Backlisted - Summer Reading Special

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

This week, to mix things up a little, it’s our annual round-up of books, old and new, you might enjoy over the summer. John, Andy and Backlisted’s producer Nicky discuss: O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker (W&N Essentials); Sheep’s Clothing by Celia Dale (Daunt Books); The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time by Catherine Taylor (Weidenfeld & Nicolson); Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (Faber); A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo (Canongate); and The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds (Weidenfeld and Nicolson). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's BetterHelp.com. 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 yamx. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast which gives new life to old books. Today's format is a little different as we bring you a summer reading special

in which we've each chosen two books, one recently published and one from the vaults. I'm John Mitchinson, publisher of Unbound, where people crowdfund the books they really want to read. I'm Andy Miller, the author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And I'm Nikki Birch, the long-term producer of Backlisted. It was the 19th century American social reformer Henry Ward Beecher who wrote that there was a temperate zone in the mind between luxurious indolence and exacting work. And it is to this region, just between laziness and labour, that summer reading belongs. Well, that is very much the region where we, backlisted three,

have pitched a row of makeshift tents. We're not glamping, everybody. We're glumping. Because, because, I'm so sorry. It's a damp summer. Oh, it's a damp summer. Also, a damp summer also as long term listeners to this podcast will realize there is a divide in the ranks between my colleagues who who um for some bizarre reason favor hotter months and myself who spurns them and tries to stay indoors i don't keep this deathly pallor by wandering around outside

boosting my vitamin D. Or is it B? D, D, isn't it? I think. Who cares if you don't get it, Andy? Yeah, exactly. I don't. I just kind of emerge. But so we've chosen a half dozen books and we were reviewing our choices of books. And I have to say, five of these six books are quite grim. I don't think you're selling them properly. I am, I am. Is that a big sell? Okay, sorry.

It is for me. I mean, I would take no book to the beach because I never go to the beach. But I would, you know, any of these would cheer me up as I wait for autumn to come. I'd be a little disappointed if people were listening to a backlisted summer reading special and expecting beach-ready kind of tomes. I think it's OK to have a miserable book on the beach. That's OK, because actually what the beach is, it's not really I need to be cheered up. It's I've got an intense three-hour reading experience ahead of me.

Exactly. You're absolutely delighted to have a book that's taking you into somewhere completely, some parallel universe. You say on the beach, Nicky. I think Neville Shute's On the Beach, which is one of the most miserable books ever written. So thank you, Neville Shute, for that. We still haven't done the Shute episode. one of the most miserable books ever written. So thank you, Neville Shoot, for that. We still haven't done the shoot episode.

Oh, the shoot episode. It has been suggested several times. But, you know, so many authors, so little time. We haven't managed to squeeze Neville into eight years' worth of shows, but there's still time. Now, Nicky Birch, producer of Batlisted, you're actually walking it like you talk it you're or cycling it like you talk it because you read your first

summer read uh this summer on the road didn't you on your holidays I did yeah I was cycling around the highlands of Scotland and I asked the audience ask a friend for a relevant book to take with me to Scotland and the internet answered. And they answered actually a book that you've already talked about on Backlisted, which was convenient. Now listen, before we get on to the book, let's just clear the air, right? So it wasn't the internet, Nicky. It was a human being and And their name is Neil Christie.

So Neil, thank you very much. Thanks, Neil. And also Kerry Morgan. So those two listeners recommended to you. I mean, you've got some amazing recommendations, actually. It's worth going onto Twitter and seeing if you can find that thread. It's very interesting. But Neil recommended it because this book had been brought to his attention

because we've talked about it on Batlisted. We haven't done a whole episode on it, but I think I put it in one of my Why I've Been Reading slots that we used to do. And it was on episode 155, which was the Stephen Sondheim episode. We talked about it there. And I wanted to ask you, Nicky, why didn't you read it then? Why do you need, why don't you trust me?

Why do you trust Neil and Kerry? What's wrong with me? Why am I chopped liver? You're not chopped liver, Andy. I think it's just verification. Neil and Kerry added verification to your previously good recommendation. And I'm very pleased. And in fact, actually, if Andy's done the recommendation, I'm like, okay, I'm, you know, I'm good to go. I'll definitely go for it. So I'm very pleased to know that I'm reading something that you had already and you'd recommended, but also on the front of this edition, it's got a fantastic kind of quote from Maggie O'Farrell that says, I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book. And as I'm a huge Maggie O'Farrell fan, I was like, yeah.

And let me just put your own logic to you, Andy. If Nikki followed all your recommendations, all 193 books and counting that you have talked about on Badlisted, she'd have years, realistically, she'd have years of reading to get through. A lot of beaches, that is. I'd never go to work. I'd never be editing the show. I'd just be on the beach.

Anyway, the point is, what is the book, Nicky? I've chosen O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker and it was a book that you mentioned and it was a really great book to read while cycling in the Highlands of Scotland because it is set in the Highlands of Scotland or at least towards Aberdeen. And in a kind of true, as we sort of trailed at the beginning,

it is a bit miserable. You know, it's not the kind of joyful book. But what I didn't realise until after I finished and read about it is quite a lot of it is autobiographical. Indeed. And I was, you know, which is really amazing actually because Elspeth herself, like the character Janet, grew up in this large house that was also doubled up as a boy's home. And obviously the main character, Janet, is very much into literature and books and nobody understands her and appreciates her.

