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)

227. The Moon’s a Balloon - 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’.

Books mentioned
David Niven - The Moon’s A Balloon; Bring on the Empty Horses
Rupert Everett - The American No; To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde; Red Carpets And Other Banana Skins; Vanished Years
Oscar Wilde - De Profundis
Proust - In Search of Lost Time
Sheridan Morley - The Other Side of the Moon: The Life of David Niven

226. Nicholas Fisk - Grinny & You Remember Me!

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.'

Books mentioned:
Nicholas Fisk - Grinny; You Remember Me!; Trillions
Sam Leith - The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading; You Talkin’ to Me? Rhetoric From Aristotle to Trump and Beyond; Write to the Point: How to be Clear, Correct and Persuasive on the Page
Timothy Snyder - On Tyranny; Freedom
T.H. White - The Once and Future King
Richard Adams - Watership Down 
Alan Moore - V for Vendetta
Penelope Lively - The Ghost of Thomas Kempe
Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising
Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

225. Arthur Conan Doyle - Round the Fire Stories

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.

Books mentioned
Arthur Conan Doyle - Round the Fire Stories (Dodo Press); Round the Fire Stories; The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Gothic Tales
Jade Cuttle, Antonia Taylor, Laura Varnam, Katie Hale (ed), Jane Commane (ed) - Primers Volume Seven

224. 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. 

Books mentioned
James Young - Nico, Songs They Never Play on the Radio 
William & Jim Reid - Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain
Will Hodgkinson - Street-Wise Superstar: A Year With Lawrence; In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in ’70s Britain; Song Man: One Man's Mission to Write the Perfect Pop Song; Guitar Man: A Six String Odyssey;

Other links
Nico records mentioned - Chelsea Girl (1967); The Marble Index (1968); Desertshore (1970); Camera Obscura (1985)
Nico Icon documentary (1995) - watch here
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank - Marylebone Theatre until 4th November 2024
The Extraordinary Miss Flower (2024)

223. Octavia E. Butler - Parable of the Sower

his 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 Parable of the Sower a 1993 novel by the American science fiction writer, Octavia E. 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 this book will be available next weekend for Patrons on the Locklisted level.

Books mentioned:
Octavia E. Butler - Parable of the Sower; Parable of the Talents; Kindred; Blood Child
Salena Godden - Mrs Death Misses Death; With Love, Grief and Fury 
Una McCormack - Star Trek: Discovery: The Way to the Stars; Enigma Tales
Courttia Newland - A River Called Time
Irenosen Okojie  - Curandera 
Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God 
Lynell George - A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky
NK Jemisin - How Long Until Black Future Month
Colson Whitehead  -  The Underground Railroad 
Percival Everett -  James 
Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson - The Principle of Moments
Nisi Shawl - Everfair
Gerry Canavan - Octavia E. Butler
Stephen King - The Stand 

222. Lore Segal - Her First American

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 Jansz, 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…

Books mentioned
Lore Segal - Her First American; Other People’s Houses; The Journal I Did Not Keep: New and Selected Writing
Jeffery Renard Allen - Song of the Shank; Fat Time and Other Stories; An Unspeakable Hope
Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Other links
Taint Taint Taint Magazine 
Evergreen Review 
Sort of Books 

221. 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.

 A metaphorical ceiling, not the ceiling of the library around which snakes a queue, which is also a metaphor of sorts. The point is, this one goes live to the world in three days from now and you have a head start**, dear listeners.

** A metaphorical head start.

Books mentioned
Sarah Perry - Enlightenment; The Essex Serpent
Sam Leith - The Haunted Wood
Kalani Pickhart - I Will Die in a Foreign Land
George Markstein - The Cooler
James Joyce - Ulysses
A.S. Byatt - Possession

220. Autumn Journal - 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.

Books mentioned
Louis MacNeice - Autumn Journal; Collected Poems; The Burning Perch
Andy Miller - The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society
Sophie Ratcliffe - The Lost Properties of Love; P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
Katharine Kilalea - Ok, Mr Field
Paul Ewen - Francis Plug: Writer in Residence; Francis Plug: How to be a Public Author
Jack Hides (ed) - Touched with Fire: An Anthology of Poems
Alan Bennett - Six Poets: Hardy to Larkin
T.S. Eliot - Four Quartets
W.H. Auden - Collected Poems
Karl Ove Knausgaard - Autumn

219. Absolute Beginners - Rerun

All of the Backlisted team are taking a summer break this week so we are putting out one of our classic early episodes with a new introduction.

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, by Colin MacInnes.

Back in a fortnight with a normal show, thanks all,
J + A + N x

Books mentioned
Colin MacInnes - Absolute Beginners, City of Spades
Jonathon Green - Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Days In the Life: Voices from the English Underground, Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made, Odd Job Man: Some Confessions of a Slang Lexicographer
Andy Miller - The Year of Reading Dangerously
Paul Kingsnorth - Beast, The Wake
Cormac McCarthy - The Road
Derek Raymond - The Crust on its Uppers
Tony Gould - Inside Outsider: The Life and Times of Colin MacInnes
Dominic Sandbrook - Never Had it So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles

218. Summer Reading

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.  Enjoy your summers and thank you for your support!

