weekly instalments in the British comic 2000 AD, before being published in omnibus form by Titan Books in 1986. It tells the story of a bored teenage girl looking for a way out of her humdrum 30th-century existence. For reasons discussed in the show, Moore and Gibson never completed… Halo Jones, but the saga remains a landmark of British comic books nonetheless. We also take a look at several of Moore's other projects, including (deep breath) Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Jerusalem, Top Ten, Neonomicon and Providence, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and From Hell, and explore what makes him both the most influential figure in modern comics and a British cultural icon. We also hear from the great man himself, offering words of writing wisdom as only he can. PS. Just don't refer to them as "graphic novels".

Books mentioned
Alan Moore - The Ballad of Halo Jones; Watchmen; V for Vendetta; The Great When; Jerusalem; Top Ten; Neonomicon; Providence; The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; From Hell
Simon Guerrier - Sherlock Holmes and the Great War; Dr Who: Time-Travelling Almanac; Dr Who: Whotopia
Una McCormack - Dr Who: The Robot Collection (Target Collection)

Other links
2000 AD - https://2000ad.com/
Una’s brother’s fundraiser - https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/nuala-mccormack-1
Una’s brother’s Youtube diary - https://www.youtube.com/@niallmccormack-teararoa

243. Angel by Elizabeth Taylor

Angel (1957) by the English writer Elizabeth Taylor, is the subject of this special episode - and, as you'll hear, the next episode of Locklisted too. Joining Andy and Una for a hotly disputed umpteenth appearance on the podcast is our guest, the critic and broadcaster Andrew Male. We last featured Elizabeth Taylor in 2019 when we discussed The Soul of Kindness (1964) on episode 102. Now we are revisiting this most Backlisted of authors, with perhaps her most Backlisted novel, Angel, about a character who could herself be the subject of a Backlisted episode, Angel Deverell, neglected lady novelist and sacred monster. The conversations we have had on Backlisted over the last decade return again and again to the themes of this magnificent book: the craft of writing; popularity with the public vs literary merit; separating the art from the artist; the problem of 'likability'; the burden of narrative; and the pitiless mechanics of the book business. Writers such as Hilary Mantel, Philip Hensher and Anita Brookner have all described Angel as a masterpiece and, without revealing the plot of this episode, and its spontaneous sequel, we could hardly agree more.

Books mentioned
Elizabeth Taylor - Angel; The Soul of Kindness; A Game of Hide and Seek; In A Summer Season; Complete Short Stories; Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont; A View Of The Harbour; The Wedding Group
Nicola Beaumon - The Other Elizabeth

Other links
Tales of the Unexpected - ‘The Flypaper’ (watch)

242. 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.

Books mentioned
Sylvia Townsend Warner - The Corner That Held Them; Lolly Willowes; Summer Will Show; Mr Fortune’s Maggot; The True Heart; After the Death of Don Juan

241. Summer Reading Special

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.

Books mentioned
Kaliane Bradley - The Ministry of Time 
Hervé Le Tellier trans. Adriana Hunter - The Anomaly
Ted Hughes - Poetry in the Making  
Alexander Baron - The Lowlife

240. 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.

Books mentioned
Sue Townsend - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾; The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole; The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole; Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years; Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction; Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years; The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001
Nina Stibbe - Love Nina: Despatches from Family Life; Man at the Helm; Paradise Lodge; Reasons to be Cheerful; An Almost Perfect Christmas; One Day I Shall Astonish the World; Went To London Took The Dog: The Diary of a 60 Year Old Runaway
Raymond Briggs - Fungus the Bogeyman
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Other links
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ -Audio Book read by Stephen Mangan
Archive on 4: Remembering Sue Townsend, Aged 68 ¾
The Secret Life of Adrian Mole TV series - Youtube (full series)
Ian Dury - Profoundly in love with Pandora

239. 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, unexpectedly funny.

Books mentioned
Simone de Beauvoir - The Image of Her; The Second Sex; The Inseparables; A Very Easy Death
Lauren Elkin - Flâneuse: Women Walk the City; Scaffolding; Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art; No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute

238. 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!"

Books mentioned
Wu Cheng'en - Monkey King: Journey to the West (translated by Julia Lovell)
Wu Cheng’en - Monkey King Makes Havoc in Heaven (Penguin Archive)
Kaliane Bradley - The Ministry of Time
Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote (translated by Edith Grossman)
John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress
Jay Griffiths - Nemesis, My Friend

Other links
Watch Monkey
Journey to the West (soundtrack by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett)
Penguin Archive - 90 classic titles celebrating 90 years

237. 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.

Books mentioned
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day; The Unconsoled
Chris Chibnell - Death at the White Hart

Other links
Kazuo Ishiguro - Desert Island Discs (2002)

236. 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 Totalitarianism and 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 Jewish 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: Lessons in Love and Disobedience (Vintage) was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2024.

Books mentioned
Hannah Arendt - What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt; The Origins of Totalitarianism; The Human Condition; Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil; On Revolution, On Violence; On Men in Dark Times
Elif Shafak - There are Rivers in the Sky; The Island of Missing Trees; 10 Minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World; The Forty Rules of Love  
Lyndsey Stonebridge - Placeless People:Writings, Rights and Refugees; The Judicial Imagination: Writing after Nuremberg; Writing and Righting: Literature in the Age of Human Rights; We are Free to Change the World: Lessons in Love and Disobedience 
Walter Benjamin - Illuminations 
Samantha Rose Hill - Hannah Arendt

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235. 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? 

