Backlisted - Locklisted - Book Recommendation Special

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

This episode is a free sample of our subscriber only show, Locklisted, because the next episode of Backlisted has been delayed through illness (though given that its subject is the radio scripts of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, this tardiness may not come as a complete surprise). A conversation about shelftalkers in bookshops leads to a broader discussion about where we get our book recommendations and Andy runs a quiz based on the principle of  algorithmic recommendation. There is also a discussion inspired by Thomas Bernhard’s pitch black 1980’s novel The Cheap Eaters (translated by Douglas Robertson) and John Boorman and Bill Stairs’ 1974 novelisation of the cult film, Zardoz. *Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday May 14th where we will be discussing The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, with guest Alex Michaelides.  * 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 Locklisted episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Backlisted. My name's John Mitchinson. I'm the publisher of Unbound, a place where people crowdfund the books they really want to read. And I'm Andy Miller, the author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And today we have a slightly different show for you. The show on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the radio scripts that we were hoping to share with you all today has been unavoidably delayed. This may strike some of you who know the work of Douglas Adams and the career of Douglas Adams as entirely predictable. However, we apologize for this break in transmission.

But instead, we have, I'm going to hand over to my colleague Andy Miller, we have an exciting edition of Locklisted, the podcast that we record for our patrons that we're going to hand over to my colleague, Andy Miller. We have an exciting edition of Locklisted, the podcast that we record for our patrons that we're going to share with all of you today. Locklisted is a show where we talk about not just books, but also films and music. But this show is one where we... John, it's one of our more jazz shows, this one, isn't it?

It's pretty jazz show. But we take the subject of a shelf talker, which some people listening to this, they won't even know what that is, John, but we're not going to tell them yet, right? We take the theme of the shelf talker, and then we improvise on that theme for an hour. And it's a bit like listening to a bootleg tape of, let's say, Herbie Hancock's Muandishi Group in Tokyo in 1972.

Something like that. Something accessible like that. That's the kind of vibe we're looking for. Very much. There is a lot of book chat. So prepare yourselves for that. Zardoz. Zardoz.

If you are listening to this on, let's say, the early part of the week, beginning 13th of May 2024, and you are in the London area of the UK, you have an opportunity to come to Foils this Wednesday, which is the 15th of May at 6 o'clock we will be opening the doors where we will be recording an episode of Batlisted on the subject of the novel The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford with our guest Alex Michelades that gig is nearly sold out so thank you so much everyone

who's already bought tickets for it if you buy a ticket, included in the ticket price is a copy of The Good Soldier, which if for some reason you haven't already read, what tremendous value that represents in and of itself. So please, please come along. There's a handful of tickets left. But furthermore, exclusively we can reveal that as part of our residency

at Foyles in Charing Cross Road in London, in England, in the UK, we have lined up two more shows. We are in a position to tell you what those are as well. We can't give you the guests, but we can offer you hints if you are a regular listener. So, John, on Wednesday, the 12th of June, at Foyles in Charing Cross Road, we will be discussing which ancient text? We will be discussing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as you will obviously know it.

We will be talking about that in all the various translations and adaptations and all its various ramifications. An amazing, obviously, alliterative medieval poem only here, only on Backlisted. That's entertainment, everyone. That's Night Out in the West End. And we can't tell you who the guests are, though we know who they are.

But if you are a regular listener and you remember our Beowulf show, it's going to be a bit like that one, which was really good fun. And also you might be interested to know that at that show, we have a returning guest, a member of the extended backlisted family and a brand new guest, eminently qualified to discuss Gawain and the Green Knight.

And then the following month, on Wednesday, the 17th of July, same venue, Foyles, Charing Cross Road, London. Same time, 6pm. We will be discussing which novel by which novelist, John Mitchinson? We will be discussing, if I get this right, Eternal Night by Agatha Christie. He'll have learnt the title by July, everyone. Endless Night by Agatha Christie. Endless Night.

July, everyone. Endless Night by Agatha Christie. Endless Night. So a 1960s novel by Agatha Christie, a classic one. Amazingly, we have got to episode 210 and not done Agatha Christie, but we will be doing her good and proper with two excellent guests, also one returning and one new, on the 17th of July, 6pm, Foils. You will be able to book those.

We'll be able to book those very soon. Yes, via the Foils website in the coming days. Those tickets will go on sale. Doors open at 6, gig at 6.30. So please enjoy the show that we've got coming up. We had a great deal of fun recording this. We began with Shelf Talkers and in a sort of Blakey and manner expanded to take in the universe, which is normally what happens

on an episode of Locklisted. Or as Nicky, our producer, has dubbed this Blocklisted, this episode, which is excellent. See you soon, everyone. Enjoy the show. Bye. Enjoy the show. Bye.

This is an advertisement from Better better help everyone knows therapy is great for solving problems but turns out therapy has some issues of its own finding the right therapist fitting into their schedule and of course the cost better help can help solve these problems it's online convenient built around your schedule, and surprisingly affordable too. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation.

And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card and other conditions apply. Crack on! crack on haven't got all day for sake I've got really important emails to write

right okay I shouldn't be so self pity is very unattractive never stopped you before though has it I know you're joking you're lovely alright alright hey everyone welcome to love this I know you're joking you're lovely alright alright

hey everyone hey everyone welcome to Locklisted welcome to Locklisted some of the informal banter was caught there sorry about that welcome to Locklisted

this is the show that you get if you listen to our Patreon or if you subscribe to our Patreon at a certain level and it features me

Andy Miller and it features our producer, whose name is... Nikki Birch. Hello. Nikki Birch. Hi, Nikki Birch. And thirdly, and most importantly, the poet laureate of self-pity himself. Welcome to the airwaves, please.

