Backlisted Special: What Have You Been Reading?

We planned this as a short Backlisted to fill the gap before we release the Hallowe’en episode next week and as part of our episode 200 celebrations. As you will discover, it turned out a little longer than planned!  

In it, we each select a book we’ve particularly enjoyed over the past year. Andy returns to The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan (Tyrant Books) and reads a different extract sparking a different kind of discussion;  Nicky talks about Wifedom by Anna Funder (Granta), an genre-busting account of the life Eileen Maud Blair, the first wife of George Orwell, linking it back to the themes of The True History of the First Mrs Meredith episode; and John praises Cuddy by Benjamin Myers (Bloomsbury), a rich and formally audacious novel based on the life and legends of St Cuthbert, the patron saint of North East England. The discussion leads us in all kinds of unexpected directions in classic Backlisted fashion.

Books Mentioned
Scott McClanahan - The Sarah Book
Anna Funder - Wifedom, Stasiland
Benjamin Myers - Cuddy
Rebecca Solnit - Orwell’s Roses
Sylvia Topp - Eileen: The Making of George Orwell

Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)

00:00 Intro
04:22 The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan
19:32 Wifedom by Anna Funder
38:26 Cuddy by Benjamin Myers

The traditional Backlisted 'what have you been reading this week?' slot which used to appear at the start of each episode, has now been moved to our Patreon only show (for those subscribers on the Locklisted level). Subscribers can hear fortnightly programmes with John, Andy and Nicky talking about books they have been reading as well as films, music and TV they've enjoyed.

197. Diane Johnson - The True History of the First Mrs Meredith

Episode 197 is dedicated to our late friend Carmen Callil, the founder of Virago, an author in her own right and, on a couple of memorable occasions, a former guest on Backlisted (episode 80 and episode 102).

Joining us are the writer Rachel Cooke and critic and editor Lucy Scholes. Under discussion: The True History of the First Mrs Meredith and Other Lesser Lives by Diane Johnson, first published in 1972 and reissued in 2020 by New York Review Books. Is this imaginative, funny, heartfelt, headstrong book a novel, a biography, an alternative history, a feminist polemic, a work of literary criticism or something else entirely? To which the answer is a far-from-straightforward: Yes. We hope you enjoy this conversation - and a unique book - as much as we did.

Books mentioned
Diane Johnson - The True History of the First Mrs Meredith and Other Lesser Lives; Lorna Mott Comes Home; Flyover Lives; Lulu in Marrakech; L’Affaire; Le Mariage; Le Divorce; Lying Low; The Shadow Knows
Carmen Callil - Bad Faith: A History of Family and Fatherland; Oh Happy Day: Those Times and These Times
Rachel Cooke - The Virago Book of Friendship; Kitchen Person: Notes on Cooking and Eating; Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties
Lucy Scholes - A Different Sound: Stories by Mid-Century Women Writers
Rosamond Lehmann - Dusty Answer
Stevie Smith - Novel on Yellow Paper
Phyllis Rose - Parallel Lives
Richard Holmes - Footsteps

Other links
Lucy Scholes’ column and podcast - Re-Covered archive (Paris Review) and Ourshelves podcast (Virago Books)

196. George Moore - Esther Waters

In this episode we discuss the controversial and ground-breaking novel, Esther Waters by the Irish novelist George Moore. We are joined by Tom Crewe, author of the prize-winning New Life (Chatto & Windus) and one of this year’s crop of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Esther Waters was first published in 1894 and is told almost entirely from the point of view of an illiterate working-class woman, who falls pregnant by a fellow servant, is abandoned by him, and decides to raise their child on her own. Telling her story allows Moore to catalogue the glamour and sordidness of 1890s London society in astonishing detail and his refusal to judge his heroine led to it being banned from W.H. Smith’s railway bookstores. Despite (or because of) this, it sold over 24,000 copies in its first year and has been in print ever since. We examine what sets Moore apart from other writers of the time, including Émile Zola, Thomas Hardy and George Gissing, why it has had such a positive influence on later admirers like James Joyce, Jean Rhys and Colm Tóibín, and how its simplicity of style and detailed presentation of Esther’s inner life feel so surprisingly contemporary.