Books mentioned
Sybille Bedford - A Compass Error; Jigsaw; Pleasures and Landscapes; A Visit to Don Otavio; The Faces of Justice
Krista Cowman - Women of the Right Spirit!  Paid Organizers of the Women's Social and Political Union, 1904 - 18
Francesca Reece - Voyeur; Glass Houses 
Christopher Isherwood - Goodbye to Berlin
Patrick Modiano - Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas; Missing Person
Norman Lewis - Voices of the Old Sea

Other links
Hilary Mantel - A Past Recaptured (2001, The New York Review of Books)

234. 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". 

Books mentioned
Elia Kazan - A Life
John Lahr - Notes on a Cowardly Lion; Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton; Diary of a Somebody and Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman; All My Sons
Thornton Wilder - The Skin of Our Teeth

Other links
On the Waterfront
East of Eden
A Face in the Crowd
Wild River

233. Biographies and Memoirs

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.

Books mentioned
Nancy Mitford - Madame de Pompadour; Love in a Cold Climate 
Roger Lewis - The Real Life of Laurence Olivier; Erotic Vagrancy: Everything about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor 
Elizabeth Jane Howard - Slipstream 
P.D. James - Time to Be in Earnest
Jean Rhys - Smile Please
Laura Thompson - The Last Landlady; Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters

232. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban - Rerun

Due to an unfortunate bout of flu, we've had to postpone the Biographies and Memoirs special until next week. So in lieu of that we offer a rerun of one of our classic episodes with a new introduction from John.

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.

Books mentioned:
Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker; Turtle Diary; Pilgermann; The Moment Under the Moment
Max Porter - Grief is the Thing with Feathers; Lanny
Una McCormack - The Undefeated
David Jones - In Parenthesis
Anthony Burgess - Ninety-nine Novels - The Best in English since 1939 - A Personal Choice
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
Iain M. Banks - Feersum Endjinn
Will Self - The Book of Dave
Paul Kingsnorth - The Wake
William Golding - The Inheritors

Other links:
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - ‘Old Fart at Play’ (from Trout Mask Replica, 1969)
Russell Hoban lecture (1990)
Rowan Williams on Riddley Walker in the New York Times (May 2019)
Riddley Walker Annotations -useful reference site
Russell Hoban Official Website
The Head of Orpheus - A Russell Hoban Reference Page

231. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Revisit

This episode we revisit a classic show from November 2021.

It is Backlisted's 150th show and 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).

Books mentioned:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Notes from Underground (trs. Constance Garnett); Crime & Punishment (trs. Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky); The Gambler (tr. Jane Kentish)
Arifa Akbar - Consumed: A Sister’s Story
Alex Christofi - Dostoevsky in Love; Let Us Be True; What Doesn't Kill You: Fifteen Stories of Survival
Gwendoline Riley - My Phantoms; My Phantoms (audiobook read by Helen McAlpine ); First Love
Vanessa Onmuewezi - Dark Neighbourhood
Fenanda Melchor - Hurricane Season (trs. Sophie Hughes)
Nikolai Chernyshevsky - What is To Be Done?
Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis & Other Stories (trs. Michael Hofmann)
Hemann Melville - Bartleby the Scrivener
Rowan Williams - Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction
Vladimir Nabokov - Lectures on Russian Literature

230. 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:

Fat Time and Other Stories by Jeffery Renard Allen (Graywolf Press)
The Girls: A Story of Village Life by John Bowen (McNally Editions)
All My Precious Madness by Mark Bowles (Galley Beggar)
The North Road by Rob Cowen (Heinemann Hutchinson)
Box Office Poison: Hollywood's Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey (Faber)
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Faber)
Black and White Baby by Bobby Short (Dodd, Mead and Company) - https://archive.org/details/blackwhitebaby00shor/mode/2up
The Fraud by Zadie Smith (Penguin)
Base Notes: The Scents of a Life by Adelle Stripe (White Rabbit)
Earth to Moon: A Memoir by Moon Unit Zappa (White Rabbit)

229. 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.

Books mentioned
Herman Melville - Moby Dick
Erica Wagner - Chief Engineer: The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
Jarred McGinnis - The Coward

Other links
Andy’s festive playlist
Burt Reynolds - Moby Dick audiobook
Moby Dick full film with Gregory Peck (1956)
2016 Nobel Literature Lecture with Bob Dylan

228. 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.

Books mentioned
Norman Lewis - Voices of the Old Sea; Naples ‘44; Jackdaw Cake; A Dragon Apparent and Golden Earth
Katrina Porteous - The Lost Music; Two Countries; Edge; Rhizodont
Patrick Galbraith - In Search of One Last Song: Britain’s Disappearing Birds and the People Trying to Save Them; Uncommon Ground: Rethinking our Relationship with the Countryside 
Julian Evans - Semi-Invisible Man: The Life of Norman Lewis

Other links
The Poetry of Fishing (Katrina) - https://katrinaporteousdotcodotuk.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/the-poetry-of-fishing/
Don McCullin on Norman Lewis (BBC Radio 4) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09111hc
BBC Naples ‘44 (television documentary)
The Time Traveller 1966 (television documentary)