So you can imagine, I'm guessing the writer may have had some connection with that, too. imagine I'm guessing the writer may have had some connection with that too but it it's right at the beginning it says that you know Janet she's 16 she's murdered and this is the story of her short life up until the point of her death and interesting that Maggie O'Farrell likes it because she uses that device in two of her books main character is is dead and we're told that at the beginning I thought that was quite interesting but one of the things about janet's life that is really notable is that nobody really understands her she doesn't know how to interact with people and she has these kind of unasked for sexual advances or stroke assaults which she finds quite disturbing doesn't she right right up until kind

of throughout her life and nothing is done about them and actually when she herself makes her own advance that's when everything sort of unravels it's kind of like you know people are allowed to interesting come on to her yeah and nobody seems to or she she doesn't know how to handle it but it's not allowed the other way and it's her family are basically horrified by her and and because she just doesn't understand how to act in society and actually the way i read it was she's probably autistic oh that's interesting because she doesn't understand social conventions she's obsessed by things animals words can't really do people very very well and can't do interactions with people and ends up in these awful situations like these, as I said,

these sort of sexual advances. So it's really interesting. That's how I read it. I don't know if you felt the same, Andy. Well, I said on the episode that it is a cross, for me, it was a cross between Shirley Jackson and Dodie Smith, i.e. we have always lived in I Capture the Castle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It owes a lot to both those novels and I cannot imagine that if listeners, admirers of We Have Always Lived in the Castle or I Capture the Castle, they wouldn't enjoy O Caledonia the other thing is Elspeth Barker was said to be working on another novel for many years after this because this is her only novel isn't it years after this. Because this is her only novel, isn't it? But this, as it turns out, is her only novel. I remember it coming out, I'm sure John does as well, in 1991.

It was, you know, it was well-reviewed. It was. I had a copy on the shelf for nearly 30 years before I read it. Famous, didn't you? It was one of those. I picked it up after work one day, thinking, oh, I'll read that. And 30 years later, I did. And it was wonderful.

It was hiding there on my shelf in plain sight. Nicky, you've made it sound very interesting. My impression of it, while I agree with what you're saying, was I felt there was a kind of phantasmagorical element to it that was the note that stays with me a few years after reading it. Almost Gormenghasty. Yes, that's right. Yeah, it's interesting.

So more... Gothic, almost. Gothic, more Gothic than psychological. Yeah, interesting. Also, this novel and the other two I just mentioned, they all feature female protagonists who are bookish you know they're all novels by bookish people who have been bookish children or bookish adolescents and i think that suffuses o caledonia that sense of a writer writing about an autobiographical novel about how much they like to read and how reading

informed how they see the world and how they think of themselves in relation to the world and it made them separate from everyone else can i read a bit from it yeah okay so this is a bit from uh and this is i suppose this is the kind of thing that made me think about her being having some kind of neurodivergence she's the eldest of a number of children i can't remember exactly like five or six kids mother vera seems to pop out children all the time but only really likes babies and not children she's out in the garden and i'll just go on from here one afternoon she was told to bring the baby in from the garden reluctantly she trailed out into the still,

early autumn air. The pram was on the lawn some way from the house. With clumsy fingers, Janet undid the stiff navy cover, pulled back innumerable blankets and scrabbled under the hood for the swaddled occupant, who began to roar, fixing Janet with an unblinking glare. It was difficult to pull her from under the hood. Janet tried to lower it and cut her fingers in its joints so that blood dripped onto the baby's shawls. Louder came the roars. It began to rain. The shawls were unravelling and catching on the metal parts of the hood. She pulled at them and tore a great hole in the lacy cobweb. In desperation, Janet seized the infant by her head and dragged her out, clutching at the corners of shawl and looping them over the flailing torso. The whole bundle slithered through her

hands and lay shrieking frantically on the dank grass. Janet could not lift it up. It was far heavier than she would have ever guessed. When she held the baby up before, she had simply been deposited on her lap. She'd never carried her. So she grabbed such projections as she could find, a shoulder and a fiercely resisting arm, and dragged the whole mass, shawls trailing, through mud and snagging on leaves, over the grass and across the gravel, and at last

to the kitchen door, where Vera and Nanny greeted her, first with horror and then with fury. Mm-hmm. There it is. There it is. Do you see what i mean she's sort of she's not understood what they've asked her to do which is bring the baby in and she's done okay i'll take the baby in and therefore does these things which are objectionable and and horrid can i ask on a side note whether you enjoy reading books in the place in which they're set yes i think it's

great it really it's really wonderful i you know it really makes you just because the sort of this book has lots of descriptions of well how much she loves spending time you know alone and in the big castle and where they live in the scottish brooding countryside islands yeah i would like to recommend the novel sheepep's Clothing by Celia Dale. It was originally published in 1988. It was Celia Dale's 13th and final novel, and she wrote it in her mid-70s. And she was born in 1912, and she died in 2011, just a couple of weeks before her 100th birthday.

And before her career as a novelist, she was the novelist Ruma Godden's secretary. And actually, people know remarkably little about Celia Dale. This is one of the wonderful things about her. Well, we'll talk about this in a minute, but she is genuinely one of those authors who, you know, this novel was published as recently as 1988 the facts about her life are very thin on the ground so you do judge the books as

books rather than as the work of a well-known personality of some sort um now when we recorded one of these episodes a few years ago, it was our first summer of COVID episode in 2020. I recommended another of her novels called A Helping Hand, which was originally published in 1966 and which had been recommended to us by our friends Becky and Nora at Curtis Brown Heritage. by our friends Becky and Nora at Curtis Brown Heritage. And I think I said on that episode it was one of the least appropriate and therefore glorious, most glorious summer books imaginable. It's a helping hand. It's so disturbing. It's about targeting the elderly and taking care of them in all senses. Oh, no.