Books mentioned
George Moore - Esther Waters; Confessions of a Young Man; A Drama in Muslin; The Brook Kerith: A Syrian Story
Tom Crewe - New Life
Colm Tóibín - Brooklyn
James Joyce - The Dubliners
Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Kate Chopin - The Awakening
George Gissing - The Odd Women; New Grub Street; In the Year of Jubilee; The Whirlpool
Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea
Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre

Other links
Esther Waters (1948) - film starring Dirk Bogarde

195. Kurt Vonnegut - Galapágos


In this episode we are delighted to welcome 2023 Booker Prize Winner Shehan Karunatilaka to discuss Kurt Vonnegut’s eleventh novel, Galapágos. First published in 1985, it is one of his most radical, intricate and humorous works, a Darwinian satire narrated by a ghost from a million years in the future. As Lorrie Moore wrote about it at the time, Vonnegut’s ‘grumbly and idiomatic voice has always been his own, unfakeable and childlike, and his humanity, persisting as it does through his pessimism.’ We talk about where Galapágos book stands in Vonnegut’s long career, its continuing relevance to a world even more dominated by technology and the climate emergency, and whether with the two novels the followed (Bluebeard and Hocus Pocus) it represented a return to form. We discuss Vonnegut's second career as a quotable talk show guest and ponder the seeming mismatch between his enduring popularity with readers and his less stable critical reputation. Shehan also offers us frank and fascinating insights into the influence that this book and ‘Uncle Kurt’s work in general has had on his own work, particularly the Booker winner The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, also narrated by a ghost.

Books mentioned:

Kurt Vonnegut - Galapágos; Bluebeard; Slapstick: Or Lonesome No More; Hocus Pocus, Slaughterhouse Five; Cat's Cradle; Player Piano; A Man Without a Country
Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida; Chinaman
Tom Roston - The Writer's Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse-Five`

Other links:

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (2022) - this is an excellent documentary. It can be rented via Prime. Here's the trailer.
Kurt Vonnegut and Martin Amis in conversation, London 1983
Kurt Vonnegut: After the Slaughterhouse (1983), essay by Martin Amis
Review of Galapagos by Lorrie Moore
Kurt Vonnegut official website
The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library
The Police official website
The Art of Fiction no 64, Paris Review (1976)

194. Barry Hines - A Kestrel for a Knave


Author and illustrator Rose Blake and writer and musician Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne) joined Andy and John at the Green Man festival in Wales on August 18th 2023 to discuss Barry Hines's second novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968) and, inevitably, the film adaptation Kes (1969), directed by Ken Loach from a screenplay by Hines himself. This episode was recorded in front of a large crowd of festivalgoers, most of whom had either read the book or seen the film, or both. Why does this apparently simple story of a boy and a bird continue to speak to us nearly 60 years after it was written? And what does that say about the changes in British society in the same period - or lack of them?

Books mentioned

Barry Hines - A Kestrel for a Knave; The Gamekeeper
Rose Blake - A History of Words for Children; Meet the Artist: David Hockney; Egg and Spoon
Bob Stanley - Bee Gees: Children of the World; Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop; Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop

Other links
Kes (Ken Loach’s adaptation)
Threads (1984 drama by Barry Hines)

193. Summer Reading Special

This week, to mix things up a little, it’s our annual round-up of books, old and new, you might enjoy over the summer. John, Andy and Backlisted’s producer Nicky discuss: O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker (W&N Essentials); Sheep’s Clothing by Celia Dale (Daunt Books); The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time by Catherine Taylor (Weidenfeld & Nicolson); Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (Faber); A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo (Canongate); and The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds (Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

Books mentioned
Elspeth Barker - O Caledonia
Celia Dale - Sheep’s Clothing
Catherine Taylor - The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time
Sebastian Barry - Old God’s Time
Ayobami Adebayo - A Spell of Good Things
John Higgs - The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds

192. E.M. Forster - A Passage to India

Things are a little different on this week’s episode of Backlisted. Recorded at our first live event of 2023, John and Andy are at Dartington Hall, Devon for Byline Festival. Joining us are novelist, playwright and memoirist Alice Jolly for her third appearance on Backlisted - joining us on episode 7 and episode 86 previously - and novelist Patrick McCabe, who joined us on episode 140, to discuss the A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. 

