Susan Cooper's magical novel The Dark Is Rising is the subject of a bumper Christmas special episode of Backlisted. Joining John and Andy to discuss this classic winter solstice read, and the four other books that make up the Dark Is Rising sequence, are writer Robert Macfarlane and writer and illustrator Jackie Morris, co-authors of The Lost Words and The Lost Spells and fellow Susan Cooper devotees.

Robert is the author of books about landscape, people and nature including Underland, The Old Ways, The Wild Places. His books and writing have been widely adapted for film, theatre, radio, tv. He's a Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he's lucky enough to spend his days talking about ideas with brilliant young people. He loves collaborating with musicians including Johnny Flynn, Cosmo Sheldrake, Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, and the band Underworld.

Jackie is a multi-award-winning author and illustrator. She began her career in publishing illustrating for magazines and newspapers before moving into book illustration and then writing. She has illustrated more books than she can be bothered to count and written many too, including most recently, The Unwinding, published by Unbound. Her work with Robert Macfarlane has been described as a ‘cultural phenomenon’. She is currently working on The Book of Birds, written by Robert, The Space Between, a curious creature, part book, part leaf (funding via Unbound) and Mrs Noah’s Song, to be illustrated by James Mayhew. She lives and works in a small cottage in Pembrokeshire..

The Dark is Rising was first published in the UK by Chatto & Windus in 1973, and as a Puffin in 1976 and is the second book in the sequence, also called ‘The Dark is Rising’ which began with Over Sea, Under Stone in 1965 and then continued on with Greenwitch, The Grey King and finally in 1977, Silver on the Tree.

In this episode, John also talks about a beautiful ice-and-snow bound story from the Chuckchi people of the Bering Sea, When the Whales Leave by Yuri Rytkheu, and Andy reads ‘The Tree Room’, a poem from Caroline Bird's new collection The Air Year that seems to sum up the spirit of Christmas 2020. Wherever this podcast finds you in the world, Merry Christmas from us all. When the dark comes rising, six shall turn it back...

As far as possible, all the books listed below are supplied via the Backlisted shop on bookshop.org and a proportion of the price helps support the podcast.

Books mentioned:

Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising; Over Sea, Under Stone; Greenwitch; The Grey King; Silver on the Tree; Dreams & Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children; The Shortest Day
Jackie Morris - The Unwinding; The Space Between
Robert Macfarlane - Underland, The Old Ways, The Wild Places
Jackie Morris & Robert Macfarlane - The Lost Words; The Lost Spells
Yuri Rytkheu - When the Whales Leave
Caroline Bird - The Air Year
Martha Sprackland - Citadel
Susannah Clarke - Piranesi
Alan Garner - The Weirdstone of Brisingamen; The Moon of Gomrath
Henry Williamson - Tarka the Otter
Jack London - The Call of the Wild
Robert Holdstock - Mythago Wood
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials
Penelope Lively - The Ghost of Thomas Kempe
Diana Wynne-Jones - Charmed Life
John Masefield - The Box of Delights
Susan Price - Ghost Drum
Katherine Arden - The Bear & the Nightingale

Other links:

The Lost Land of Susan Cooper (official website)
The Dark is Rising by Handspan
Susan Cooper, 'A Catch of the Breath', Tolkien Lecture 2017
Theme from The Box of Delights by Roger Limb and the Pro Arte Orchestra
’Hard Road’ by Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit, live at the Roundhouse, Camden (2017)