Is this equally as disturbing? Well, yes. It's so, so, so grim. But, oh, my goodness, it's wonderful. They're like Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine, but then some terribly dark Tales of the Unexpected or Black Mirror almost style element of terror involved. And also they're remarkably cruel novels,

sort of exhilaratingly cruel. No character is safe in any sense and no character is nice, even the ones you think might be nice there never are is this why you're so fascinated about celia why you know what could have made her well right you know the idea of writing somebody writing this particular novel sheep's clothing in their mid 70s strikes me as both sort of brave and hilarious. It's about two women who meet in Holloway Prison and they decide together to pose as representatives of social services

and visit the elderly, falsely promising them increased pensions. Which, as a premise, is not, you know, we said beach reads, didn't we? We said beach reads. And the scheme is initially very successful, but then something goes wrong. I am so shy of giving anything away about this. I'm just going to read the opening

and you'll understand why this so appealed to me. This is how it begins. Two women stood outside in the shadow of the overhang from the walkway above for Mrs Davis lived on the ground floor of a block of council flats, a mixed blessing, for although it meant she had no stairs to cope with and need never worry whether the lift had been put out of order yet again, she was a sitting target for hit and run bell ringers letterbox rattlers window bangers and dog dirt and worse so far she had been lucky but she knew better than not to keep her door on the chain the older of the two women spoke good Good afternoon, dear. Yes. We're from social services. Yes. May we come in for a moment? She was a pleasant spoken woman in late middle age,

carrying an official looking briefcase as well as a handbag from which she produced a plastic covered card with her picture on it. She showed this to Mrs. Davis, who could just make out the likeness in the bad light of the overhang and through the narrow opening of the door. Just a minute, just a minute. Flustered, she closed the door and slipped off the chain, then opened it again. The social services, is it? What do they want? Nothing to worry about, dear. In fact, quite the reverse. Good news, we think you'll find. Good news, is it me allowances? Something like that. Well, you better come in. Thank you. Smiling, the woman stepped inside. Mrs Davis made her way back into the sitting room,

where Radio 2 still sniggered away in its corner. The two women followed her, the second much younger than the first, a pallid girl with long brown hair reminiscent of the late John Lennons and carrying a zipped-up tote bag. The older woman said, This is my colleague Mary. I'm Mrs Black from the DHSS, Group OAP B22. That's a special group you won't have had dealings with before, which is why we're here. May we sit down?

Naughty. I mean, aren't you hooked already? Aren't you hooked? It definitely has that Ruth Renderley feeling to it. So here's the thing about this. I was thinking about this. One of the things I love about Celia Dale's novels, which are being brought back into print by Dawn Books,

is that they are... I dislike the phrase lost classics, and I wouldn't describe these as lost classics. It seems to me, but this, since we started Backlisted, the idea of the lost classic has become an ever more marketable commodity. And there's a lot of republication going on in this area of books which have been overlooked for some decades often justifiably so but sometimes not and I realize that I feel I don't want Celia Dale to fall into the category of quote-unquote neglected lady novelist why not Because I can't think of anyone else who really writes like her. I would love somebody to write like this now.

Nobody does. Who writes about old people living in council flats? Who writes about the social services in there? Who of advanced years does that? She strikes me as really unusual. She writes very cleanly. She writes utterly without sentimentality. So it's not the idea that the books are lost classics,

but it's more that as a writer, she's got such a particular voice. I mean, we compared her to Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine, but she's far more acid than Barbara Vine. I'm delighted that some of these are back in bookshops again, and I hope Dawn or someone is planning on bringing more back. I've made a note that I want to read more late Margaret Drabble after our Margaret Drabble episode. I wonder if Margaret Drabble's a bit like that in her later novels I just don't know whether that's true or not but you're right about the council flat milieu very, very few novels are set in that

I'm struggling to think probably Angus Wilson's Late Call is about the only one that I can think of but that's a very different kind of novel Also I'd just like to add we seem to be living in quite a weird world now where the real lost classics are novels by iris murdoch or john updike or doris lessing yeah you know writers who were massive in their time who were still in print who are still on bookshelves but who seem to me little talked about you're unlikely to find them on front tables, whereas for whatever reason you'll find K Dick is freely

and easily available to read, but the novels of Doris Lessing Lesser. I even would say this, John, about our experience reading E.M. Forster. Really? Well, you know. You'll find E.M. Forster in a bookshop, though. You'd always find Forster. But our response if anyone hasn't yet

listened to our episode on Passage to India by Ian Forster please, please do. Our response to that novel, both John and I found that a revelatory experience and it's just a perfect example of well you sort of think you know

what they're about. So why would you spend time actually reading them best to go straight to Celia Dale? Well, maybe, yes, but sometimes a classic is a classic for a reason, which is that it's extremely good and will surprise you every time you go back to it you know Forster seems to me synonymous with the 1980s and early 90s Merchant Ivory films which those are good adaptations there's nothing wrong with them but but it's kind of locked him into a particular time yeah but the books are more than I mean Passage for Injury is a lot more than I mean in fact it's a book that's straining against all of those Edwardian cliches in a

really extraordinary way. Well, that's cool. Celia Dale. So that's Sheep's Clothing by Celia Dale. Johnny, what have we got? I'm going to recommend a memoir which has just been published as the new book by a guest on Backlisted, Catherine Taylor.