Hello, everybody. Great to be here. Hope I'm not bringing you down. It's John Mitchinson. What a posse this is. How have you both been? Have you been having a nice time? Great, actually.

It's lovely and I've got a couple of days off because it's a bank holiday. I spent the afternoon watching a crappy rom-com when I should have been doing something else. And I'm really feeling very happy. Which one? Which one? The one with Anne Hathaway in it. Oh, it's the Anne Hathaway one. It's the Anne Hathaway one where she plays a mum.

Yes. Who, in the light of what we were talking about before we started, Nick, runs off with a young pop star. I mean, what were we talking about there, Andy? Yeah, she does. She runs off with a pop star. And let me tell you, it's very exciting. I mean, she's a very, very hot mum.

You know, she's definitely, let's just say, what we really unfashionably might have called a milf once. We no longer use that term. I certainly, good Lord, no. But, well, I'm glad you're watching that. I'm reading for pleasure. That's great, are you? That happens rarely.

I'm reading for pleasure, yeah. I'm reading Kevin Barry's novel, Nightboat Tangier, which, of course, everybody's read and it came out. To me, it's new, but it seems like it. When did this come out? Goodness me, five years ago. Long listed for the Book of Thrones. Number one bestseller.

It's practically on the back list now. John, have you read much by Kevin Barry? I have read The Beetlebone, which I loved i loved yeah that's amazing uh uh night nightboat to caro as well as uh but i haven't read the new i think he's has he done another set of stories yes he has yeah yeah yeah before this one i didn't read those but i love him i love him uh is this has um blurbs on the front from and this is relevant to what we're about to talk about, from Tessa Hadley, brilliantly funny, Ian Rankin, lyrical, elegiac, taut, and strange,

and finally Max Porter, our former guest Max Porter, who says of Kevin Barry, a true wonder. And that was making me think about the hoary old topic of book recommendation. Where do we get our book recommendations from? You know, it's very nice. People say about Batlisted that they get lots of recommendations from the show, which is good. That's what we would hope.

But we, in a version of the famous joke about the clown who goes to the doctor and uh the doctor says i'm depressed and the doctor says oh you need to see the this clown grok and and the man says but doctor i am grok um we we don't get to feel the benefit of the recommendations of backlisted quite as quite straightforwardly as this and steve but i wonder where we get our recommendations from. Nikki, where are you most likely to pick up a recommendation for a book? Well, I think two places. One, mostly you both, right?

It doesn't count. I mean, I do speak to you every week and you do talk about books every week. And you read for your book group, don't you? I have started to read for a book group too, but then the other is just friends, you know, friends. I occasionally read about something, but mostly it's probably friends saying, I've really enjoyed this, this is brilliant,

or, yeah, or coming from you. I'm not a big sort of, you know, let's look at the review in this paper and, oh oh that sounds exciting i'll go and i'll go and buy that i think it's more word of mouth for me and and actually there's a second thing a third thing is in bookshops i love a oh that looks good i'm just going to buy that as that is a really nice sort of browsing moment for me are you motivated by bog off buy one get one free.

I think I would lie if I said I wasn't motivated by Bogoff. No, of course, aren't we all? I like a bargain. Well, you think it's a bargain anyway, and I'm there for the kind of false bargain of a Bogoff. Hey, let he who has not spent time browsing the works cast the first stone. My mum was deeply distressed by Bogov because she said, I don't want three books.

I said, Mum, you don't have to have, you don't, she just, she's totally misunderstood. The idea was that if you weren't going to buy two, then you get the third free. She thought if she bought any book at all, they were going to saddle her with an extra two. It's just, yeah. Well, Mitch, on those rare occasions when you're not reading for work,

publishing, interviewing somebody, or self-improvement, where do you pick up? Where do you get your ideas? Where do you get your ideas where do you get your ideas from I don't know it's a good question I think I get my ideas from pretty much everywhere

that books are discussed or talked about if I overhear things on the radio because we're both in this sort of we've both been in this world for quite a long time I'm continually I suppose looking at what other publishers are doing and every now and then I suppose when I'm doing that looking what other publishers are doing or listening to recommendations you know reading recommendations

of stuff or on on Twitter I'll I I form a sort of list and quite often on a whim I'll buy something. A chance, for example, a chance. I mean, I think that's, I honestly think for the stuff I read, for pleasure, I'm always looking for odd things that I haven't seen before or that I, you know, in a vague area, I suppose. Do you write things down when someone recommends or whatever? You go, this is the list I want to work my way through. I do, but I think it maybe changed in lockdown, actually. I think I started to be a bit more disciplined in lockdown

because maybe there was more time. I also, if I'm in a bookshop, I do love that. If I go into the London Review bookshop, let's say, which is one of my favourites, I'll probably end up buying a stack of books in there that I didn't intend to. And do you remember that was always the big Waterstones plus, Andy? I do.

When we did research. Yes. It turned out that Waterstones wasn't massively good at converting people who were looking for specific titles. Exactly. It was brilliant at loading people up with shit that they didn't know this is true this is true okay so so this i don't know the extent to which this would still be considered true now but 30 years ago certainly the idea was that the that waterstones

catered to people who enjoyed browsing in bookshops, which was in fact the minority of consumers because many consumers felt underconfident in a bookshop. And John is the archetypal Waterstones customer in that respect for the experience he's just described in the LRB bookshop insofar as A, Waterstones customers, when they did the research, were suggested they found it nearly impossible to go into a shop without buying one or two books. And the second thing was that 10% of the Waterstones customer base

bought 90% of the books. Right. Yeah. So as in, so as we've seen so many often on this podcast, the whole edifice is propped up by the mass market. Yeah. By the loonies,

by the mass market, but also it's sort of a, it's sort of a piece with, um, I don't know. It's like us and our patrons. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's, it's a really interesting thing.