First published in 1924, by the end of that year, A Passage to India had sold 17,000 copies in Britain and 54,000 in the USA and today is viewed as a seminal text in post-colonial literature. A Passage to India grapples with, among many themes, colonialism and faith, and is set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. In this episode we reflect on its legacy today.

Books mentioned
E.M. Forster - A Passage to India; Howard’s End; The Machine Stops; Maurice; Where Angels Fear to Tread; The Longest Journey
Sophie Divry - The Library of Unrequited Love
Jay Griffiths - Nemesis, My Friend: Journeys Through the Turning Times
Alice Jolly - From Far Around They Saw Us Burn; Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile
Patrick McCabe - Goldengrove; Poguemahone; Breakfast on Pluto; The Butcher Boy

Other links
The 1985 film of A Passage to India

191. Margaret Drabble - The Millstone

Novelist Linda Grant and critic and editor Lucy Scholes return to Backlisted for a discussion of Margaret Drabble's third novel The Millstone, a book which has remained in print ever since it was first published in 1965, when Drabble was 26 years old; it was adapted for the screen by the author herself in 1969 as A Touch of Love, starring Sandy Dennis, Eleanor Bron and, making his film debut, Sir Ian McKellen. This story of a shy but determined young woman's decision to keep her baby and raise the child alone remains as relevant as ever. But The Millstone also speaks volumes of the era in which it was written, during which Margaret Drabble was a rising star in the literary firmament; and Andy, John, Linda and Lucy were delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate both novel and author, who is now 84.

Books mentioned:
Margaret Drabble - The Millstone; Jerusalem the Golden; A Natural Curiosity; The Red Queen; The Sea Lady; A Summer Bird-Cage
Linda Grant - The story of the Forest; The Clothes On Their Backs; The Thoughtful Dresser; The Dark Circle; A Stranger City; Remind Me Who I Am, Again; When I Lived In Modern Times
Lucy Scholes - A Different Sound: Stories by Mid-Century Women Writers; Saturday Lunch with the Brownings (introduction by Lucy Scholes)

Other links:
Lucy Scholes’ column and podcast - Re-Covered archive (Paris Review) and Ourshelves podcast (Virago Books)
Margaret Drabble discusses The Millstone on World Book Club
One Pair of Eyes, BBC, 1968
A Touch of Love, Waris Hussein, 1969

190. Anthony Trollope - The Eustace Diamonds

In our latest episode of Backlisted, we are joined by authors Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad) and Nell Stevens (Briefly, A Delicious Life), who last featured on Backlisted #170 discussing North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

This time the talk turns on The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope, the third instalment of the Palliser sequence. We explore the ways in which this novel and Trollope’s work in general confound expectation at every turn, a surprise perhaps when one considers the author’s reputation as a spokesman for the establishment.

Books mentioned:
Anthony Trollope - The Eustace Diamonds; Can You Forgive Her?; Phineas Finn; Phineas Redux,
The Prime Minister; The Duke's Children; Barchester Towers: The Chronicles of Barsetshire;
Castle Richmond; The Warden
Jennifer Egan - The Candy House; A Visit from The Goon Squad
Nell Stevens - Briefly, A Delicious Life; Bleaker House; Mrs Gaskell and Me

Other links:
Trollope’s Material Girl by Christoph Lindner
The Pallisers (BBC, 1974)
Audiobook read by David Shaw-Parker
Audiobook read by Timothy West

189. Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon

In this week’s episode, we are joined by the crime novelist Mark Billingham to discuss his favourite book, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. First serialised in Black Mask magazine in 1929 and published the following year in book form by Alfred A. Knopf, it is widely considered to have inaugurated the hard-boiled genre of detective fiction. It introduces the tough, abrasive and morally ambiguous private detective, Sam Spade, who sent Dorothy Parker ‘mooning about in a daze of love such as I had not known for any character in literature since I encountered Sir Lancelot.’

