Backlisted

Authors Shawn Levy (A Year in the Life of Death, Rat Pack Confidential) and Erica Wagner (Chief Engineer, Gravity) join us to discuss US writer Pete Dexter's second novel Deadwood (1986), described by the Washington Post on publication as 'maybe the best Western ever written'. In addition to enjoying this unpredictable and uproarious historical novel, we investigate the differences - and notable s...

Our guest is author Paula Morris, who joins us from Auckland to discuss the novel The Godwits Fly (1938) and the life of its author Iris Wilkinson AKA Robin Hyde. In recent years, Iris Wilkinson's writing has been rediscovered and restored to the canon of New Zealand literature, where it occupies a place alongside Katherine Mansfield's; The Godwits Fly is her highly autobiographical novel spanning...

Welcome to the 150th episode of Backlisted! To mark the occasion we are joined by authors Alex Christofi (Dostoevsky in Love) and Arifa Akbar (Consumed: A Sister's Story) for a discussion of one of Russia's greatest writers Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was born in Moscow on November 11 1821, 200 years ago this month. We concentrate on his pioneering novella Notes From Under the Floorboards AKA Notes Fro...

This is a Backlisted special, recorded at the Bodleian Library in Oxford to celebrate the publication of Treacle Walker the new novel by Alan Garner (Fourth Estate). The panel discussion features Erica Wagner, writer and critic and editor of First Light, an anthology of pieces about Alan Garner’s work; Dr Melanie Giles, archaeologist and the author of Bog Bodies, the definitive account of the phen...

For this year's Hallowe'en special we're joined by Backlisted's old fiends Andrew Male and Laura Varnam, following previous guest appearances on episodes dedicated to Beowulf (2020) and Daphne du Maurier's The Breaking Point (2019). Together we explore the work of the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, specifically her ghost stories, tales of horror and accounts of psychological terror: Something in...

Our guests are publisher Alexandra Pringle and Simon Thomas, editor and co-host of the Tea or Books? podcast. They are here to discuss Cassandra at the Wedding, the fourth and final novel by Dorothy Baker, first published in 1962 by Houghton Mifflin in the USA and Victor Gollancz in the UK. What is it about this darkly funny tale of two devoted sisters that continues to appeal to generations of re...

Joining us on Backlisted this week is novelist and memoirist Susie Boyt (My Judy Garland Life, Loved and Missed). The book Susie has chosen for us to discuss is The Dream Songs (1969) by John Berryman, the publication of which briefly made its author the most famous poet in America but also, unfortunately, hastened his decline and ruin. But the work shines on. Also in this episode Andy is struck b...

We are joined by novelist Mary Costello for a special episode recorded live at Galway International Arts Festival in Ireland on September 10th 2021. The book we're debating is Elizabeth Costello (2003) by South-African born Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee, a novel that politely asks the reader to consider, amongst other matters, animal rights, the power of faith and the limits of fiction itself. Also...

It’s time for our annual look at what we’ve been reading over the summer break. John, Andy and Nicky discuss David Keenan’s fourth novel Monument Maker; Open Water, a promising debut novella from Caleb Azumah Nelson; Deborah Levy’s three-volume ‘living autobiography’, Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate; a reissue of Percival Everett’s satirical diatribe Erasure; Life W...

Perhaps the greatest boxing novel ever written, Leonard Gardner's Fat City was first published in 1969; it was shortlisted for the National Book Award; Joan Didion and Denis Johnson are amongst those who have sung its praises. The book was made into a film in 1972 starring Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges, directed by John Huston from a screenplay by Gardner himself. In this episode Andy, John and Nic...

Joining us on Backlisted this week is writer John Higgs, whose fascinating new book William Blake Vs The World is out now. We were thrilled John chose Steve Aylett's guide to originality, creativity and individuality, Heart of the Original, first published by Unbound in 2015 and as original, creative and individual a book as we have ever featured on this podcast; be prepared to experience a "small...

Returning to Backlisted this week are literary agents Becky Brown and Norah Perkins, joint custodians of the Curtis Brown Heritage list of literary estates and previously our guests on episode #109, Excellent Women by Barbara Pym. This time we are discussing the work of crime novelist Dorothy B. Hughes and in particular her suspenseful and subversive novel In a Lonely Place (1947), freely adapted...

