171. Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic

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.

Books mentioned:

Roadside Picnic; Monday starts on Saturday; The Inhabited Island; The Snail on the Slope; Hard to be a God by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
The Foghorn's Lament: The Disappearing Music of the Coast by Jennifer Lucy Allan
The High House by Jessie Greenglass
Everybody by Olivia Laing
Zona by Geoff Dyer
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Rosewater by Tade Thompson
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep; Ubik; The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick

Other links:

Stanislaw Lem on Roadside Picnic
Den of Geek article on the adaptations of Roadside Picnic
Illustrations from the adandoned TV adaptation of Roadside Picnic
Boris Strugatsky on working with Tarkovesky
Geoff Dyer on Stalker
Andrei Tarkovsky interviewed by Tonino Guerra about Stalker (1979)
Guapo - A History of Visitation (2013 album inspired by Roadside Picnic)

170. Elizabeth Gaskell - North and South

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 Aridjis’s Dialogue with a Somnambulist, the Mexican novelist’s recent collection of stories, essays and pen portraits.

Books mentioned:

Elizabeth Gaskell - North and South; Cranford; Mary Barton; The Life of Charlotte Brontë
Jennifer Egan - A Visit from the Goon Squad; The Candy House
Nell Stevens - Mrs Gaskell & Me; Briefly, A Delicious Life
Anwen Crawford - No Document
Chloe Aridjis - Dialogue with a Somnambulist
John Chapple & Arthur Pollard (eds) - The Letters of Mrs Gaskell
John Chapple & Alan Shelston (eds) - The Further Letters of Mrs Gaskell
Jenny Uglow - Elizabeth Gaskell
Charles Dickens - Hard Times
Charlotte Brontë - Shirley

Other links:

The Gaskell Society
Elizabeth Gaskell at the British Library
’The Unjustly Overlooked Victorian Novelist Elizabeth Gaskell’ by Hannah Rosefield, New Yorker, Sep 2018

169. Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

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).

Books mentioned:

Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; The Abundance
Jay Griffiths - Wild: An Elemental Journey; Nemesis, My Friend
Geoff Dyer - The Last Days of Roger Federer
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt - Pages from the Goncourt Journals
Katherine Rundell - Super Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne

Other links:

Annie Dillard talks to David Remnick for The New Yorker Radio Hour, 2016
Annie Dillard talks to Melissa Block, NPR 2016
Annie Dillard’s reads ‘Dots in Blue Water’ NPR, 2005
Mockingbird Song
'The Thoreau of the Suburbs', Diana Saverin, The Atlantic, Feb 2015
Silent All These Years by Brian VanDyke, The Millions Sept 2021
Annie Dillard’s website
Jay Griffiths’ website
Geoff Dyer’s website

168. Helen DeWitt - Lightning Rods

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.

Books mentioned:

Helen DeWitt - Lightning Rods; The Last Samurai; Some Trick; The English Understand Wool
Ruth M. Arthur - The Autumn People/The Autumn Ghosts
Sarah Churchwell - The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells
Jonathan Swift - A Modest Proposal and Other Writings

Other links:

Helen DeWitt talking to the Paris Review
Helen DeWitt answers questions on Lightning Rods, 2011
Helen DeWitt at New Directions
Helen DeWitt's website and blog
New Directions Publishing
Ben Moor’s Edinburgh shows

167. John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos

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 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.

Books Mentioned:

John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos; The Day of the Triffids; The Chrysalids; Trouble With Lichen; Chocky; Consider her Ways and Others
Margaret Kennedy - The Feast
Julia Blackburn - The Wren

Other Links:

John Wyndham Interview with Derek Hart on Tonight (1960)
The Hazel Press

166. Paul Theroux - The Kingdom By the Sea

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).