The labyrinthine plot turns around the eponymous falcon of the title – a statuette so valuable that three people are killed in the search to retrieve it. But, as the discussion reveals, it is not the plot that has made the book a classic. Hammett’s San Francisco, filled with sharp-tongued dames, wise-cracking gumshoes, cops on the take and thugs on the lam, spawned a whole genre of noir novels and movies – including John Huston’s classic adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor in 1941. In 1995, the Mystery Writers of America voted The Maltese Falcon the third greatest crime novel of all time. In this episode, illuminated by Mark’s own long experience of writing in the genre, we try to find out why.

And as a bonus, as Mark Billingham is also a huge Elvis Costello fan, Andy obliges with a Maltese Falcon / EC themed quiz.

Books mentioned
Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon; The Continental Op; The Thin Man; Red Harvest; The Glass Key; The Dain Curse
Mark Billingham - The Last Dance; Rabbit Hole; Sleepy Head; Cry Baby
Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep & Other Novels; Farewell, My Lovely
James M. Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice
Jim Thompson - The Killer Inside Me
Ross Macdonald - The Drowning Pool

Other links
The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)
Mark Billingham website
Mystery Writers of America 100 Greatest Crime Novels of All Time
Dashiell Hammett: A Documentary (Josh Waletsky, 1999)
Dashiell Hammett’s 1934 Introduction to The Maltese Falcon
Lillian Hellman on The Dick Cavett Show (1973)
The Mystery of Dashiell Hammett - Claudia Roth Pierpont (New Yorker, 2002)
Dashiell Hammett’s Strange Career - Anne Diebel (Paris Review, 2018)
Politics and the 1920s Writings of Dashiell Hammett - J.A. Zumoff (American Studies, 2012)

188. John Bossy - Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair

For this episode we are joined by the critic and former literary editor of the Independent on Sunday, Suzi Feay and the novelist and former Deputy Literary Editor of the Observer, Stephanie Merritt. Both are fans of the history-cum-detective story, Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair, by the late great historian of English Catholicism, John Bossy.

The book was a departure from Bossy’s weightier academic publications – in it he attempts to pin down the identity of the shadowy Elizabethan spy known only as ‘Henry Fagot’. As well as creating a vivid picture of the complex and treacherous world of London during the Elizabethan ‘cold war’ in the years leading up to the Armada, Professor Bossy makes a persuasive case for Henry Fagot being none other than the Italian philosopher, poet, cosmological theorist and dabbler in the hermetic arts, Giordano Bruno, who spent two years in London between 1583 and 1585, during which he wrote his most important books and became friends with Sir Philip Sidney and the magus, John Dee. First published in 1991 by Yale University Press, Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair went on to win both the 1991 Wolfson History Prize and the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction.

As well as discovering how Bossy’s Bruno inspired Steph Merritt to launch her career as a novelist, we also discuss how the role of a literary editor for a national newspaper has changed over the past three decades.

Books mentioned:
John Bossy: Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair; Under the Molehill and Christianity in the West 1400-1700
S.J. Parris: Alchemy; Heresy; Prophecy; Sacrilege; Treachery; Conspiracy; Execution

Other links:
Stephanie’s website

187. Graham Greene: Books and Short Stories

Welcome to the first in what we are calling our third season of Backlisted (the first one lasted for 109 episodes, the second a mere 68). Thank you for your patience and your support during our sabbatical. Normal service (or something like it) has now been resumed!

The whole of the next hour and a bit is dedicated to the work of Graham Greene – a writer we have long wanted to tackle. There are no guests, but we will cover several representative pieces – not necessarily the most famous or of Greene’s work – and try to apply a fresh perspective to his long and sometimes controversial career.