So word of mouth, we know that that's what sells things. And I remember back in Waterstones, it was, I mean, you might even remember, Andy, because you might have even been on the receiving end of this. But it was mildly controversial, even back in the early 1990s, when we decided to introduce Waterstones Recommends. I ran that promotion for two years. And it was basically just formalising what good independent bookshops had already probably started to do.

I don't know when I first saw a Shelf Talker. In my head, I wonder if it was in America. What is a Shelf Talker? Have we not mentioned Shelf Talkers? No, we haven't quite got there. We haven't quite got there. I don't know when I first saw a shelf talker. In my head, I wonder if it was in America. Have we not mentioned shelf talkers? No, we haven't quite got there. We haven't quite got there. But listen, we're coming on to... Hey, don't fast forward, everybody.

Because, yeah, shelf talkers are still coming. It's edge of the seat stuff today. Cliffhanger. I want to pick up what John was saying about... Yeah, so Waterstones recommends... So we were formalising this idea that what people really wanted was recommendation, that what they really wanted was to know, you know, and that idea of what the bookshop staff in particular,

because Mirabilo Dictu in those days, you know, Waterstones staff really did read a lot of books. And it really was true, I think, that did read a lot of books and it was it really was true i think that there were a lot of i used to call waterstones a clearinghouse for second class arts graduates and i have to say this is probably i'm probably showing my age because it was probably before student loans and all the pressure it was but you know if you didn't know what to do when you graduated with your english degree and it was great because it was a bit like being, you had almost no training in customer service,

but you were in a bookshop and you got to read and you got to talk to other staff. And it felt, the whole thing kind of, in some sort of mad way, worked. It was, I mean, no. I never, I would say in the year of reading dangerously, in the entirety of my career, in the various roles within the book world that I've said in the year of reading dangerously that in the entirety of my career, in the various roles within the book world that I've had, I never worked with a group of people who liked reading more than the booksellers I worked with in London.

And that includes working for publishers. In terms, if you wanted an intensity of a group of people who really did spend all their time reading books and thinking it mattered, then that little crib was amazing. And one reason that you had to do that is it was actually mildly terrifying. You were thrown in, as I was, you know, I'm sure I've told this story before, the deep end of the science fiction and fantasy section. And you didn't know, you hadn't read a lot of the stuff. I'd read some of it, but I hadn't read all of it. And there was no stock control system. And you were quite quickly in your job talking to reps

and being able to buy books off them. You know, they'd come and show you and you'd say, oh, I'll take 10 of those. I quickly discovered, you know, for example, that Clive Barker was a really, really good seller. And then, of course, what as a as a bookseller I mean I'm still pathetically like this now I kind of like to read the things that I'm selling I'm sort of intrigued as to what people are reading and why they're reading them the staff room was full of proofs you were allowed to take books home you were reading I believe it was me who described waterstones as in that era as a finishing

school for bullshitters because because because you had to be able to to talk knowledgeably about many books which you simply did not have time to be authentically knowledgeable about um we're authentically knowledgeable there's a there's a euphemism i went into a bookshop this afternoon my local bookshop pages of hackney and asked ollie who was working there about recommendations doing a bit of research you know and i asked him and they you're you're you're suggesting that there's some planning that goes into these episodes. I don't really know. Like I say, there's a lot of work here. You know, anyway, I asked Ollie,

and they have a, it's a very small bookshop, an independent bookshop. But a very good one. But a very good one. And they have one sort of shelf, dedicated now for Ollie recommends, Eleanor recommends, each thing. Yeah, okay, nice.

And he says, he says they are, it used to be just two books each but they got so popular people would just buy them all so now they just expanded it because right the recommendations do very very well well okay so this is what john says about the the desire for not just recommendation of a personal recommendation right there is perennial theme now this episode everybody here comes the reveal this episode was inspired by a shelf talker which was sent to me by a listener to this podcast in the states whose name is augie blick possibly their real real name or not, I don't know. But hello, Augie Blick.

Thank you so much for sending this in. It was on display in Point Reyes Books near San Francisco quite recently. It may still be there. It's a great bookshop, that bookshop. And Stephen, who runs it, is a person I know. It's a shelf talker. runs it is a person i know it's a it's a shelf talker a shelf talker is a handwritten or hand printed sign john why don't you know hey you define a shelf talker john what is a shelf talker well in its broadest sense a shelf talker is simply something that has words on that attaches

to a shelf so a shelf talker might say fiction a to z or it might say psychology or it might say god help us all mind body and spirit but it might also be something that contains words of praise or recommendation for a particular particular title and generally those certainly the ones that really work tend to be handwritten by actual booksellers actual people who work in the store okay so when you go into a bookshop you go into waterstones or your independent bookshop and there on the shelf is a little handwritten thing with where someone has attempted to um sum up their enthusiasm for a particular book so hard and successfully that you will feel compelled to lift the book off the shelf and take it to the till so uh augie blick on twitter x sent

me this um shelf talker and i john think this is the single greatest shelf talker i've ever read in my life so i am now okay so i'm I'm now going to share it with you. No, no, no pressure. Right. No pressure. Okay. So this was written by HP. I don't know who that is,