Books mentioned:

Paul Theroux - The Kingdom By the Sea; The Great Railway Bazaar; The Happy Isles of Oceania; The Mosquito Coast
Jonathan Raban - Coasting
Fiona Benson - Ephemeron
Felicity Cloake - Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey
George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier
W.G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn
Roger Deakin - Waterlog
Iain Sinclair - Lights Out for the Territory
Bill Bryson - Notes From a Small Island
Daniel Defoe - A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain
Samuel Johnson & James Boswell - A Journey through the Western Isles of Scotland
Michael Bracewell - Souvenir
Anne Theroux - The Year of the End

Other links:

Paul Theroux on Arena: Blackpool (BBC, 1989)
Auberon Waugh reviews The Kingdom By the Sea in the New York Times
Review of The Year of the End by Anne Theroux - Rachel Cooke (Guardian, Jul 2021)

165. Mervyn Peake - Gormenghast

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).

Books mentioned:

Mervyn Peake - Titus Groan; Gormenghast; Titus Alone; Titus Awakes; The Gormenghast Trilogy
Joanne Harris - Chocolat; A Narrow Door
Gwendolyn Brooks - Maud Martha
Kay Dick - They
Rachel Ingalls - Mrs Caliban
Wilson Harris - Palace of the Peacock
Emeric Pressburger - The Glass Pearls
Geoff Dyer - The Last Days of Roger Federer & Other Endings
James Joyce - Ulysses
Thomas Love Peacock - Nightmare Abbey
Victor Hugo - Les Miserables; Notre-Dame de Paris
J. L. Husymans - A Rebors
John Braine- Room at the Top
Albert Canus - The Outsider
Joe Orton - Entertaining Mr Sloane
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman - 1066 & All That
Colin Wilson - The Outsider

Other links:

Hundred Years of Mervyn Peake
Desert Island Discs, Sir Ranulph Fiennes:
Desert Island Discs, Keith Floyd:
The Mervyn Peake official website:
Peake Studies
The Cure, Faith
Gormenghast (2000) on Amazon Prime:
Joanne Harris website
New Folio Society edition of the Gormenghast Trilogy (sic), illustrated by Dave McKean and with an introduction by Neil Gaiman, it costs £745 plus P&P but knock yourselves out!

164. Elizabeth Bowen - The Death of the Heart

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.

Books mentioned:

Elizabeth Bowen - The Death of the Heart; The Last September; The House in Paris; Eva Trout; The Selected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen (edited by Tessa Hadley); Collected Stories (introduction by Angus Wilson); The Mulberry Tree (edited by Hermione Lee)
Tessa Hadley - Free Love; Late in the Day
George Ewart Evans - Where Beards Wag All; Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay
Robert Ashton - Where are the Fellows Who Cut the Hay?
Tom de Freston - Wreck: Géricault’s Raft & the Art of Being Lost at Sea
Dan Baum - Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death & Life in New Orleans
Hugh Walpole - Rogue Herries
Ivy Compton Burnett - More Women than Men
Henry Green - Living, Loving , Party Going

Other links:

Elizabeth Bowen - Truth and Fiction, BBC 1956
Elizabeth Bowen interview, 1959
The Death of the Heart, 1987 film adaptation
The Elizabeth Bowen Society
Channel 4 documentary on three Anglo-Irish sisters, 1986
Tessa Hadley on re-reading Elizabeth Bown, LRB (9 Feb, 2020)

163. Oscar Wilde - De Profundis

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 in 1897 'from the depths' of Wilde's incarceration in Reading Gaol. 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.

Books mentioned:

Oscar Wilde - De Profundis & Other Prison Writings (edited by Colm Tóibín); The Importance of Being Earnest & Other Plays (edited by Peter Raby); The Soul of Man Under Socialism & Selected Critical Prose
Stephen Fry - Fry’s Ties; Stephen Fry’s Inside Your Mind (Audio)
Hayley Campbell - All the Living & the Dead
Tom Cox - Villager
Matthew Sturgis - Oscar: A Life
Richard Ellmann - Oscar Wilde
Emmanuel Carrère - The Kingdom