We start somewhere near the beginning with The Name of Action from 1930, a book Greene himself wanted suppressed…

Books mentioned:
The Name of Action (1930)
The Ministry of Fear (1943)
The Quiet American (1955)
May We Borrow Your Husband? & Other Comedies of the Sexual Life (1967)
Lord Rochester’s Monkey (1976)

 Other links:
New Yorker long-read

186. Rerun: David Seabrook - All the Devils Are Here

A re-release of one of our favourite episodes from April, 2016 with a new introduction by Andy.

Rachel Cooke, Observer writer, New Statesman TV critic and author joins John, Andy & Mathew to discuss All The Devils Are Here, an astounding travelogue through Kent and the depths of human behaviour from David Seabrook. Plus, the drinking habits of Carry On stars, and what to read in Iceland.

Timings:
07'44 - Dalva by Jim Harrison
12'48 - Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair
22'04 - All the Devils Are Here by David Seabrook

Books Mentioned:

David Seabrook - All the Devils Are Here; Jack of Jumps
Jim Harrison - Dalva
May Sinclair - Life and Death of Harriett Frean
Rachel Cooke - Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties
Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea
Harold Bloom - The Anxiety of Influence
Hannah Kent - Burial Rites
Halldór Laxness - Independent People
W. H. Auden - Letters From Iceland
Sjón - The Blue Fox (trs Victoria Cribb)
Charles Dickens - The Mystery of Edwin Drood
James Hogg - The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
John Buchan - The Thirty-Nine Steps
Jonathan Rendall - This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own

Other Links:
Qikipedia
Nicolas Roeg
Richard Dadd painting discovered on Antiques Roadshow

185. American Books Special

Welcome to the fourth Backlisted Special. While Andy and Nicky are both ‘gathering’ for the new season which will resume at the end of the month, John and Tess are joined by the writers and critics Erica Wagner and Sarah Churchwell who boast a total of 12 previous appearances between them, covering books from Alan Garner and Nella Larsen to Thomas Pynchon and Anita Loos.

The format of these specials differs from the main show in that they feature guests choosing a number of books in an area they know and care about. For this hour-long special, Erica and Sarah have selected six pieces of modern American literature that they either love, or find interesting, or both. As you will discover, despite the eclectic nature of their choices, some surprising connections begin to emerge…

Books mentioned:
Erica Wagner - Mary and Mr Eliot: A Sort of Love Story; First Light; Ariel's Gift; Chief Engineer: The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
Sarah Churchwell - The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells; The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe; Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream; Forgotten Fitzgerald: Echoes of a Lost America
Marlo Thomas and Friends - Free to be You and Me 
F.Scott Fitzgerald - ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’
Ann Patchett - The Magician's Assistant 
Susanna Rowson - Charlotte Temple 
Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time 
Louisa May Alcott - Little Women 

184. Rerun: William Maxwell - So Long, See You Tomorrow

183. Archive Books Special

Welcome to the third Backlisted Special. Although Andy remains deep in sabbatical mode, John and Nicky are joined by good friends of the show and literary agents Becky Brown and Norah Perkins, returning for their third appearance, having previously discussed the work of Barbara Pym in episode 109 and Dorothy B. Hughes in episode 142.

Becky and Norah are joint custodians of the Curtis Brown Heritage list of literary estates, where they look after the works and legacies of over 150 writers including Iris Murdoch, Stella Gibbons, Douglas Adams, Elizabeth Bowen, Gerald and Lawrence Durrell, Iain Banks and Laurie Lee. They have been friends for ten years and colleagues for five.

Becky moonlights as an anthologist and her latest book, Blitz Spirit: Voices of Britain Living Through Crisis, mapped the arc of the Second World War via the diaries of Mass Observation contributors, and was published by Hodder in 2020. In her spare time, Norah runs The Pearl Press, a letterpress printing and bookbinding workshop in Deal.

The format of these specials differs from the main show in that they will feature a guest choosing a number of books in an area they know and care about. Today, Norah and Becky have selected six books from the archive that they feel should be better known and more widely discussed.

