Author and critic Alex Preston and Rachael Kerr, Unbound's Editor at large, join John and Andy on the Backlisted podcast to discuss Charles Sprawson's ground breaking 'Haunts Of The Black Masseur', together with all things aquatic. The subtitle of the book is 'The Swimmer As Hero' and Sprawson's book tells the tale of literary swimmers from Byron to Cheever. Also discussed; Outskirts by John Grindrod and Bleaker House by Nell Stevens.

Books Mentioned:

• Andy Miller - The Year of Reading Dangerously

• Alex Preston - The Bleeding City, The Revelations, In Love and War, As Kingfishers Catch Fire

• Charles Sprawson - Haunts of the Black Masseur

• John Grindrod - Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt, Concretopia

• Muriel Spark - Memento Mori

• Shena Mackay - Redhill Rococo

• Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black

• Nell Stevens - Bleaker House

• Phyllis Richardson - House of Fiction

• Philip Hoare - Risingtidefallingstar

• Jenny Landreth - Swell

• W. N. P. Barbellion - The Journal of the Disappointed Man

• Edmund Gosse - Father and Son

• John Cheever - The Swimmer

Other Links:

• Randy Newman

• Rough Trade

• Radio Times

• Iris Murdoch review

• Haunts of the Black Masseur

• The Swimmer film