Other links

Bunthorne sings "Am I Alone and Unobserved?" from Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience (1891)
De Profundis read by Simon Russell Beale, introduction by Merlin Holland
De Profundis: Oscar Wilde's Letter from Inside (BBC Radio 4, 2016)
Omnibus: Oscar (BBC One, 1997)
Prisoner C33 (BBC Four, 2022)
Neil Bartlett reads the whole of De Profundis in the old chapel of Reading Prison, 2016
Patti Smith reads extracts from De Profundis in the old chapel of Reading Prison, 2016
Rupert Everett reads ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ in the old chapel of Reading Prison, 2016
Stephen Fry in Wilde (Brian Gilbert, 1997)
The Happy Prince (Rupert Everett, 2018)
John Betjeman and Jim Parker, ‘The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel’ (from Betjeman's Banana Blush, Charisma Records 1974)
Colm Tóibín on De Profundis, 2016
The Oscar Wilde Society

162. Natalia Ginzburg - Family Lexicon

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.

Books mentioned:

Natalia Ginzburg - Family Lexicon (translated by Jenny McPhee); The Little Virtues (translated by Dick Davis); Voices in the Evening (translated by D.M. Low); The Dry Heart (translated by Frances Frenaye); All Our Yesterdays (translated by Angus Davidson); Valentino & Sagittarius (translated by Avril Bardoni)
Vashti Bunyan - Wayward
Sheila Armstrong - How to Gut a Fish
Tove Ditlevsen - Childhood, Adulthood, Dependency: the Copenhagen Trilogy (translated by Tiina Nunnally & Michael Favala Goldman)
Gerald Durrell - My Family & Other Animals
Giorgio Bassani - The Garden of the Fonzi-Continis (translated by Jamie MacKendrick)
Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend - Book 1 in the Neapolitan Trilogy (translated by Ann Goldstein)
Donatella Di Pietrantonio - A Girl Returned (translated by Ann Goldstein)

Other links:

Emily Rhodes’ Walking Book Club
Old Memories
Colm Tóibín on Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg interview on Italian TV, 1964
Pier Paolo Pasolini - The Gospel According to St Matthew (1964)

161. Andrew Salkey - Escape to An Autumn Pavement & Jamaica

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 revisted. This episode 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.

Books mentioned:

Andrew Salkey - Escape to an Autumn Pavement; Jamaica; Away; Hurricane
Margaret Busby - Daughters of Africa (ed); New Daughters of Africa (ed)
Raymond Antrobus - The Perseverance; All the Names Given; Can Bears Ski?
Summer Pierre - All the Sad Songs
Preti Taneja - Aftermath
Sam Selvon - The Lonely Londoners
George Lamming - The Pleasures of Exile
Colin Macinnes - Absolute Beginners
Roger Mais - Black Lightning
Ursula Le Guin - The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories
Robin Costs Lewis - Voyage of the Sable Venus
Monique Roffey - The Mermaid of Black Conch

Other links:

Lord Kitchener - ‘My Landlady’
Andrew Salkey reading his poetry and being interviewed by Henry Lyman, 1986
George Lamming interviewed by Huw Weldon, Monitor 1960
Caribbean Voices: Paul Mendez on Andrew Salkey

160. Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49

For this episode both our guests are old Backlisted hands: 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.

Books Mentioned:

Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49; Against the Day; Gravity’s Rainbow
Susie Boyt - Loved & Missed
Ilya Kaminsky - Deaf Republic
Sarah Churchwell - The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe; Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream; The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Myth of the Lost Cause
Sam Leith - You Talkin’ to Me: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama; Write to the Point: How to be Clear, Correct and Persuasive on the Page

Other links:

Deaf Republic audiobook
CNN report, 1997
Inherent Vice book trailer:
Pynchon on The Simpsons:
The Story of the US Mail, 1954:

159. Raymond Briggs - Fungus the Bogeyman

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).