Books mentioned:
Blitz Spirit: Voices of Britain Living Through Crisis - Becky Brown
One Fine Day - Mollie Panter-Downes
Mistletoe Malice - Kathleen Farrell
The Charioteer - Mary Renault
The Land and The Garden - Vita Sackville-West
Merry Hall - Beverley Nichols
Conversations in Sicily - Elio Vittorini
The Light and the Dark - C.P. Snow

Other links:
Lucy Scholes - Meet the archive moles, Prospect, March 2023
McNally Editions - Lucy Scholes’s paperback archive list
Faber Editions - their archive list
An Obsessive Type - Nicky’s BBC R4 programme on the Doves typeface (2016)

182. Rerun: Jean Rhys - Good Morning, Midnight

This is the third in our re-released episodes – and only the second one we ever recorded. Has Jean Rhys’s reputation and influence grown since then? Does a seven-year-old Backlisted still pass muster? All this (and more) are considered in Andy’s new introduction. Enjoy!

John and Andy are joined by novelist Linda Grant and Unbound's Mathew Clayton to discuss Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys, first published in 1939. Rhys is still best known for her 1966 novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, but as well as making a strong case for her earlier work, there is a lively discussion of perfume, the previously unheard-of genre of Scandinavian magic realism, and Andy spots a mistake in the best selling science book of all time.

Books Mentioned:
Tove Jansson - The Winter Book, Moominpappa at Sea, Moominvalley in November
Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time
George Orwell - 1984, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Coming Up For Air
Linda Grant - The Clothes on Their Back, Upstairs at the Party, I Murdered My Library
Jean Rhys - Quartet, After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, Voyage in the Dark, Good Morning, Midnight, Wide Sargasso Sea
David Plante - Difficult Women

Other Links:
Paris Review Interview
A character to root for
L’Heure Bleue

181. Backlisted Science Fiction Special

Welcome to our second Backlisted special of 2023. Today we’re joined by the best-selling writer Una McCormack, returning for a record-breaking ninth appearance, having most recently participated in the Christmas episode dedicated to Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield.

These specials are designed to fill the gap until the show proper returns in April. They differ from the usual Backlisted format in that they feature just one guest choosing a number of books in an area they know and care about. This discussion covers five books that have inspired Una as a writer of science fiction from childhood onwards.

Books mentioned:

Sylvia Engdahl, The Far Side of Evil
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Octavia Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories
Katharine Burdekin, Proud Man
Vonda N. McIntyre, Star Trek: The Voyage Home

Other links:

Goldsmith Press: https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-press/publications/
Handheld Press: https://www.handheldpress.co.uk/product-category/fantasy-and-science-fiction/

180. Rerun: Raymond Briggs - Fungus the Bogeyman

In memory of Raymond Briggs, who died in August, we are replaying the episode where John and Andy were joined by author-illustrator Nadia Shireen and writer Andrew Male for a smellybration of Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) with a new introduction recorded by Andy.

As well as Fungus, 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)

179. Backlisted Special - Children’s Books

Welcome to our first Backlisted special of 2023. These specials are designed to fill the gap until the show proper returns in April. They differ from the usual Backlisted format in that they feature just one guest choosing a number of books in an area they know and care about. 

Today we’re joined by the award-winning novelist and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce, an official friend of Backlisted, who returns for the first time since his appearance on the Christmas 2021 episode on The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit, one of our most popular shows. The discussion covers examines what inspired Frank’s love of reading when he was growing up, and includes favourite books by T.H. White, Ursula K. Le Guin, Joan Aiken, Tim Hunkin and Richmal Crompton. 

Books mentioned:
The Once & Future King - TH White
A Wizard of Earthsea (and/or The Tombs of Atuan)- Ursula Le Guin
Joan Aiken’s Armitage Stories (aka The Serial Garden)
The Rudiments of Wisdom - Tim Hunkin
Just William - Richmal Crompton
King of the Copper Mountains - Paul Biegal

Other links:

Ursula K. Le Guin on The Wizard of Earthsea
The Once and Future King - BBC Radio 4 2014 (Adapted by Brian Sibley)