Catherine is a very astute critic, writes for lots of a very astute critic, writes for lots of different publications as a critic, was previously Publishing Director of the Folio Society and a Director of English Pen. And amazingly... And she's been on Backlisted a couple of times. She has. She did D.H. Lawrence, famously,

and also the Nabokov episode, The I think that's right in the day and this is her first book a memoir and it's called The Stirrings a memoir in northern time she grew up in Sheffield she was born in New Zealand there are numbers of there are a number of connections that I feel with her story in this book sort Sort of one, the New Zealand connection, although she didn't spend long in New Zealand, she did go. The second is it's a very, very good and carefully recorded history of a period of time in the north of England, particularly the 1980s into the 90s, which I think hasn't been written about as much as you might think. And I guess I suppose ended up evolving into the literary world. Her mum ran a bookshop in Sheffield, which became very popular with not only local writers, but also Phil Oakey and people who

were, you know, the Sheffield band scene. So it's a book that has a lot of the beats in this book are things that feel very familiar to me. She writes about, obviously, the background to her growing up as a woman in Sheffield, as a girl in Sheffield, is the Yorkshire Ripper, and that sense of being kind of the dread that kind of settled on the north of England, which I remember really acutely. There was a brief, people who know the story will know

that it was a brief period in the middle of the search for the Yorkshire Ripper where some hoaxer had sent in tapes that seemed to suggest he came from Wearside. I can remember listening on the car radio to them as a child. The curate of my grandparents' church in Sunderland was interviewed by the police in connection with it. So it all turned out to be not. So there's that kind of Gordon Bernian background.

She writes about the Greenham Common Women. She goes down, she escapes and goes down to see the Greenham Common Women twice and is really inspired by what she finds there. down to see the Grim and Common Woman twice and is really inspired by what she finds there. At the same time, there is that, which all comes back to you when you're reading the book, the sense of imminent nuclear catastrophe. And she writes about Threads, the amazing BBC film that was set in Sheffield, which she was sort of, as it were, an extra in. So I think if you are interested to feel the warp and weft, the texture of life in a northern setting, in a home where there wasn't much money,

I'm going to put a little bit on that she's going to read at the moment, which is set in the summer of 1976, which, as you discover, is the last summer her family are together. Her father leaves her mother, which is a you discover, is the last summer her family are together. Her father leaves her mother, which is a really traumatic experience for her. And there are more traumatic experiences. She develops a serious thyroid illness. She goes to university. And I won't go into all the details. I would just say that if you are, it's very, I think, a real challenge to write a memoir, if you are, it's very, I think, a real challenge to write a memoir, a kind of coming of age memoir,

and to do it with as much, there's a certain amount of bravery, but also just a real fineness of language and of insight into it. I love the fact, you know, I know the songs that she's listening to, it's very much the same songs that we were all listening to. I know the films that she's watching, I know that sense of feeling like songs that we were all listening to. I know the films that she's watching. I know that sense of feeling like you're trapped into a life that's not right for you and you want to move beyond it. But there is a particular issue which I, as a man, that sense of being a woman and being vulnerable, that she captures brilliantly.

I found it incredibly moving. It's just a very unique situation to be in, to read a memoir of someone you know. I mean, it may be not less unique for you guys working in publishing, but that's quite a unique thing, isn't it? I think there's also a very odd thing that happens. She's a very good writer and once you're in the story, I'm no longer thinking of it is Catherine the

Catherine that I know I'm thinking of this yeah girl with her mother and I'm thinking of the I'll play a little bit yeah the summer of 1976 was the hottest in Britain since records began as well as the intense endless heat the sweltering nation endured a severe water shortage standpipes in the streets, and a plague of ladybirds moving across the UK's cities and towns. During those drought-heavy weeks, the water levels of Derbyshire's Ladybower Reservoir shrank so low that long-submerged secrets were revealed. The ruins of Derwent Village, which, along with its neighbour Ashopton, had been evacuated and drowned in 1945 to make way for the creation of Ladybower,

rose up through the water like a ghostly revenant. Seeking relief from the heat of Sheffield, my family drove past the reservoir one evening, the moors too parched to visit during the day. One building, partially re-emerged from the watery depths, resembled a warning finger, pointing towards something I wasn't yet able to see. 1976 would be the last summer of our family as it existed up to that point. A typical family and an ordinary story,

although neither the family nor the story seems commonplace when it is your family and your story. At school, I was relentlessly unpopular, in an imprecise way. But after that year, something much more compelling and unsavoury would replace the general apathy and animosity, at least when taken apart in the busy hands of my peers, when I achieved the singular honour of being the first person in my class whose parents had split up. I did say that mine was an ordinary story. That long, scorching summer turned out to be the dividing line between an all-too-brief before

and a vast, messy after. It remains filtered through a syrupy haze. The faultless past and the compromise present are, I've found, unreliable lenses through which to view the world. What is certain is that I recall the years before 1976 only in fragments and impressions, without a fixed chronology. The period that followed hardened my perception, while simultaneously blurring the outlines I had presumed were solid. By the time I was old enough to ask what really happened, the once familiar faces had altered, some had turned away for good. Any excavator of personal history must assume the role of private investigator into their own life.

I have always loved detective stories. When I was very young, just before bedtime, I would sit, wrapped in my dressing gown, with my father while he sipped his one glass of sherry or beer and watch American shows on television, Hawaii Five-O, Kojak, Macmillan and Wife, Ironside, and our favourite, Columbo. The last intrigued me most because of its inverted narrative structure. The perpetrator of the crime is revealed to the audience at the opening of each episode. It is left to the perennially and deceptively rumpled detective, Lieutenant Columbo, to go backwards, examine the variables, work out the formula, like a masterclass in algebra,

and in that way apprehend the criminal. In my own unearthing, I am both investigator and culprit. It's very good. It is very, it's an excellent book. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm loving these beach reads. Well, the long hot summer of 76, yeah. I'm loving them. Yeah. I think we should take a break for a moment so we can hear a word from our sponsors.