Joining John and Andy this week is novelist and host of the books podcast Sentimental Garbage, Caroline O'Donoghue (Promising Young Women, Scenes of a Graphic Nature, All Our Hidden Gifts). We are discussing Nuala O'Faolain's revelatory memoir Are You Somebody? (1996), the original publication of which caused a sensation in her native Ireland. The book went on to top the New York Times bestseller...

Joining John and Andy this week are novelist Patrick McCabe (The Butcher Boy, Breakfast on Pluto, Winterwood) and Unbound's editor-at-large Rachael Kerr. We got together to discuss Dermot Healy's remarkable second novel A Goat's Song (1994) and the peripatetic life of its author, one of the great Irish writers of recent times. Patrick, Rachael and John all knew, worked and occasionally drank with...

Joining John and Andy this week are novelist Marie Phillips (Gods Behaving Badly, Oh, I Do Like To Be...) and novelist, screenwriter and poet Joe Dunthorne (Submarine, O Positive). The book we are discussing is Gerard Reve's debut novel De Avonden AKA The Evenings, which caused a sensation when published in the Netherlands in 1947 and is now considered a classic. In the words of Herman Koch, it ma...

Joining John and Andy this week are Natasha McEnroe, the Keeper of Medicine at the Science Museum in London, and novelist Lissa Evans, Backlisted's old friend and the show's Original Guest, both of whom are Betty MacDonald superfans. The Plague and I (1948) is the author's unflinching and hilarious memoir of the nine months she spent as a patient at a TB sanatorium in the Pacific North West of Ame...

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman AKA Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is the subject of this years-in-the-making episode of Backlisted. Published in nine volumes between 1759 and 1767, Sterne's cock and bull story has entertained, baffled, enchanted, infuriated and inspired readers ever since; needless to say, at Backlisted we love it. Joining John and Andy to celebrate this g...

Clarice Lispector's Água Viva is the subject of this episode of Backlisted. Like several of Lispector's remarkable novels, this slim book caused a sensation when first published in her native Brazil in 1973. Exquisitely written and daringly abstract, it stands as one of its author's masterpieces with Near to the Wild Heart (1943), Family Ties(1960), The Passion According to G.H. (1964) and The Hou...

The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness is the subject of this episode. The book was first published in Iceland as Brekkukotsannáll in 1957, two years after Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Joining John and Andy to discuss this ideosyncratic, unforgettable novel and the remarkable life of its author - spanning nearly all of the twentieth century - is author, poet and podcaster Dere...

Penelope Mortimer's fourth novel Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958) is the subject of this episode of Backlisted. Joining John and Andy to discuss Mortimer's fearless and pioneering autobiographical fiction, including this book, Saturday Lunch With The Brownings (1960) and The Pumpkin Eater (1962), plus the latter's subsequent film adaptation, are critic and broadcaster Lucy Scholes and New York Times...

Josephine Tey's classic mystery Miss Pym Disposes (1946) is the subject of this special episode of Backlisted, recorded as part of Aberdeen's Granite Noir festival on February 19th 2021. Joining John and Andy to explore the life and career of Josephine Tey AKA Gordon Daviot AKA Elizabeth MacKintosh (her real name) is Val McDermind, bestselling author and Tey's fellow Queen of Crime. Tey was the au...

Joseph Roth's Job: The Story of a Simple Man (1930) is the subject of this episode of Backlisted. Joining John and Andy to explore this austere and powerful novel, first published in German as Hiob: Roman eines einfachen Mannes, are Keiron Pim, whose much-anticipated biography of Joseph Roth will be published in 2022, and a returning Backlisted guest, bibliomemoirist and playwright Samantha Ellis....

This Locklisted episode is the sequel to our earlier Children's Books Special. It was recorded in August 2020 and was previously available exclusively to supporters of our Patreon at patreon.com/backlisted. This time we cover our teenage years and the tricky transition into ‘adult’ readers. Much of the conversation is dominated by of our re-reading of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, but y...

Karoo (1998), a posthumously-published cult novel by screenwriter and playwright Steve Tesich is the subject of this episode of Backlisted. Joining John and Andy to analyse this dark and hilarious tale of a Hollywood script doctor's apocalyptic decline and fall are journalist and podcaster Sali Hughes and novelist John Niven (who previously guested on Backlisted ep. 09 discussing Martin Amis's The...

Rosemary Tonks is the subject of this episode of Backlisted. Our starting point is her fascinating third novel The Bloater (1968) - which is long out of print, unfortunately - but we also discuss her remarkable poetry, her friendship with Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, her eccentric career in fiction, radio and theatre, and her gradual retreat from the world. Joining John and An...