Books mentioned:

Raymond Briggs - Fungus the Bogeyman; Father Christmas; The Snowman; When the Wind Blows; Ethel & Ernest; UG: Boy Genius of the Stone Age and His Search for Soft Trousers; The Man; Notes from the Sofa; Time For Lights Out
Nadia Shireen- Grimwood; The Bumblebear
Tom de Freston - Wreck: Géricault’s Raft and the Art of Being Lost at Sea
Jessica Au - Cold Enough for Snow
Robert Burton - An Anatony of Melancholy
Edmund Burke - A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime
Thomas Carlyle - Sartor Resartus

Other links:

David Bowie introduction to The Snowman, 1984
Paul McCartney - ‘Bogey Music’ from McCartney II (1980)
Raymond Briggs, Desert Island Discs, 1983
Raymond Briggs, Desert Island Discs, 2005
Raymond Briggs discusses Fungus the Bogeyman on TV, 1979
When the Wind Blows, BFI DVD
Ethel & Ernest Trailer
Raymond Briggs: Snowmen, Bogeymen and Milkmen (documentary, 2019)

158. Winifred Holtby - South Riding

Our guests are Tanya Kirk, Lead Curator of Printed Heritage Collections 1601-1900 at The British Library, and Backlisted's old friend Una McCormack, a New York Times bestselling author. We are discussing Winifred Holtby's classic final novel South Riding, published posthumously in 1936 and widely admired for its broad canvas of social realism and as a classic of early feminism. Also in this episode John updates us on his progress through Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacob (Fitzcarraldo), translated by Jennifer Croft; while Andy has been reading My Rock 'n' Roll Friend (Canongate), Tracey Thorn's memoir of her longstanding friendship with Lindy Morrison, the former drummer of The Go-Betweens.

Books mentioned:

Winifred Holtby - South Riding; Land of Green Ginger; Mando, Mandoa; The Crowded Street; Poor Caroline; Virginia Woolf: A Critical Memoir
Tracey Thorn - My Rock ‘n’ Friend
Olga Tokarczuk - The Books of Jacob
Tanya Kirk & Lucy Evans - Sunless Solstice: Strange Christmas Tales for the Longest Nights (British Library Tales of the Weird)
Una McCormack - The Autobiography of Mr Spock
George Eliot - Middlemarch
Robert Tressell - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Vera Brittain - Testament of Youth; Testament of Friendship
Mary Stott (ed) - Women Talking: An Anthology from the Guardian Women's Page 1922-1971
Nicola Griffith - Slow River
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
Marion Shaw - The Clear Stream: A Life of Winifred Holtby

Other links:

South Riding, 1938 British film adaptation
South Riding, 1948 US radio adaptation
South Riding, adapted by Stan Barstow, Yorkshire TV, 1974
Trailer for South Riding, adapted by Andrew Davies, BBC TV, 2011

157. Winter Reading Special II - Short Stories

This episode of Backlisted features Andy, John and Nicky chatting about short stories and the perennial appeal of the form to both writers and readers. This is a sequel to the first Winter Reading show we posted in January. Books under discussion include Wendy Erskine's new collection Dance Move; The Voice in My Ear by Frances Leviston; Rupert Thomson's memoir This Party's Got to Stop; Randall Jarrell's Book of Stories; A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders; and, ahead of our full episode on her novel South Riding, coming next week, Pavements at Anderby by Winifred Holtby. Andy reads a story entitled ‘The Old Spot’ from the latter volume which has not been republished, anthologised or broadcast in full since its original appearance in 1937. (He promises to work on his Yorkshire accent in the meantime.)