Next, I'm going to talk a little bit about a novel by Sebastian Barry called Old God's Time. This, we're recording this on the 9th of August 2023, and last week, Sebastian Barry's novel on the Book Along list before in 2011 on Canaan's side, and he's been on the Short list twice for A Long, Long Way in 2005 and The Secret Scripture in 2008. And The Secret Scripture the same year won the Costa Book of the Year, and then he won the Costa Book of the Year again. I think he's the only person who ever did that. Days Without End in 2017. And all Sebastian Barry's novels seem to take place in the same country, in the same dreamscape, if you like. The characters appear in different books

appear in different books. And Old God's Time is about a retired policeman called Tom Kettle, a widower, a man who has lost both his children. And two policemen come knocking on the door to talk about an unsolved murder from many years earlier. And gradually, over the course of the novel,

a story unravels that manages somehow to tell the story of Ireland itself over the last 40 to 50 years. It's only 200 pages long, this novel. It's incredibly moving and I interviewed Sebastian Barry on stage at the start of the year that was at the Faversham Literary Festival in Kent and when I say I interviewed him what I mean is I sat on stage and said only three or four things he didn't he that he requires no interview he is

john have you seen him read yeah he's amazing he is just the most extraordinary reader of his own work and a wonderful engaging audiences he had the audience eating it because he's a you know he's been an actor and he's a he's a performer he is a performer and he's not afraid to perform. So it was an incredibly memorable evening. It really fixed this novel in my mind. And I've thought about it all year, which is why I wanted to bring it now to Backlisted and tell people about it now and actually not fall into the trap

that we were just talking about before the break of don't pass up books on the booker long list or short list just because they're on the booker long list or short list because that it might because some readers will think it's too obvious some won't some will be drawn to it but others will think oh well they don't this this novel doesn't need me other people will do you know i'm i'm this this is a really, really good piece of fiction. Deserving, I don't know, but it really, it's pleasing to me that it's there and he's having another shot.

I'm really, really pleased for him. So we're going to listen to now, there is an audio book of Old God's Time and it's not read by Sebastian, but he did a launch event in Dublin in February I think this year and as part of that he read from the novel so we're going to hear a couple of minutes of him reading and that will give you a flavor of what he does on stage and I would ask while you listen to this just think to yourself what this must look like on the page and then compare it with what he's doing with his interpretation and his voice. Now, what you're going to hear is this retired policeman, Tom Kettle, is reminiscing about his late wife, how they met

and how they stated their feelings to one another and their histories to one another. She says, I don't know who I am. There's just no one for you to marry. At this point, he didn't believe he had mentioned marriage. But she spoke so sadly, so precisely and so bravely that he certainly didn't say so. And he immediately thought, by God, if she wants to marry, I will do that. Had it even entered his stupid head?

It must have. Tom couldn't remember. She sat on in her denim glory the jeans like a second skin or a skin she could shed with that gathered, collected set to her shoulders. She had a little purse with a heart on it, like the knickers, more of a wallet maybe. It was then she extracted the sacred photo and told him the story of how she had won it, how she had stolen it from oblivion, those damnable nuns. stolen it from oblivion, those damnable nuns. But then, by her courage, she released him to tell her his story, his own sorry, bloody tale of woe. All the dead mothers! He was

gabbling, excited. He was aware at the back of his head of his lousy pay, detective though he was. That wasn't the point. They his lousy pay, detective though he was. That wasn't the point. They'd manage, they would. And who the hell would they have at such a ceremony? That wasn't the point either. Nothing in the normal way seemed to be because he knew she wasn't finished. There was something further to say.

He could see it as if it were a raven sitting on her shoulder. They had come to a huge decision about their lives almost by happenstance, by things benignly conspiring. But she wasn't finished. The shoulders were still set. She wasn't finished because she never would be. Quoth the raven, never would be. Quoth the raven, never would be. I mean, I would follow him round with a tape recorder hoping he read different bits of the novel

that I could then comp together on a bootleg of his... Why is he not doing the audiobook? It's a really interesting question because you would have to say that the performance doesn't necessarily I mean this is ridiculous thing to say he wrote it but the performance doesn't necessarily match what's on the page and the way the audiobook is read on the page is far more neutral. But there is almost like a kind of a songwriter's interpretation of a piece of work in performance is very different to what it might be in the studio. And I think there's a similar thing going on there with Sebastian Barry. I remember, I think I might have said this to us on a lot listed,

to you guys on a lot listed. I once recorded a Russell Brand's audio book, Revolution, and think what you do about Russell Brand. But his recording of the book, he'd written this book, Revolution, and think what you do about Russell Brand. But his recording of the book, he'd written this book, and he would just be reading it going, well, that's rubbish. I'm just going to say something else. And it was actually him reading it aloud was brilliant. Yeah, of course.

He brought so much to the reading. Creativity in the moment, right? It was amazing. Yeah. Well, anyway, that's Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry. And whether it goes any further in the race or not, I really, In the moment, right? It was amazing. Yeah. Well, anyway, that's Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry. And whether it goes any further in the race or not, I really, I feel very fortunate actually to have had seven months to think about the book before I talk about it on this.

