Backlisted - Summer Reading Special - What We Read On Our Holidays

Episode Date: September 12, 2016

In a special edition of the podcast Andy, John, Mathew and Matt discuss amongst other things which festivals work, why books win prizes, and why changing the name of a certain Swallows And Amazons character is a shame. HP Lovecraft, Greek philosophers and Calvin & Hobbes are also touched upon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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For exclusive offers and members-only pricing, just scan and save. And don't forget in-stock promise, where you can count on great offers being in stock or get a rain check. Discover more value than ever at Loblaws, in-store and online. Conditions apply. See in-store for details. Hello and welcome to Batlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. As usual, we're gathered around the kitchen table in the luxurious offices of our sponsors Unbound, the website which brings authors and readers together to make great books. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound. And I'm Andy Miller, author of My Own Misfortune and other stories.

I'm also the author of the year reading dangerously this is going to be a slightly different show folks as we are focusing not on one specific book we're going to talk about what we've been doing over the past six weeks since we were last gathered together uh basically what we read on our holidays yeah uh this is uh you know we always like to shake things up on backlisted listenerer, as you know. And so this is our summer reading episode. And what normally people do for summer reading is they invite celebrities or special guests in to talk about what they're going to be reading in the summer. But what we've decided to do is have no special guests, no celebrities, and do it retrospectively. At the end of the summer.

At the end of the summer. A kind of round-up, an actual round-up. Are you saying I'm not a special guest, Andy? We're joined as usual by Matthew Clayton, author and celebrity. Thank you. And also we're joined by our producer, Matt, who normally is sitting... Because we don't have a guest. He's got a microphone all of his own this time we should say the hissing noise that you can hear in the background is brought to you by the very fine

high wire brewery company Magic Rock that's a high wire grapefruit oh is it I've got a salty kiss at the moment I'm in rapture.

I can say we've just subscribed to an extremely cool new company called Beer Bods, who bring in Friday beers for us every Friday, which is excellent. You just subscribe and they come and you don't know. They basically... We've picked some beers with a magic fifth ingredient. Malt, water, yeast, hops, and well, you'll have to try them and see. Anyway, it's great. any potential sponsors out there feel free to get in touch i for instance will be happy to uh the nest lay or round trees if they'd like to get in touch you're very welcome to dump a

load of mars bars but and here i think yes i have to say let's be honest, the way we always start is the way we ought to start this time, and to say, what haven't you been reading? I've seen the pile of books that you've read over the summer on Twitter, and it is a Tower of Babel, if I may say so. Well, OK, so I am going to... The last time I said something like this, I said it at a festival, and people booed me. So, OK, so... time i said something like this i said it at a festival and people uh booed me so okay so but it's fat before you introduced your live reading of finnegan's work

in the spirit of factual accuracy right so i have read i read between september the first last year and september the first this year 2016 i read 137 books which is amazing right i think i can't believe i've ever read more books in a year than that and i also on on august the 31st i finished um family and friends by anita Bruckner and that is the 100th book I've read this year to date Is that because of this programme? It is partly because of this programme which I hadn't really appreciated when we started doing this would require so much

working pleasure let's call it I haven't done a count largely because it would be so much lower than that I would be humiliated It's going to be like the Bowie list all over again Maybe not quite so I haven't done a count, largely because it would be so much lower than that, I would be humiliated. It's going to be like the Bowie list all over again, isn't it? Maybe not quite so... I think the point is that we're...

I think we should say that we're all reading a lot more and a lot more interestingly as a result of that, which is one of the things why we thought it might be fun just to throw a pile of stuff into the pot for this podcast. So what I've done is, like the books that I've read over the summer, I've divided those into categories. And I'm going to give, as we go along, I'm going to give an example of each category. And the categories are like new books, books that I read because I had to talk to the author at a festival,

catching up with backlisted titles because i've read a few things that we've covered on backlisted in the past a year or so and also books by anita brookman so that's how those break down but i also wanted to share with you before we start john i've read this to you before but we never we've never done it on uh the podcast so this is so i read 137 books in a year and i'm going to read you my favorite paragraph from any of those books that which is sort of relevant to what we're going to talk about and what we've been talking about and it's from uh a novel by uh i want to say friend of backlisted but she's dead but it's by elizabeth taylor from a view of the harbour right

and this so this is my favorite paragraph that i have read in the last year okay uh and it's uh the person uh being described is a writer okay and she's sitting at her desk she dipped her pen into the ink vague what she began to wonder once more this isn't writing she thought miserably it is just fiddling about with words i'm not a great writer whatever i do someone else has always done it before and better in 10 years time no one will remember this book the libraries will have sold off all their grubby copies of it second hand and the rest will have fallen to pieces, gone to dust and even if I were one of the great ones who in the long run cares?

people walk about the streets and it is all the same to them if the novels of Henry James were never written they could not easily care less no one asks us to write The novels of Henry James were never written. They could not easily care less. No-one asks us to write. If we stop, who will implore us to go on? The only goodness that will ever come out of it is surely this moment now, wondering if vague will do better than faint.

Should my editor be listening to this, yes, my next book will be late. That is perfect. And that's a wonderful book. So of those 137 books, six were by Elizabeth Taylor. And that was as a result of doing this podcast. Even though we haven't done Elizabeth Taylor yet. It was a recommendation by Lloyd Shepard, who came in to do Riddle of the Sands.