but presumably works at Point Reyes Books near San Francisco. HP said this about Thomas Bernhardt's The Cheap Eaters, says HP. And just think, I want you to remember, folks, this wasn't in the TLS. This is just on a bookshelf in a bookshop. I was still living in Vienna when the death of Thomas Bernhardt in the winter of 1989 was noted with near relish and observable relief by both the larger part of the Austrian press

and the not always silent majority of the population. Despite the posthumous tide of Bernhardt adulation, The Cheap Eaters is still little known and read in German-speaking countries. This slim volume of philosophical maniacal rants and furiously exhausted reflections from the beginning of Bernhardt's final period, reads like Musil or Wittgenstein knotted into Dostoevsky's Underground Man. It was brought into English with excellent care by Douglas Robertson and given the rare Bernhardt-appropriate book cover design by Spurl Editions. Readers of E.M. Tjoran, Elfride Jelinek, Samuel Beckett

or Kafka will want to submit to Bernhard's labyrinthian narrative of mangled existence and overwhelmed mind. Wow. Well, HP, you had me at philosophical maniacal.

I didn't even finish reading it. I ordered that immediately. I ordered it immediately from the States. And I have the book here. Here it is. I ordered it. It's arrived. There it is.

The Cheap Eaters. And I'm going to just read you the first sentence. And I want you to imagine that, I mean, long-term listeners to this podcast will know that I love Thomas Bernhardt. It's been several years since I read something by Thomas Bernhardt aloud on this show, so it's a treat. I'm only going to read the first sentence of this novel, just the very first sentence of this novel. But I want you to imagine that I'm a bookshop customer. I've read that blurb by HP. I've bought the book. I thought, wow, what's this going to be like? I sit down, I get in, and this is the first thing I read. While taking the walk that he had been taking for the purposes of his studies

every late afternoon for weeks, and also routinely at about six in the morning for the preceding three days, a walk that passed through Wertheimstein Park, in which he said he had once again been able, owing to the ideal natural conditions prevailing solely in Wertheimstein Park, to return after a rather long interval from a completely worthless train of thought regarding his physiognomy to a useful, indeed ultimately uncommonly profitable one, and hence to a resumption of his work on his essay an essay he had neglected for the longest imaginable time owing to his inability to concentrate an essay on whose realization he said

in the end depended a further essay on whose realization genuinely depended yet another essay and on whose realization depended a fourth essay on physiognomy based on these three essays that unquestionably needed to be written and on which his future scientific work and consequentially his very future existence actually depended all at once and all of a sudden instead of walking to the old ash tree as usual he had gone to the old oak tree and thereby happened upon his so-called cheap eaters with whom for many years on weekdays, and hence from Monday through Friday at the Vienna Public Kitchen,

and hence in the so-called VPK, and specifically the VPK on Derblinger Hautstrasse, he had eaten cheaply. Well, I for one would not be returning the book for the shop, but I can't guarantee everyone might feel the same way. I must say, The Cheap Eaters by Thomas Bernhardt, it's not available in the UK easily. You would have to import it from the States,

but my goodness, it's fantastic. Douglas Robertson, this was translated into English for the first time only two or three years ago. I strongly recommend. It was called De Billigessa when it first published in 1980. As HP suggests, if you're a fan of Musil, Wittgenstein, Dostoevsky, and Kafka, you'll find a lot to enjoy there. But it made me think a lot about the art of writing a shelf talker.

John, I remember when... Handwritten notes. These are the little bits of handwritten notes that booksellers put on top of a certain book to try and encourage you to buy it. Yeah, or on the shelf. I remember one from when Michael Crick's biography of Geoffrey Archer was published.

I can remember walking into a bookshop and seeing a shelf talker in front of it that simply said, quote, I hate this book, Jeffrey Arch. That's pretty good. Which is a pretty good sales technique, I think. I wrote one for a book, and I used to try and,

when we were trying to encourage Waterstone staff to do their own because we didn't want to do it as some horrible central. Essentially what we did was we provided them with the cards that they could stick on the shelves. And some of them did it brilliantly and some of them didn't. But it was always trying to get them to see that, I mean, that was a brilliant one that you read out,

that it's stuff that makes people sit up and think that is likely to sell a book more than a plot summary or a breathless, usual breathless hyperbole that you get from kind of publishers. But I remember writing, and I still like it, there was a first novel, okay, by a man called Duncan Sprott called The Clopton Hercules. And I said, the line was just this,

the first novel published by Faber from their slush pile since William Golding's Lord of the Flies, which is what I was reliably told was the truth. But you're going to pick that book up, aren't you? Wow. You're going to pick that book up and think, ooh. Yes, absolutely. Yes.

Well, it's interesting, John, you described as a shelf talker then about what a good shelf talker is. A shelf talker is basically a literary podcast avant la lettre, isn't it? It's like you don't want to do a plot summary. A little three-dimensional. Yeah, you want to make it sound kind of intriguing. Here's one. Let me see if you can guess what this book is.

And this is from Waterstones Islington quite some years ago. It's by Adam. So, you know, if you're in the shop, Adam. Hi, Adam. it's by Adam so you know if you're in the shop Adam without using an important grammatical tool you might think that this author was limiting his linguistic ability

not so this is in fact a gripping story with twists and turns plots and subplots inspiring and that is the shelf talker what's the book, Andy? You know what it is. It's a novel by George Perret.

Yes! Published in English as A Void. A Void. Because it does not use the letter E at any point. Really? And neither does Adam's Shelf Talker. Another does Adam's Shelf Talker, which makes you love Adam very much. Adam, if anyone knows Adam.