So, you know, I didn't read it in Ireland. I didn't read it on my holidays, but I've had all year to live with it and think, well, it's probably one of the best novels that I've read this year. Well, that's high praise indeed. Nicky, Booker Longlist. Yeah, I also took up your Booker Longlist mantle and your Booker Longlist challenge and thought I would also read one of the books from the book along list and thought I would read A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo I haven't read I think she's done one other book yeah this is her second novel isn't it yeah yeah I haven't read the past

the the first one which I think I might go back to you after this stay with me it's called came out in 2017 right and that's I think that was a romance i think as i understood it i think i would suggest of all the books that we are talking about today this is perhaps the most traditional beach read summer reading and saying that it's not not a misery memoir um there are miserable moments in it reassured listeners don't worry there is some gloom in it yeah yeah and we'll play you a clip Be reassured, listeners, don't worry. Don't worry, guys. There is some gloom in it. Yeah, and we'll play you a clip of a bit of that, so don't worry.

But it's probably your more, you know, it's one of those books that follows the lives of two families in Nigeria and from opposite sides of the tracks. And eventually it's how their lives intersect towards the end in sort of a melodramatic way. So that's kind of more your traditional family saga, two families from different places, yeah.

And it's what you might say a gripping read in that kind of thing, although gripping sometimes because I actually listened to it rather than read it. And going back to what you said about Sebastian, this is a very different kind of listening experience. And I think it's interesting because it's a Nigerian author, very much set in a sort of fictitious Nigerian town. I think, you know, there's different languages in Nigeria.

This is Yoruba. And it's very Nigerian. And in a way that I say that isn't sometimes they're sort of anglicized or Americanized. This is very much. There's lots of colloquial expressions, food, some pidgin English, lots of Yoruba dialect and lots of crucially naming conventions right around how you refer to people when they're married you refer to them as some as differently or when they're if you're looking up to somebody you refer to somebody as as different names and that's the same people being referred to differently in the book depending on who's talking about them and i think that listening i found that sometimes quite hard to follow but i think maybe reading that might be easier to understand

because you can kind of go back and think, what was that? But listening, you don't tend to rewind so much. So I just think it's a different experience. Does Adebayo read it herself? No. No, she doesn't read it herself. There's two people reading it because it follows two lives. There's a man and a woman reading it. Shall I play you a clip of it? Yes, please. And I't read it herself. There's two people reading it because it follows two lives. And there's a man and a woman reading it.

And shall I play you a clip of it? Yes, please. And I'll set it up. So the two protagonists or the two main people in the families, it does follow their families entirely, is Warala. She's a junior doctor. And Eniola, who's a young guy who is struggling to get an education. But this clip is about Warala.

She's a junior doctor and she's just got engaged to Kunle. Now her sister, Matara, is kind of, she's a bit younger and she's sort of defying those naming traditions that I was talking about. So she's not calling somebody Auntie this or so-and-so this. She's just calling them by their name. So that's around the sort of modernisation. So here's a clip.

So you say Warala has just got engaged to Kunle and her sister Matara is the one who's defying the naming conventions. She doesn't just call you Wurala, he frowned. She calls you Dr. Wura. Well, that's who I am. Wurala zipped up her bag. You should have gotten a medical degree if you wanted someone to call you Dr. Kunle. He slapped her cheek with his palm wide open, so his forefinger poked her eye. Then he followed that with a backhand as he brought his arm back to his side. Urala staggered backward. He stood with his arms folded across his chest, lips pursed into an angry line, watching her press a finger against the eye he had pulled.

The eye she could not bear to open because it hurt so much. At first, Wuraola thought she was the one who kept yelping. But once she could open both eyes, she saw it was Motara, standing at the end of the corridor, holding her chin as if to keep her jaw in place. So quite interesting. I've never heard a book with that strong Nigerian accent in English language before. So I think if I was going to do this again, it really brings a lot to it,

having a good Nigerian voice like that. But I would like to read it and listen to it at the same time. There's a really good audiobook platform called Zigzag, X-I-G-X-A-G, that enable you to do exactly that. You can read, as it were, kind of the e-book as it's actually playing on the screen in front of you so on from one device it's quite clever right well this is the perfect time to to get your your zigzag uh account but i i just just one more thing i want to say about the book it's basically a look about that the overall book is

about the dangers of ignoring deep sort of economic divides that run through community and how difficult life is and these difficult choices families have to make in Nigeria to kind of survive. Like, do you pay rent or school fees? And so it does say a lot around politics and kind of the murky side of politics and corruption and those sorts of things. So it's a good, like, if I want to get a good Nigerian family saga for your beach read, if you enjoyed, for example, Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor, you will like this book. Yes.

I was thinking, John, when you were talking about the virtues of reading while listening, after we made the Tolkien episode, several people said to me, did you really read The Silmarillion all the way through? And I did read The Silmarillion, but I'm going to list this into a secret all these years later. I did it by having the book open in front of me and setting the narration to 2.5.

2.5? Yeah, so I would follow the words really fast. Talking delivered by Pinky and Perky, you know, kind of. Yeah. No, well, no, because I'm an audible. You were an amphetamine at the time. Yeah. And that's why I cannot remember anything about the Silverillion.

