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)