Welcome to our 100th episode! To mark the occasion, Andy and John are recording at the home of one of the UK’s most celebrated writers. Sir Philip Pullman is the author of more than 30 books – for children, adults and those in between – and most famously the worldwide bestselling His Dark Materials trilogy. He and has work have been recognized with awards including the Whitbread Book of the Year, the Guardian Childrens’ Book Award, the Carnegie Medal, the Carnegie of Carnegies, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, the Astrid Lindgren Award, and the JM Barrie award. In October, David Fickling and Penguin Books will publish The Secret Commonwealth, the second book in his The Book of Dust trilogy and the BBC One will launch a new adaptation of His Dark Materials. The book under discussion is one of Sir Philip’s favourites: The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton, first published in 1621, but republished five more times over the following seventeen years with substantial alterations and expansions.

Books mentioned:

Robert Burton - The Anatomy of Melancholy
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials; The Book of Dust 1: La Belle Sauvage; The Book of Dust 1: The Secret Commonwealth; Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling (including Folio Society introduction to The Anatomy of Melancholy)
James Boswell - The Life of Samuel Johnson
John Keats - Bright Star: The Couple Poems & Letters
Jorge Luis Borges - Fictions
Bocaccio - The Decameron
Laurence Sterne - The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist
Daniel Defoe - A Journal of the Plague Year
Charles Sprawson - Haunts of the Black Masseur; The Swimmer as Hero
David Seabrook - All the Devils Are Here

Other links:

Ethel Waters - Stormy Weather
The Unthanks - Starless
Amy Winehouse -Back to Black
Nico - All That is My Own
Paddy McAloon - I Trawl the Megahertz
Richard & Linda Thompson - The World is a Wonderful Place
Billie Holiday - Gloomy Sunday