Books mentioned:

Wendy Erskine - Dance Move
Frances Leviston - The Voice in My Ear
Rupert Thomson - This Party’s Got to Stop
Randall Jarrell - Randall Jarell’s Book of Stories
George Saunders - A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Winifred Holtby - Remember, Remember! - Selected Stories

156. Dorothy L. Sayers - Gaudy Night

Authors Harriet Evans (The Beloved Girls) and Francesca Wade (Square Haunting) join us to celebrate Dorothy L. Sayers's 'novel not without detection' Gaudy Night (1935), perhaps the high point in the classic series of books featuring Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey. Sayers was a feminist pioneer and we discuss her intellectual life and brilliant and unorthodox career. Also in this episode, John dips into The Art of the Glimpse (Head of Zeus), an anthology of Irish short stories edited by Sinéad Gleeson, and reads something short and magical by Dermot Healy; and Andy recommends Tessa Hadley's new book Free Love (Jonathan Cape) in these terms: "Imagine Elizabeth Taylor had written a novel inspired by Richard Thompson's ‘Beeswing’”.

Book mentioned:

Dorothy L. Sayers - Gaudy Night; Strong Poison; Have His Carcasse; Murder Must Advertise; The Nine Tailors
Sinéad Gleason (ed.) - The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories
Tessa Hadley - Free Love
Harrier Evans - The Beloved Girls; The Garden of Lost & Found
Francesca Wade - Square Haunting

Other links:

British Council Film: Oxford (1941)
Edward Petherbridge on playing Lord Peter Wimsey
Great Lives: Dorothy L. Sayers (2014)
Gaudy Night: A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery (BBC TV adaptation)
The Dorothy L. Sayers Society

155. Stephen Sondheim - Finishing the Hat & Look, I Made a Hat

Stephen Sondheim's biographer David Benedict and writer and musician Jason Hazeley join us for a special episode devoted to Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made Hat, the late and very great songwriter's two volumes of lyrics, memoir, criticism and much more, first published in 2010 and 2011; Sondheim's work defies easy categorisation and these glorious books are no exception.

NB. This show contains many expert recommendations for further listening and, as you'll hear, putting it together was a real thrill. Somehow we also find time to discuss the novel O Caledonia, a modern Scottish classic by Elspeth Barker, and Finna, the second collection by American poet Nate Marshall.

Books mentioned:

Stephen Sondheim - Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (via Internet Archive)
Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011), with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany (Kindle Edition)
James Lapine - Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George"
Nate Marshall - Finna
Elspeth Barker - O, Caledonia
Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle
William Strunk - The Elements of Style

Other links:

Sunday in the Park with George, original Broadway production
Sunday in the Park with Stephen, BBC 1990
South Bank Show on Sweeney Todd, 1980
South Bank Show Revisited, 2010
Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened: Merrily We Roll Along, Netflix 2016
Original Cast Album: Company, documentary by D.A. Pennebaker, 1980
West Side Story (1961)
Into the Stephen Sondheim Archive, Radio 4, Dec 2021
The Stephen Sondheim Society, a charitable trust and invaluable resource

154. Winter Reading Special

Happy New Year!

We begin 2022 with a stack of books to see us through the winter: poetry, history, fiction and science. Andy, John and Nicky discuss and read from The Kids by Hannah Lowe (Bloodaxe); The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow (FSG/Allen Lane); Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien (MacLehose Press); Men Who Feed Pigeons by Selima Hill (Bloodaxe); The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk (Fitzcarraldo Editions); The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English by Hana Videen (Profile Books); Eat or We Both Starve by Victoria Kennefick (Carcanet). Plus there's a special quiz to kick things off.

Please support us and unlock bonus material on our Patreon.

Books mentioned:

Hannah Lowe - The Kids
David Graeber and David Wengrow -The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
Daniela Krien - Love in Five Acts (translated by Jamie Bulloch)
Selima Hill - Men Who Feed Pigeons
Olga Tokarczuk -The Books of Jacob (translated by Jennifer Croft)
Hana Videen - The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English
Victoria Kennefick - Eat or We Both Starve

153. E. Nesbit - The Railway Children

Merry Xmas everybody! Our friends Katherine Rundell and Frank Cottrell-Boyce, two wonderful guest authors, join us to celebrate the life and work of Edith Nesbit and perhaps her best-loved novel, The Railway Children (1906).