But I have read it. I have read it i have read it my eyes were glued to the page while martin shaw did all the names i tell you what that is a heroic reading he's reading of the silver million goodness me yeah goodness me that must have been difficult um but anyway so yeah but sometimes I do read if we're preparing for an episode I will sometimes read the audio and read the book at the same time not a 2.5 I hasten to add but if it's something I need to really

get a feel for quite quickly it's a very good way of doing it I can imagine also it helps you with the characterisation and particularly if you had someone like Sebastian Barry that you know really giving it you know that's fantastic yeah do you feel i'm going back to just adebaya for a moment uh and going back to our original thing about reading if you were going to visit nigeria do you feel you get a really strong sense of the sort of sight cells smells sounds the feeling of being in it. A hundred percent. Yeah. This is the book to take with you on a, well,

there are many brilliant books that are available to us set in Nigeria. We're very lucky. If you're interested in Nigerian literature, English, I know in America it's the same, there's lots, but this is one of many I think you could really enjoy. And not only does it talk about the food and the culture, but it also has lots of musical references to things I just don't know because I'm you know i'm not nigerian and so it makes you want to kind of find out a bit more and i think if you were there although it's a fictitious city you definitely

um recognize lots and you definitely get probably even more from the book well i for one will be very angry if neither of these books makes the book a shortlist. I feel invested now in both of them. So I think we've got time for one. We've got time for one more. I know what it is as well. Go on, John. Now for something completely different. This book will not be on the book a shortlist because it isn't a work of fiction,

although it is in some strange way. It could easily be a work of fiction. So remarkable is the story that it tells. It is a reissue of a 2012 book by John Higgs. Another former guest. Another former guest that glories in the title, The KLF, Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds. Famously in 1994, Jimmy Corsi and Bill Drummond,

the men behind the KLF who became the K Foundation, famously in 1994, Jimmy Corsi and Bill Drummond, the men behind the KLF who became the K Foundation. Previous to that, they had been the justified ancients of Moo Moo. They were also doctors. They had a number one hit with Doctoring the TARDIS. They created an extraordinary sequence of subversive hits in the late 80s and early 90s and John Higgs decided he wanted to write a kind of unauthorized as somebody said a sort of wildly unauthorized biography of the band a lot of people who don't like pop biographies will be pleased to know that this is if there

was ever as Pete Perfidi says a pop biography for people who don't read pop biographies will be pleased to know that this is if there was ever as pete perfidi says a pop biography for people who don't read pop biographies this is it it's actually a story of such joyous kind of unpredictability it's as much about if i told you it's as much about the remarkable trilogy of novels called the illuminati by robert anton wil cult reading that, as you find out from this book, that a lot of people who reference those books have never actually read them all the way through, including Bill Drummond. It has conspiracy theories,

you learn about discordianism, out of which I think Robert Anton Wilson's ideas came. It's a brilliant, brilliant, funny, strange, peculiar book. Well, it's the thing, funny strange peculiar book well that's the thing john about john higgs's books is they are his great skill i think is making connections making leaps from one thing to another feel organic and um funny and thought-provoking. His book about William Blake is, in a similar way, both about William Blake and not about William Blake. Exactly.

But also the most illuminating book I've ever read about Blake. What other books has he done? He did a book about the Roman Road, didn't he? He did a book about Watling Street, the't he? And he did a book about, about, about Watling street, the Roman road, which is one of my favorites. Um, he's written, um, he's written, uh, very recently last year, he wrote a brilliant book about love and love and let die, which was about the Beatles and James Bond. Uh, he's written a book about the future called the future starts here.

He wrote a book about the life of Timothy Leary. And I mean, I think what's really clever about this book, he writes so well about philosophy, science, religion. I'll just give you one paragraph, and then I'm going to read a little funny story, which I think sums the whole book up. But he says, from a multiple model perspective, this is idea that we have different models of reality, right? The burning of a million quid in the boathouse in Jura can be said to be both a meaningless act by two attention-seeking arseholes, which was in no way connected to the wider changes in the world at large, and also a magical act that forged the 21st century. This makes it far more interesting that it was just one or the other, for the irrational magical world and the unconnected real world dovetail

when they tell much the same story from incompatible viewpoints. There is a rush of insight and aesthetic harmony, and that's what I get from this book, a rush of insight. But listen, here's a story from early on in the book which gives you the weirdness. As I say, you've got all kinds of weird stuff. The justified agents of muumuu which i didn't know until i read this book were characters in robert anton wilson's trilogy so

a lot of this stuff is drummond and courtie the stuff that they were doing they were taking stuff that was quite that they were quite serious about but echo and the bunny men were a band that were managed by Bill Drummond and they always said that they were called Bunnymen because they're in the same way that Playboy models and Bunnygirls Drummond really disliked this and he was desperate to find out

what he thought was the real what was the real Echo the Bunnymen were really what he thought they were so he says when the band gave their press the version of the story, which was, you know, they were inspired by Drummond held his tongue. I had to stop myself from butting in and saying, no, you've got it wrong.

It's nothing to do with bunny girls. Bunny men are the scattered tribes that populate the northern rim of the world and are followers of a mythical being, a divine spirit, a prime mover who takes the earthly form of a rabbit. But, he says, I didn't. Anyway, so listen to this. This is just such too good a story for everybody to end on. And one of the lovely things about this edition of the book, it was originally an e-book and it's now being published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson with fantastic notes all the way through of him saying, oh I don't know what I was trying to do

here. I'm not sure this paragraph works quite as well as I thought it did at the time. So we all love that. Anyway, you'll love this Andy because you'll know the album but this is just, just bear with it. It's very, very funny. In 1980 Echo and the Bunnymen released their first album Crocodiles. Then there's a footnote

that says, the final section of this chapter is probably on my favourite part of the book. Drummond had licensed the album to Warners, thus keeping Zoo pure and free from such... Zoo was his record company, and free from such self-indulgent projects as albums. But it still felt clearly like a compromise. McCulloch and the band clearly had very different dreams from Drummond.

