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…

Rough Timings (may vary due to adverts):

06'32: Free to be You and Me – Marlo Thomas and Friends 

15'30:‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ –  F.Scott Fitzgerald

24'12: The Magician's Assistant – Ann Patchett 

33'20: Charlotte Temple – Susanna Rowson

41'22: A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L'Engle 

49'03: Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm

*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted

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John introduces a rerun of an episode from November 2016, where Costa First Book nominee for My Name Is Leon, Kit de Waal joins John & Andy to discuss So Long, See You Tomorrow, the final novel by author and New Yorker literary editor William Maxwell.

Rough Timings: 

11'27 - You Took the Last Bus Home: The Poems of Brian Bilston

17'43 - My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal

24'47 - So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm

*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted

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Welcome to the third Backlisted Special. John and Nicky are joined by literary agents Becky Brown and Norah Perkins returning for their third appearance, having previously discussed the work of Barbara Pym and Dorothy B. Hughes. Becky and Norah are joint custodians of the Curtis Brown Heritage list of literary estates, so they have selected seven books from the archive – by women novelists, queer gardeners and anti-fascists - that they feel should be better known and more widely read and discussed. The timings may differ due to adverts:

10'50 One Fine Day - Mollie Panter-Downes

18'38 Mistletoe Malice - Kathleen Farrell

27'51 The Charioteer - Mary Renault

36'03 The Land and The Garden - Vita Sackville-West

43'11 Merry Hall - Beverley Nichols.

50'08 Conversations in Sicily - Elio Vittorini

57'30 The Light and the Dark - C.P. Snow

These specials are designed to fill the gap before the main show returns later in the Spring and feature guests discussing books drawn from an area they know and care about.

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm

* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted

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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.

Timings: (may differ due to adverts)

1'49 - A Winter Book by Tove Jansson

9'46 - A Brief History of Time by Prof Stephen Hawking

17'30 - Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm

* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted

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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. The books are:

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

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm

*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at patreon.com/backlisted

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In memory of Raymond Briggs 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) by the great Raymond Briggs. 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).

Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)

10:12 - Laugh A Defiance by Mary Richardson

17:56 - Cold Enough For Snow by Jessica Au

23:31 - Fungus the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit backlisted.fm

*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at patreon.com/backlisted

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Welcome to our first Backlisted special of 2023. 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. 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. 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.

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm

*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted

Image Credit: Archives New Zealand from New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0

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In memory of the great Carmen Callil, we are replaying the first of her two appearances on Backlisted. Joining Andy and John in this episode is Carmen Callil, the legendary publisher and writer, who is best know for founding the Virago Press in 1972. Once described by the Guardian as ‘part-Lebanese, part-Irish and wholly Australian’, Carmen settled in London in 1964 advertising herself in The Times as ‘Australian, B.A. wants job in book publishing’. After changing a generation’s taste through her publishing at Virago, and in particular the Virago Modern Classics, which continues to bring back into print hundreds of neglected women writers, Carmen went on to run Chatto & Windus and became a global Editor-at-Large for Random House. In 2006 she published Bad Faith: A History of Family & Fatherland, which Hilary Spurling called ‘a work of phenomenally thorough, generous and humane scholarship’. Appointed DBE in 2017, she was also awarded the Benson Medal in the same year, awarded to mark ‘meritorious works in poetry, fiction, history and belles-lettres’. The book under discussion is one of her favourite novels, The Tortoise & the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins, first published by Gollancz in 1954 and triumphantly reissued by Virago Modern Classics in 1983. Also in this episode we explore the new audio version of one our favourite writer’s best novels - The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson, famously published in a box containing 27 randomly ordered sections in 1969. And last but very much not least: this episode also features our very first canine guest - Effie, Carmen’s extremely well-behaved border terrier.

Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)

8'10 - The Unfortunates by B.S.Johnson

21'16 - The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted

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Merry Christmas Everyone! This year’s Backlisted Christmas special celebrates Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, a classic of children’s literature and the childhood favourite of our producer, Nicky Birch. We are joined by the writer Una McCormack and Tanya Kirk, the Lead Curator of Printed Heritage Collections (1601-1900) at the British Library, who are both lifetime Streatfeild fans. Ballet Shoes was an immediate bestseller upon publication and the runner-up for the inaugural Carnegie Medal. It has never been out of print and was the first in a series of ‘Shoes’ books by Streatfeild. It has been adapted many times both as an audiobook and for film and television and in 2019 BBC News included Ballet Shoes on its list of the 100 most influential novels of all time. We discuss why this might be the case and much more besides and even hear from Miss Streatfeild herself. And it being a Christmas episode, there is a fiendish festive quiz. We also feature two other classic books by writers best known through their writing for children. John discusses A Giant in the Snow by John Gordon, an eerie Puffin classic from 1968, while Andy revels in the darkness of John Christopher’s The Death of Grass, first published in 1956, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, definitely written for adults and perfect for cutting through your post-lunch torpor. Enjoy!

Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)

16:39 A Giant in the Snow by John Gordon

22:04 The Death of Grass by John Christopher

29:32 Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm

* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted

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The Awakening is an American classic, first published in 1899. The novel’s focus is the inner life of Edna Pontellier, a 29 year-old a married woman and mother of two boys, whose husband Léonce is a New Orleans businessman of Louisiana Creole heritage. The book’s notoriety derives from Edna’s refusal to accept the role that American society of the late 19th century has allocated to her. After the controversy that greeted it on publication, The Awakening sank from view until it was rediscovered by a new generation of readers after the Louisiana State University Press published Chopin’s collected works in 1969. Now acclaimed as a feminist classic – it was published in the UK in 1978 by The Women’s Press and is now both a Penguin and an Oxford classic, a Canongate Canon, and one of the most popular university set texts in America. We’re joined by the Irish American writer Timothy O’Grady and publisher Rachael Kerr to find out why. This episode also finds Andy revelling in Beware of the Bull, a new biography of the incomparable Yorkshire singer-songwriter Jake Thackray (Scratching Shed), while John enjoys Louise Willder’s Blurb Your Enthusiasm, the product of her twenty-five years as a copywriter at Penguin.

Timings may vary as a result of adverts:

04:57 Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Willder

11:00 Beware of the Bull: The Enigmatic Genius of Jake Thackray by Paul Thompson and John Watterson

18:59 The Awakening by Kate Chopin

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm

* If you'd like to support the show, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/backlisted

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.