This podcast has it all: cracker jokes and conversation, readings and music, laughter and tears, a forthright debate over whether Daddy is innocent or guilty, and even a special Christmas quiz featuring tenuous links - have a pen and piece of paper to hand (and maybe a box of tissues too).

Also in this bumper episode of Backlisted, John revisits another magical childhood favourite, Hobberdy Dick by K.M. Briggs; while Andy bravely attempts to summarise Alan Moore's epic novel Jerusalem and shares just one of its 1172 magickal pages with us.

Books mentioned:

E. Nesbit - The Railway Children; The Railway Children (audiobook read by Jenny Agutter); Five Children and It; The Story of the Treasure Seekers; The Wouldbegoods; The Phoenix & the Carpet
Katherine Rundell - Rooftoppers; The Explorer
Frank Cottrell-Boyce - Millions, Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth; Noah’s Gold
K.M. Briggs - Hobberdy Dick
Alan Moore - Jerusalem
Eleanor Fitzsimmons - The Life and Loves of Edith Nesbit

Other links:

Railway Children, an international children's charity working with street children in India, East Africa & the UK
The Edith Nesbit Society
The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway
The Edison Concert Band, Joy to the World, recorded 1906
Johnny Douglas, Theme from The Railway Children
The Railway Children (1970), dir. Lionel Jeffries
The Railway Children (BBC, 1968), dir. Julia Smith
Bernard Cribbins, ‘When I'm Sixty-Four’ (1967)
Vince Hill, ‘More Than Ever Now’ (1970)
The Wouldbegoods, ‘Christmas in Haiti’ (1999)
Lotte Berk, Get Physical! exercise LP (1982) feat. voiceover by Sally Thomsett
Soundtrack to The Railway Children with readings by Lionel Jeffries from the novel
The Railway Children, abridged audiobook read by Dinah Sheridan
The Railway Children, unabridged audiobook read by Jenny Agutter
Christopher D Lewis, Theme to The Railway Children (solo piano)
Judy Garland, ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, from Meet Me in St Louis (1941)

152. Pete Dexter - Deadwood

Andy and John are joined by authors Shawn Levy (A Year in the Life of Death, Rat Pack Confidential) and Erica Wagner (Chief Engineer, First Light) to discuss US writer Pete Dexter's second novel Deadwood (1986), described by the Washington Post on publication as 'maybe the best Western ever written'. In addition to enjoying this unpredictable and uproarious historical novel, we investigate the differences - and notable similarities - between Dexter's work and the classic TV series of the same name that followed a decade later.

Also this week, John has been reading Katherine May's life-affirming memoir, The Electricity of Every Living Thing, while Andy pays tribute to Nina Simone's Gum by musician Warren Ellis, a book that asks profound questions about what it means to be divine.

Please support us and unlock bonus material at https://www.patreon.com/backlisted.

Books mentioned:

Pete Dexter - Deadwood; Paris, Trout; Brotherly Love
Shawn Levy - A Year in the Life of Death; Rat Pack Confidential; Dolce Vita Confidential; Ready, Steady, Go
Erics Wagner - Chief Engineer; First Light
Warren Ellis - Nina Simone’s Gum
Katherine May - The Electricity of Every Living Thing
Raynor Winn - The Salt Path
Elmore Leonard - The Complete Western Stories
Peter Carey - The True History of the Kelly Gang
Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove
Michael Ondaatje - The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
Charles Portis - True Grit
Hugh Kenner - Ulysses

Other links:
Erich von Schmidt, ‘Days of 49’ (1960)
Bob Dylan, ‘Days of 49’ (1970)
Pete Dexter speaking at the New York State Writers Institute, 2005
Pete Dexter talks to Vice about Deadwood, 2009
Al Swearingen meets Wild Bill Hickok, Deadwood (2004)
Logan English, ‘What Was Your Name in the States?’ (1957)
Logan English, The Days of '49: Songs of the Gold Rush, Folkways Records (1957)
Doris Day, ‘The Deadwood Stage’ (from Calamity Jane)
Bill Monroe, ‘Christmas Time's a Comin'‘