Adam from Waterstones Islington, if you if anyone knows adam adam from waterstones islington if you're still out there because i think this was about two this must have been about 2008 or i wonder if you're working in a bookshop like this is the fun stuff isn't it like this is the yes this is where you're thinking okay not only i get to think about my my choices because if you work in a bookshop you love books and you think your knowledge and opinion on certain books are probably, you think probably quite highly of them. And you want other people to read the books that you love. And so this is where your time and energy is going to be well spent. Because not only, you know, directing people to go and, OK, please, can I have a book a bit like The Power?

OK, yes, over here. But also you want to be diverting into books that you genuinely feel are good so I can imagine this must be the bit where you're thinking okay this is where I excel myself and if you're a crap writer who works in a book shop and loves books that must be very hard well I tell you what, Nick. I used to choose very judiciously which customers I recommended any book I actually cared about to because… Otherwise you'd point over there and say Shantaram. Yeah.

You just… Do you know what I mean? No. Do you know what I mean? Because you didn't want to give something away and then have it tarnished by them coming back the next day and saying, I thought this was rubbish. So what you have to do is, as John, you know, in the 90s, it was certainly in the area of London I worked in,

we sold a lot of books by, novels by Mary Wesley to middle-aged women and we sold a lot of novels by Patrick O'Brien to middle-aged men and the middle-aged men said every said exactly the same thing about Patrick O'Brien every time they brought one to the till which was have you read this the attention to detail is magnificent. And the women said exactly the same thing every time they brought a Mary Wesley detail, which was, have you read this? She's marvellous, you know. And you wanted to say, I'm a 23-year-old man.

I'm not going to read either Mary Wesley or Patrick O'Brien. And you couldn't say that because that wasn't your job. Your job was to go, my goodness, yes, the attention to detail in Mary Wesley. Sorry, Patrick O'Brien really is incredible. It's a bit like me working in the CD shop and people coming in to me asking for, you know, the latest Bob Dylan bootleg.

So people do want recommendation, but they also want affirmation for their own choices, right? Now, Nicky, we set you a piece of homework for this episode uh didn't we to follow up john's um john's shelf talking jive talking by the bgs should have been called shelf talking shouldn't it anyway go um go on to write my own shelf talker bearing write your own mind i am not a writer and bear in mind you are going to be assessed by a writer and the former marketing director of waterstone so let's see let's see how let's see how we do okay okay so i have chosen a book which uh backlisted audience and a lot of people will be familiar

with okay i'm going to give the one line first and i'll read the rest of it and you can guess what the book is first line not a detective story but a philosophical mind exploder okay that's the first line it it's an mitch is actually i can see me if you could see john's face everybody john is seriously that engage the little light bulb went on above his head while he starts to cogitate. Come on. Okay. I should have taken John's advice beforehand because I actually do go into the plot now.

It's a rookie error, Mickey. It's an eerie 2021 where the world has become infertile and the human race is aging into obsolescence. This story makes you question life's most profound questions while we hear what truly matters in a world stripped of its future. Wait, wait, wait. It makes you question life's most profound questions. Why are we here? What truly matters in a world stripped of its future? Wait, wait, wait. It makes you question life's most profound questions. Oh, yeah, shit.

I didn't realize that. I obviously didn't say shit. They're double words. Thank you. Yeah, okay, yeah. Makes you check. No, I don't know. I need to come back to that.

You ask. Thank you. Thanks for the edit. Makes you ask life's most profound questions. Why are we here? What truly matters in a world stripped of its future? Put away the bestsellers for one read and give this a go it'll linger in your head for a long time afterwards

that's my not very well written uh description and that's by and that's by nikki from hackney however i then decided to ask chat gpt to write a shelf talker of the same oh this is okay brilliant this dovetails with what I'm going to talk about. Brilliant. And I didn't put my blurb in. I just said, can you just write Children of Men a book? I didn't use the word shelf talker because I wasn't sure it knew what it writes.

No, recommendation. A bookseller recommendation by P.D. James. And this is what they came out. No, I didn't even edit it afterwards. In P.D. James's masterpiece, Children of Men, experience a dystopian future where humanity faces extinction and a single ray of hope lies in the hands of one woman.

With rich prose and gripping storytelling, James weaves a tale of intrigue, danger, and the enduring power of the human spirit. Join us on a journey that will challenge your perceptions, ignite your imagination, and leave you breathless until the very last page. Discover why Children of Men is a timeless classic that resonates with readers long after they've turned the final page, which is basically what I said, but in a more kind of wordy way.

You know, Nikki, do you know what? Do you know what? If someone had presented me with that AI-generated blurb, I'd have gone, this is remarkably commercially focused. This is remarkably effective. I think the public would eat that up with a spoon, John. I think that's actually horribly good. Pretty good, isn't it?

As a bit of bump. I mean, it was fine, wasn't it? Yeah, it is. I tell you, it does great. It's very good. AI is very good at this. This sort of stuff. So I'm sorry, but Ollie from Pages, your job is over soon, mate,

because AI is coming for you. That was written by Wally rather than Ollie. Wally. I've got now a little quiz for you two. You've both been quizzing. I've got a've got now a little quiz for you too we've done you've both been quizzing I've got a quiz for you too and this is similarly this is the power of the internet to to generate recommendation as opposed to personal bookseller recommendation and what I've got here are a handful of examples of books where what I've done is gone to a popular online retailer and I've looked at what other book other customers bought if they bought this book or

what other uh what other books you might like oh yes if you bought this book. Right. OK, so I'm going to give you each the associated books and you have to tell me what book I was looking at when I found these. OK, is that clear? Yes. What links these three books? I'm going to give you the recommendations and you have to tell me what the popular online bookseller had chosen to drive you back to the original book. Okay? So, Nikki, we'll start with you. Is it ballet shoes? Which book would you have been reading if it was suggested to you that you would also enjoy You Are Here by David Nichols

and Noreen Massoud's A Flat Place? Oh, that's interesting. What a combo because those are the two books you mentioned on last week's show. Weird. Oh, that's weird. Is that actually, are you not being clever that actually both came up? Of course I'm being clever, but they did both come up. What is it?

