210 episodes

The literary podcast presented by John Mitchinson and Andy Miller. For show notes visit backlisted.fm and get an extra two shows a month by supporting the pod at patreon.com/backlisted

Backlisted Backlisted

    • Arts
    • 4.8 • 580 Ratings

The literary podcast presented by John Mitchinson and Andy Miller. For show notes visit backlisted.fm and get an extra two shows a month by supporting the pod at patreon.com/backlisted

    All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton

    All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton

    Award-winning poet Emily Berry joins us to consider the work and troubled life of Anne Sexton. We focus on her brilliant second collection All My Pretty Ones (1962). Sexton was a trailblazing American poet of the so-called 'confessional' school of the 1960s, one whose writing continues to provoke controversy and debate; her friends and contemporaries included Sylvia Plath and John Berryman. We hear from Sexton herself, in recordings of readings and interviews, and fronting own experimental jazz-rock ensemble, Anne Sexton and Her Kind, and also from her daughter Linda. Please note: Anne Sexton was an unflinching chronicler of her own struggle with mental illness, and this episode contains extensive discussion of suicide and sexual abuse.
    * 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 and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
    *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here which has book recommendations from our hosts and guests.
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    • 1 hr 8 min
    Coffee Table Books

    Coffee Table Books

    This fully illustrated, lavishly produced episode of Backlisted represents the last word in coffee table books. Join John, Andy and Nicky as we dip into the origin, design and continuing appeal of specialist hardcover publishing, via some of our favourite cookery books, exhibition catalogues and sumptuous volumes simply too beautiful to leave on the shelf. As you will hear, we loved making this show, which is as deep as it is long. And remember: a coffee table book is for life, not just for Christmas.
     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, join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get two extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
    *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here 
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    • 1 hr 4 min
    A Life in Movies by Michael Powell

    A Life in Movies by Michael Powell

    This episode of Backlisted is devoted to A Life in Movies (1986), the first volume of memoirs of the filmmaker Michael Powell who, with his partner Emeric Pressburger, is responsible for some of the finest, most magical and soulful films ever to come out of the UK: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and many more. Joining us for a discussion of Powell's life and work - and his vision of cinema as a space in which all the other arts may find expression - are memoirist and critic James Cook and film writer and academic Melanie Williams. We focus on four productions of the Archers that between them tell the story of Powell and Pressburger's achievement: The Spy in Black, A Matter of Life and Death, "I Know Where I'm Going!" and Gone to Earth. If for some reason you have yet to see these films, or any of Michael Powell's work, set aside some time for your next personal obsession. You'll be glad you did.
    * 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 and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
    *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter
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    • 1 hr 13 min
    Scouse Mouse by George Melly

    Scouse Mouse by George Melly

    This episode was recorded in the great city of Liverpool and celebrates the life and work of a great Liverpudlian: George Melly, sometime writer, jazz and blues singer, artist, critic, lecturer and aficionado of surrealism. We are joined by two resident experts: the writer Jeff Young and the playwright and screenwriter, Lizzie Nunnery. The book under discussion is Melly’s Scouse Mouse, which is chronologically the first part of Melly’s memoirs. It was first published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1984 and was the third to be released despite covering the first fourteen years of Melly’s life, painting a vivid portrait of growing up in a middle-class Liverpool family, tinged with eccentricity and theatricality, and his painful experiences at boarding school. Subtitled ‘I Never Got Over It’, it was preceded by Rum, Bum & Concertina, an account of his time in the navy, published in 1977, and Owning It, which covers his years as an aspiring musician in the jazz world of the 1950s, first published in 1965. The final volume, Slowing Down was published in 2005, two years before Melly died. 
     
    Scouse Mouse was his Melly’s personal favourite of the four: ‘I don’t know why the events of over sixty years ago should be so much clearer than those of yesterday afternoon, but they are.’ He also adopted that ever-useful motto for the memoirist: ‘Life is lived forwards but understood backwards.’ How much this classic childhood memoir helps us understand the outrageous, complex and multi-faceted life of the grown-up George Melly is just one of the things the panel explore. They also revisit his brilliant book on the pop culture of the1960s, Revolt into Style, a book Andy first discussed back on episode 22 on Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family.
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    • 1 hr 4 min
    Love On The Dole by Walter Greenwood

    Love On The Dole by Walter Greenwood

    We are joined by the writer Andrew Hankinson to discuss Walter Greenwood’s classic novel of Northern working-class life. First published in 1933, Love on the Dole, revolves explores the fortunes of the Hardcastle family, who live in industrial Salford in the 1930s, just as the Depression is beginning to bite. Greenwood’s authentic portrayal of the corrosive effects of mass unemployment and poverty was well received by critics, but it wasn’t until the 1934 stage version had become a hit, that the book became a bestseller. It is estimated that a million people has seen the play by the end of 1935 and the book has remained in print ever since. However, it had to wait until 1941 before being made into a classic film which featured Deborah Kerr in her first starring role. We discuss the books connections to other working-class novels, its wider cultural impact and its influence on the gritty social dramas of the 1960s, the interesting differences between the book and the film adaptation, and we ask why, despite the classic status accorded to Love on the Dole, Greenwood himself and his nine other novels have faded into obscurity. 
    * 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 and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
    *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 1 hr 3 min
    Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence

    Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence

    For this first episode of 2024 we are joined by the chair of Virago Press, Lennie Goodings to discuss a novel by her fellow Canadian, Margaret Laurence. First published in 1964, The Stone Angel is a landmark in modern Canadian fiction. The narrator is the unforgettable Hagar Shipley, a spiky, sharp-tongued, proud and profane ninety-year-old who is trying to resist her family’s attempts to transfer her into a nursing home. This battle is interwoven with memories of her long and difficult life, much of it spent in the Manitoban prairie town of Manawaka, a place closely based on Laurence’s own home town of Neepawa and which would provide the setting for three more novels and a collection of stories. We discuss the book’s place in the Canadian pantheon and speculate on why it hasn’t become and established classic outside Canada (it is no longer in print with Virago). We also discover some unexpected coincidences among Margaret Laurence’s neighbours during the years she lived in England in the late sixties and early seventies. This is a book that deserves to find many more new readers.
    * 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 and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
    *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 1 hr 5 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
580 Ratings

580 Ratings

Sooperb59 ,

A warm blanket of a Podcast

A previous reviewer described this podcast as both challenging and comforting at the same time - summing up much of my feelings about this gem. Yes it can be a bit ‘laddish’ on occasions but the presenters are so charming and funny this is quickly forgiven. I am still working my way through the back catalogue whilst always listening to the latest episode as soon as it arrives, and I am on increasingly good terms with my local librarians as I discover wonderful new reads which they have to dig out of Central Store.

Barbaradelsol ,

Catching Up

I’m so mad that I missed 8 years of this wonderful book review podcast. I have to say thanks to Gilbert Cruz of the New York Times Book Review podcast for mentioning it. I have a lot to catch up on and my TBR list is getting longer and longer. So many more good books foryou to discuss. I hope you will continue...

PineGroveCharlie ,

Basil Bunting - brilliant

Your episode on Basil Bunting, really bringing him alive while exploring his complexity. I have so much respect for the contribution that Neil Astley has made to the world of poetry - his anthologies are consistently superb. Kirsten Norrie impressed as delightful. Poetry lovers just cannot go wrong with this brilliant episode.

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