They wanted to make albums, tour the the world and become hugely rich and successful as their manager Drummond had to accept this but he was still of the impression that a real man should just make a few perfect singles and then split up the album sleeve was lying on the floor of his office when Drummond glanced at it its image foreshortened by the angle. The cover photo showed the band in a forest at night, lit by strong red and yellow light. In the centre of the frame, bassist Les Patterson sat leaning against an ash tree, which strangely had two primary trunks, which gracefully curved around each other. Then suddenly the picture changed. Red and evil, a huge rabbit's head stared at Drummond, solid and unblinking.

Instantly he knew he was looking, what he was looking at, it was Echo. And then in a blink the band photo returned. Picking up the sleeve Drummond realised that it contained an optical illusion. The tree trunks looked like the head and ears of a rabbit, one that appeared evil thanks to the downward angle of its eye, the sharp elongated point to its face and the red light on the tree. Once he'd seen it, it seemed incredible that no one had ever noticed it before. This was weird. Echo was supposed to be an idle fantasy of Drummond's, a strange personal thought that he kept to himself. It was not supposed to appear out in the world, eyeing him coldly from an album sleeve. He spoke to the photographer to determine whether it had been done deliberately and learnt that it had not. The final cover photograph had been one that no

one had wanted, but which had eventually been accepted as a compromise. No one had seen the rabbit head in the image before Drummond pointed it out. He was discreet when he spoke to the photographer, of course. He knew that the idea of Echo was a personal fantasy from his inner life, an idea that could survive in his mind but not withstand the scrutiny of others. But the appearance of the rabbit in the world outside him had strengthened the idea, giving it the potential to grow and evolve and become more elaborate and intricate. Such constructions grow secretly in many minds, acknowledged and understood only by their creators.

Their imaginary nature does not mean that they are unable to affect the world at large. That's great. Oh, it's just great. It's great. Brilliant. Supplement that. Wonderful, wonderful.

You're right, John. I have never heard that. That was really making me laugh um supplement that story with uh my favorite story about the period when bill drummond was managing echo and the bunny man he sent the group out on tour and they they went up to scotland they did the tour itinerary seemed quite strange. They were saying, why are we in Thurso one day and then back

down in Edinburgh? But then the following day, we're flying up to Oban or something. And it's because he'd drawn on the map of Scotland a set of bunny ears. And then booked the gigs around those ears.

Even Madder, he basically, there was a place in Scotland and a place in Papua New Guinea that he felt were connected by the manhole cover outside the office of where they were working in Liverpool. And he fails to persuade, unsurprisingly by this stage, his relationship with the other band he managed, which was Teardrop Explodes, he failed to persuade Julian Copeprisingly by this stage, his relationship with the other band he managed which was Teardrop Explodes he failed to persuade Julian Cope and the Teardrops

that they should go and play in the mountains of New Guinea but the Bunnymen did go to Scotland and they did trace the massive bunny ears it's an extraordinary book and kind of brilliant.

Higgs is the perfect, he tells it so well. And it's the added dimension of him kind of commenting on it all the way through. It's just, I can't think of a better summer book, frankly. Well, thank you, guys. Imagine, listeners, that you went on holiday and read all six of these books. Joyful.

What an amazing experience that would be. Well, thanks very much, everybody. Just a forthcoming event. If any listeners are going to be at the amazing Green Man Festival in Wales next weekend, we are recording an episode at the Talking Shop stage at two o'clock on Friday afternoon. We're being joined by Rose Blake and Bob Stanley and we're going to be talking about and discussing

a novel or film that you probably have read or seen or re-read or watched many times and that is or reread or watched many times, and that is Kess or A Kestrel for a Knave by the late Barry Hines. And judging from people's response to that announcement today, that is going to be a really special event. Is it in a tent? Are you in a tent? We are in a tent, but that tent holds about 1,000 people, and it's usually full.

It's usually full. That's one of the great things about Green Man, Nicky. Good audiences because of the weather. So anyway, we'll see a few of you there, I hope. If you like this dynamic of us three, we do get together for an extra show every other week where we talk not just about books, but we talk about music and telly and films and whatnot,'t we we call it lock listed don't we john we do we do and there's a reason for that because it began in the when lock tavern just before lock down there you go lock down it was weird that wasn't it i reckon we should get john heeks to write a book about all the ways in which Locke has become a significant thing in that. But anyway. Yeah.

And in order to get that, it's for our Patreon subscribers. So if you go to patreon.com forward slash backlisted and become a generous subscriber, you can hear more us, really, more chat about books and stuff. Also, you get your name read out. You get your name read out. Oh, have we got names this time? We have got some names. Yeah, we do. So I'm going to say a huge thank you to the following lock listeners.

Melissa Score, S. Lynn, Ken, Ken with two Ns, thank you. Zach Jeffcoat, Ricardo Paggio, thank you. Zach Jeffcoat, Ricardo Paggio. Thank you. Thanks, too, to Joe Johnston, to Donna Gabaccia, Stephen Curran. Thank you. Thank you, Anne McDuffie and Celine Coburn. Thank you so much, everybody.

And thank you for listening. The next episode will be definitely Kestrel for a No by Barry Hines. If it's recorded well. If it's recorded well. If it's recorded well. Yeah. If not, we'll have something else. We have others. Nicky's booked our tour itinerary in the shape of a kestrel.

I know. I'm sending you off to deepest, darkest Indonesia somewhere in Indonesian island after this. Okay. How brilliant. All right, everybody, enjoy the rest of your summer and we'll see you next time. Don't talk to the big rabbits. See you soon. Okay. How brilliant. All right, everybody, enjoy the rest of your summer and we'll see you next time. Don't talk to the big rabbits. See you soon.

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