Which book would appeal to readers of you are here by david nichols in a flat place by norin masood uh it's not a marsh island no hold on it is yes it's a marsh island by sarah orton jewett okay very good now we can i'm not we have no false modesty i suspect backlisted listeners have created that algorithm. So thank you very much, everybody. Right, John, are you ready? Which book would you be looking at if you were encouraged by this retailer to also read the following? Cuddy by Benjamin Myers. Dart by Alice Oswald.

Dart by Alice Oswald and the Penguin Book of Elegy edited by Professor Stephen Regan. Ooh. Well, John, you've talked about two of those three books, right? What? Yeah. Dart by Alice Oswald, Cuddy. Yeah, and the Penguin Book of Elegy edited by Professor Stephen Regan. Yeah, I don't know that one.

Which book would you be looking at if you were also recommended though one in the northeast correct is it the one that oh you you were talking about hold on as john talked about this at this book on the show yeah okay we've done it we've made a show on it we've made a show on the book that this is yeah in the northeast yeah within the last year we made this show yeah come on backlisted.fm look at the index no not it's clearly not walter greenwood that was set in the northwest yeah that i can't think i can't think what was said. Shall I tell you? Go on. Brig Flats. Brig Flats.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Elegies, maybe. Okay. Yeah, I thought that was pretty good. I can sniff out the thinking, if not the book. All right, here's one for Nicky. Nicky, which book would you be buying or reading if the online retailer suggested,

you might also enjoy A Little Life by Hania Yanagihara, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. What is the link between The Bell Jar? There is a clue in there. Is it a book we've featured on the podcast? No. Oh, gosh, that's a good question.. Is it a book we featured on the podcast? No. Oh, gosh, that's a good question. I don't think so.

What's the clue? No, I think maybe you have. So it's not Anne Sexton. It's not Anne Sexton. Okay. What's the clue? Give us the clue and that might help. Is it the nationality of the first one?

It's in the question itself. Okay, say it again. The clue is in the question itself. Would it be A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara? Would it be The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath? The Secret History by Donna Tarr? Which is the book? I don't know, Andy.

Sorry. It's The Goldfinch by Donna Tarr. I should have said The Bloody Goldfinch! And then I thought that was a stupid answer. Once again, Nikki Birch, her instincts are sound. And then I thought that was a stupid answer. Once again. Double bluff. Once again, Nikki Birch. Her instincts are sound.

I should have gone with it. Okay. Here we are. John Mitchinson is going to love this one. I am absolutely certain. We need to get one right. Which book? I'll give you a clue.

Which novel? If you went on the page for this novel, you would be encouraged to also perhaps enjoy the following books. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Okay. Mal d'Aurore and Poems by Comte Le Tremont. Yeah. And Museum Without Walls by Jonathan Meads.

It's got to be Huysmans. Got to be Huysmans. It is Against Nature by Huysmans. Well done, John. Very good. Isn't that great that Meads has got in there? That's fantastic. I's got to be Huismans. Got to be Huismans. It is Against Nature by Huismans. Well done, Jonathan. Very good. Isn't that great that Meads has got in there? That's fantastic. I thought you'd be pleased.

He'll be even more delighted. John edited that book, Museum Without Walls, and Unbound published it. And then finally, I've got a couple for both of you. Okay. You can just, if you think you know the answer, just say it out loud. Which novel would you be looking at if you were recommended

these three novels Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte It's got to be another Bronte So Jane Eyre

Tenant of Wildfell Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and The Tenent of Wildfell Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and The Tent of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte Which book? It's got to be another Charlotte Bronte book isn't it? Villette by Charlotte Bronte You think it's Villette do you? Is that your final answer?

Is that your final answer? Surely It's Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Damn Damn your final answer surely no it's um it's uh pride and prejudice by jay mustard damn damn and then finally finally finally i must have the exact title and uh author or authors for the following one if which book would you be looking at if you were recommended the following novels the visitor by lee child personal by lee child the midnight line by lee child night school by lee child the enemy by lee child gone tomorrow by lee child nothing to lose by Lee Child No Middle Name by Lee Child and 61 Hours by Lee Child Big gap in my knowledge

The Lee Child books Jack Reacher They're all Jack Reacher books are they? They are all Jack Reacher books yes Do you know why he's called Jack Reacher? Go on, why? Because Lee Child himself is very tall, and he was trying to write novels,

and his wife in the supermarket one day, as he reached up and got something from the top shelf, she said, well, if the writing career doesn't work out, you'll always have a career as a Reacher. Wow, and all such moments are legends made yeah um well i can tell you that in fact you're so close uh it is um you'd be looking at better off dead by um by by wait wait wait for it by lee child and andrew child the franchise and i can tell you i didn't i felt we'd already taken her name in vain on the last episode, but I can assure you that apparently,

according to the algorithm on Amazon, that readers of Lee Child and readers of Colleen Hoover only read other books by Lee Child and Colleen Hoover. It becomes that thing where I seem to remember back in the early days of the Harry Potter success, people tended to say, and of course the success of the Harry Potter books means that whole worlds of children's literature will open up