A reminder, our next live event at Foyle Books Charing Cross Road is Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler with Una McCormack and Salena Godden on Wednesday 25th September. We look forward to seeing you there! You can purchase your tickets here: https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/backlisted-parable-sower

Books mentioned
Sally Rooney - Intermezzo
Caroline Crampton - A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria
Ursula Parrott - Ex-Wife
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ - A Spell of Good Things
Ann Schlee - Rhine Journey
David Nicholls - You Are Here
Octavia Butler - Parable of the Sower

217. Agatha Christie - Endless Night

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. 

Books mentioned
Agatha Christie - Endless Night; Giants Bread (as Mary Westmacott); The Rose & the Yew Tree (as Mary Westmacott); Third Girl; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; Witness for the Prosecution; Five Little Pigs
Caroline Crampton - The Way to the Sea: The Forgotten Histories of the Thames Estuary; A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria; Agatha Christie’s England
Laura Thompson - A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord Lucan; Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters; The Last Landlady; Au Revoir Now Darlint: The Letters of Edith Thompson; Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life
Pierre Bayard - Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?

Other links
Shedunnit podcast
ITV Marple series - Endless Night - watch via https://www.itv.com/watch/agatha-christie's-marple/L1286/1a5576a0015

216. Catherine Storr - Marianne Dreams

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... 

Books mentioned
Catherine Storr - Marianne Dreams 
Rachael King - The Grimmelings
Richard Blanford - My Life In Orbit

Other links
Paperhouse
Escape Into Night (Youtube)

215. Joan Barfoot - Gaining Ground

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.  

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.

Books mentioned
Joan Barfoot - Gaining Ground; Abra; Critical Injuries
Rose Ruane - This is Yesterday; Birding
Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar

214. 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.

Books mentioned
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Simon Armitage edition; J.R.R. Tolkien edition
Dr Martin Shaw - Bardskull

Other links
The Green Knight (2021)
Backlisted Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/backlisted

213. The Original Hitchhiker 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. 

Books mentioned
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts
Joel Morris - Be Funny or Die:  How Comedy Works and Why It Matters
Gail Renard - Give Me A Chance
Kevin Jon Davies (ed.) - 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams

Other links 
Gail Renard website - http://www.gailrenard.com/
Joel Morris - https://x.com/gralefrit
The Comfort Blanket podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/5qfcU1fgkeOLMadWjQA5Ix
The Rule of Three podcast - https://www.ruleofthreepod.com/

212. 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 in The 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 for the 12th June show, on the subject of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, are available now here.

Books mentioned
Ford Maddox Ford - The Good Soldier; Parade’s End
Alex Michaelides - The Silent Patient; The Fury

Other links
Alex Michaelides Website - https://www.alexmichaelides.com/
Foyles Backlisted Live Event 12th June Tickets - https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/backlisted-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight

211. Book Recommendations

This episode is a little different from a regular Backlisted, the next episode of which has been delayed through illness (though given that its subject is the radio scripts of The 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.

Books mentioned
Kevin Barry - Night Boat to Tangier; Beatlebone
Thomas Bernhard - The Cheap Eaters
Duncan Sprott - The Clopton Hercules
Georg Perac - A Void
John Boorman - Zardoz
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

210 - Sarah Orne Jewett - A Marsh Island

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.

Books mentioned
Sarah Orne Jewett - A Marsh Island; A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches; An Arrow in a Sunbeam; The Life of Nancy; Deephaven and Selected Stories; The Tory Lover; A Country Doctor; The Country of the Pointed Firs
Noreen Masud - A Flat Place; Stevie Smith and the Aphorism: Hard Language

Other links
Noreen’s website - https://www.noreenmasud.com/

A reminder that Backlisted will be doing a series of live shows at Foyles in central London. Kicking off this May 15th with a discussion of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier with guest speaker Alex Michaelides and we would love to see you there!

Tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/backlisted-live-the-good-soldier-with-alex-michaelides-tickets-875897080747?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

209. P.D. James - The Children of Men


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. 

Books mentioned
P.D. James - The Children of Men; An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Andrew Hunter Murray - The Last Day; Sanctuary; A Beginners Guide to Breaking and Entering; QI: The Third Book of General Ignorance
Laura Thompson - Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters; A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord Lucan; Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life; Rex v Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders; The Last Landlady: An English Memoir; The Dogs

Other links
Page 94: The Private Eye Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/page-94-the-private-eye-podcast/id973958702
No Such Thing as a Fish - https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/
Meeting P. D. James’s Legendary Detective Adam Dalgliesh - https://www.faber.co.uk/product-category/fiction/crime-and-thriller/adam-dalgliesh-mysteries/page/2/
Prev. Backlisted episodes ft. Laura Thompson - episode 4, Nancy Mitford The Blessing; episode 112, Antonia White Frost in May