to young readers. And in fact, the research shows that that didn't happen. What happened is J.K. Rowling sold a lot of books and whole worlds of franchises related to Harry Potter opened up. Is that right? Yes, rather than creating that right boom yes rather than creating a boom in children's reading um but that hey that's you know that's okay too um but i think if you're a very popular writer and you have a readership who enjoy what you do then the reason

why a publisher encourages you to write a novel a year is because you want to get as many books out there as fast as you can while people really love what you do. Make hay while the sun shines, I think, is the point. As a writer, how do you feel about the people that are recommended alongside you? Who, me? What a brilliant question um the you must have looked at yourself when you look this right okay so you tend to such a great question you tend to sit there thinking oh really or or oh my goodness it goes either way you very rarely did you look at it and go yeah fair enough you either feel flattered or insulted it tends to be

okay i see that makes sense so because obviously as you said like you proved in in your brilliant quiz that you know the an algorithm can be swayed by a few people purchasing in certain purchasing habits you know yeah and and you know it's the same you know any kind of recommendations are only based on what other people have bought or done or listened to recently and uh and it's interesting because there's a i think we because i obviously work i work in podcasting a lot and there's an assumption that the recommendations around things like podcasting or music recommendation that they know so much about you they must know you better than you know yourself sometimes people have this kind of thing of like oh well it's all very very clever like i work for bbc sounds and there's a thing like oh it's serving me all this sort of thing it's actually

that's not it's not always as sophisticated as one might think. And as we've shown here, like can be easily swayed by a few people purchasing those two books together. And it's not, you know, and I think we sometimes we, not we as in meet us three, but society now has kind of let the algorithm take over and tell us what we want and tell us what we should be recommended. I mean, you know, rather than actively kind of pursuing and searching and realizing it can be manipulated very easily i'm thrilled that readers of the best-selling you are here by david nichols are being encouraged to buy sarah orne jewett's marsh islands i mean that's pretty that. Yeah, it's wonderful. I was looking at this. David Nichols, it's number one as we speak. In the old days, you would have expected to find quotes from reviews or quotes from the BBC or radio or TV shows.

And the drift now is totally towards this book is almost entirely covered with quotes from other writers or celebrities who might fit what the publisher thinks David's profile is, right? Who are they? So I've got, well, do you know what? Why don't you try it? I'm going to narrow it down. They're writers.

Why don't you name me which a couple of writers each you would expect to find or aspire to find recommending David Nicholls' new book on the cover? I guess it depends the audience that they're trying to meet. Sally Rooney? No, but it's a good guess. No, I think they're trying to meet. Sally Rooney? No, but it's a good guess. No, I think they're going to go for the Catelyn Moran's, the Dolly Alderton's. Ding!

Catelyn Moran tick. Yep. She's here. She says Nicholls' best book ever. Yeah, that's a good one. You wouldn't get Marion Keys, would you? Yes, Marion Keys. Magnificent, Marion Keys says.

Dolly Alderton. Where else would you go? Well, Philip Pullman likes a good quote. Is he on there? No, he's not here. No. The new Philip Pullman. I bet Catherine Rundell is on there.

Yeah. Ding. Catherine Rundell. Well done. That's very good. Any men? Any men on there? Well, now, here's well done. That's very good. Any men? Any men on there? Well, now, here's the thing.

Here's the thing. So on the front cover, we have gorgeously witty and joyful Catherine Rundell, magnificent Marion Keys, Nichols' best book ever, Caitlin Moran, such a lovely book, exclamation mark, Nigella Lawson. Oh, good, good, good. Is that Elizabeth Day? Elizabeth Day? No.

And on the back cover, genius, another classic and funny love story, says Matt Haig. Matt Haig, okay. Now, here are the two things that I would like to observe about those, that selection of quotes. Firstly, all four quotes on the front cover are from famous women writers. Women. Yeah.

And indeed, when I did the event with David a couple of weeks ago, it was noticeable that 95% of his audience were female. Yeah. So that's who they're going for. But also, John, these quotes are fairly, I mean, they're literally four words at most, and those words are not complicated ones magnificent triumph best best book ever such a lovely book you know the the what i think is interesting is the

but what i think is interesting is the the positioning of recommendation as celebrity recommendation which is what we could call this as something that a friend would say to you. Not this soaring triumph of what it means to be human, but what a lovely book. Couldn't put it down. It's really taking it down to absolute basics. And I wonder whether that is a thing that you've noticed in terms of celebrity endorsements.

Absolutely. What you really need is is barack obama saying two thumbs up well nothing more because he's barack obama it almost feels like sort of uh a form of kind of stop nuclear weapons stockpiling now you kind of have to have you have to have a lot the charms race john yeah the charms race oh andy that's brilliant that's what it is i mean you have to have if you look it's it's called a plus content in amazon okay yeah and it's it's basically below all the the sort of the descriptive stuff you'll have pictures and uh you know, graphics, and you'll have all of these really laid out all of these quotes. And it's almost like you have to have a certain critical mass of these to get people to take this seriously as a contender for the bestseller list. I mean, this is a really perfect example. They've done their homework. Well, they've got they've

ticked all the boxes we spend a lot of time talking about this years ago do you remember i i um i talked about a book called the north water by a writer called ian it was came recommended by hillary mantel and martin amos yes and that yes ian mcgu, that's right. Thanks, Nicky. Ian McGuire. And that was enough. I mean, that and the fact that it was set on a whaling ship in the 19th century was enough to make me pick it up. Thank you, Father Mapple.

I do feel they almost cancel each other, themselves out now. It's funny, you need to have that critical mass of endorsements and blurbs, as they're called. Americans call them blurbs. As you say, they don't really give you any feel for the book. It's more that, as you suggest, you're disadvantaged if you don't have it. It's sort of what you would call in retailing a hygiene factor. You know, you have to, you know, nobody wants, you know, it's that thing when you see a pub advertising freshly prepared meals.

Luxury flats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of that thing when you see a pub advertising freshly prepared meals. Luxury flats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of that. We live in different times. I have a book here that I've also been dipping into for pleasure, which if you're of a certain age, you'll remember the film. It's the novelisation of John Borman's 1973 film Zardoz. That's the most incredible cover. Yeah, about a giant flying stone head and Sean Connery

in a futuristic kind of nappy on the front. And this doesn't come with any celebrity endorsement from 1973. If it did. No Barbara Woodhouse, no Norman Mailer, nothing. I'm just going to read you the blurb on the back because we do love blurbs on here, right? So this presumably was issued around the same time that the movie was released.

John Borman was the director of, at that point, Point Blank and Deliverance. So he was riding off the back of some successes. And this novelization is John Borman with Bill Stare, by which Bill's been bunged some money to turn John's script into a novel. Anyway, imagine you didn't know anything about the film and you just read this on the back. Zardoz.

I mean, he had me at Zardoz. Zardoz. Through the lowering clouds came the face of Zardoz, the god who gave Zed and the exterminators the right to mate, the means to kill. What else in life was meaningful? Then Zed entered the godhead seeking its mysteries, entering the world of the vortex where death was banished forever,

stirring the long-forgotten sexual desires of the Eternals, dividing them, reversing time itself to find the true secret of the Tabernacle. Zed, an unlikely champion against eternal evil. I love it. I love it. it imagine imagine nick you got that home and it read like thomas bernhardt that would be amazing wouldn't it are you uh are you enjoying this book oh my god it's terrible i'm of course i am it's awful who would you recommend it to readers of what and the the film oh god I mean, yeah, recommended for readers of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte,

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, et cetera. No, I don't know. Hey, Zardoz, this is the beginning of the chapter. Nothing was easy. Life came hard and short. The young boy Zed took shelter at the side of his father from the merciless wind. They were fortunate.

They were the blessed ones. They waited at the side of his father from the merciless wind. They were fortunate. They were the blessed ones. They waited at the mountaintop. Others were gathering on horseback, all moved to the appointed place. With heads turned to the point on the horizon, from whence Zardoz would come. Whence?

A shout. Whence? Zardoz would come. Blah, blah, blah. A shout rose up.ardos comes through the lowering clouds came there god this was to be the first time that zed would see him even he a warrior's son shook with fear and fell to his knees when he saw god a gigantic stone head slowly descended towards them i mean mean, I mean, vast and menacing. It's huge face carved into a frightening grimace.

It's always glowing. It's face glittered with rain. How could a head live without a body? What kind of creature could have born this monster? Perhaps the body was invisible and all around them. Do you, do you see readers do you see it stood firm the warriors and so on and so forth i mean you know come on come on it's all

that you know it's brig flats is all very well but it's zardoz it's zardoz that feeds you oh i love it there's one anyway it's wonderful it'll be in our newsletter as being recommended soon because i've noticed that a book that I was criticising on the last lock list, it was recommended in our newsletter. Good. We're a broad church, aren't we, John? But we're still a church, as David McRenman used to say. Love it.

Oh, that never gets old. Thanks, David. I think we've… Recommended a few books there. I think we've shelf-talked, haven't we? I mean, the only thing I think we shelf- a few books there I think we've shelf talked haven't we I mean the only thing I think we shelf talked is John

I'm just going to I've waited 30 years to say this to somebody from Waterstones Management I was that resentful bookseller who felt you're not going to

you're not turning me into a little monkey who's just going to write copy for you for free and trade on my personal recommendation I was terribly grumpy

about that sort of thing were you because you not did them yeah I was oh Iumpy about that sort of thing. Were you? Did you not do them? Yeah, I was. Oh, I never, no, I never did them. No, there were always more tractable members of the team who were. Where are they now? John was the boss.

I was marketing director for the whole chain, Nicky. I wasn't the boss. I was merely a sad enabler at a head office. You were middle management i wasn't middle management i was very much senior management i'm gonna also want to put john made a point earlier which is well worth saying that the the reiterating that the the um the booksellers and the branch managers ward stones were in those days were not backwards in coming forwards if they didn't like one of your choices

that had been handed down from head office. And I once took consecutive calls. This is an absolutely true story where a panel of booksellers had selected a book called The Tao of Muhammad Ali to be Waterstone's Book of the Month. And I took consecutive calls from one branch manager in the north excoriating me for choosing such an un-literary book as The Tao of Muhammad Ali.

And I put the phone down and the next call was from a manager two towns over from the first one, thanking me profusely for selecting a book for Book of the Month that that branch could actually sell. And that's true. That's absolutely true. But that's what you were dealing with. You were dealing with one chain with very different markets

from town to town. And I guess that's still the case now, isn't it? Anyway, I think this has been a lot of fun. It has. Send us in your favourite shelf. No, please don't. And we'll try not to read them. We'll try not to read them out.

All that remains for us to say is the Douglas Adams episode is coming soon. We're re-recording it shortly, and we're very much looking forward to that too. Thanks for the recommendations, guys. Yeah. Been a pleasure. Zardoz. Yes.

Zardoz. Keep reading. See you later. See you, everybody. Bye. Thanks a lot. Bye. Thanks a lot. Bye.