Had said to me, one of the other books he wanted to choose was Angel by Elizabeth Taylor. So that's been a huge source of pleasure to me this year. I never would have found her or would have found her in a different way if it wasn't for doing the podcast. So thanks very much, Lloyd. Thanks, Backlisted.

Excellent. So what haven't you been reading, John? Well, I haven't been reading... I've exactly... Similar to Andy, I've been reading books, basically, that either that we're thinking about publishing at Unbound, some of whom... some of which have been terrific, some of which have been best terrific, as you'd expect.

I've been reading books largely to... Interviewing people, I've done a lot of festivals. I went to Festival No. 6 at the weekend. And it was... Not only was it the sixth festival I've been to, but it was definitely the last one for a while. I had a fantastic time, but I... Was it a sixth level of hell?

No, no, no. Look, I really, really enjoyed myself, but the weather was, I mean, truly atrocious. I heard a story about you walking around with a group of Welsh speakers for a while. That's correct. I hear rumours of this. I can't say much of the Welsh language has rubbed off on me but their

infectious spirit in the rain. I did give a talk. How many words is there in Welsh for rain? Yes, exactly. Many I would say. I did a talk at Port Elliot and various other places. What's the other? Well, I won't go through them all. But it was very jolly. I did a talk on cheerfulness.

The last time I gave it was at the weekend in a cagoule in the... Literally, it was pissing down with rain. But I read around, so I had to do a bit of research to do that. And there are a couple of things that I read that I really enjoyed, which I might vouch for. And one little bit of a reading which cheered me up to no end, even

though the pages were soggy by the end of it. It's amazing, isn't it? You must have that where you do the same thing and you do one festival and it's brilliantly warm and sunny and everybody's sort of stretched out on the grass and you think, this is great. And then you do it nobody nobody nothing i can say is going to make anybody feel better about the fact that they're all wandering around you know what this is this is a thing that's um

the comedian stewart lee talks about a lot in his books is the idea of this thing he context is not a myth you know a talk on cheerfulness delivered to people lounging in the sunshine is essentially a totally different thing even if it's exactly the same talk if it's delivered in the rain and you shouldn't you know pretend that it isn't you have to engage with the reality of it as it's happening in front of you i did my talk read yourself fitter down at number six a couple of years ago and um uh six, it would be fair to say, certainly in that year, was not the most rigorously organised of festivals.

It has got a lot better, I should say. That's good. I mean, they have really... I mean, it's much bigger as well this year. But they upgraded me from a tent, which I was expecting to address 100 people in, to the village square in Port Merritt, where the prison...

In the episode of The Prisoner, which started filming 50 years ago this week... It was this incredible... In the episode of The Prisoner, I think free for all, there's the election where the prisoner gets... runs for election. And so they gave me this awful,

awful but irresistible opportunity to stand where the prisoner stood on that kind of balcony yeah shouting on rotten cabbages at the at the audience and i came off think well that was one of the most glorious and also stressful things i've ever done in my whole life and i flowed on from a comedy skull band right i had to float on from a comedy skull band i had to go on and shout at people for an hour about why they should read Tolstoy it was quite that's I've done that piazza gig and it was it was sort of what I was doing in the weekend but it was you know it wasn't a piazza so much as a mudslide and serious you know when the rain really starts to sheet in in North Wales. There's no hiding from it.

But I did it, it's that thing I did it one year, I did a talk about Laudanum there, which everybody got kind of... Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was there that year. Yeah, it was fun. And it was a really eclectic mix of people. There was sort of Sam Lee,

the folk singer, talking, and then I did something. And I do think that one of the fun things about festivals now, and having talked to friends who from abroad there isn't anything really like uh the uk festival circuit certainly in europe where you have music spoken word comedy and all the kind of all the kind of uh cross fertilizations in between all in one place do you think that's because glastonbury was the kind of the big daddy and everything's

percolated out from that and taken a bit of the literary comedy performance i don't know i wonder if it was yeah i wonder if it was almost like there were sort of different cultures you had the sort of gastonbury music pure music and then you had hay the hay festival which was pure and they sort of they kind of created crossbreeds like latitude i think was the first where i think port elliott was one of the first really yeah port elliott took that spirit of the literary festival and added music to it but also they're all quite different what's interesting is in terms of audiences i think they're quite different from one another i think like the port elliott audience is quite different from say um like i was at green man uh a couple of weekends ago the audience is very different to the the port elliott audience and it's different

again for number six and it's different again at number six, and it's different again at the end of the road. I was that. How was that? That was quite different. How was it? I haven't seen more. I haven't really.

I've never seen as many leotards and misapplied glitter in my life. It was great. I mean, it was very jolly. I was at Fort Process at the weekend, which is a little bit like Fort Boyard, which is an experimental art festival that takes place in a Second World War fort in New Haven. Wow. It was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.

If you like the, you know, music that goes like this. At very, very... Well, let's be honest, you're not averse to a bit of that. I'm not averse to a bit of that, but there was a lot of that. I must say, my festival high points... My festival high points for musical, though, John and I both saw Michael Chapman playing in a tent

at Port Elliot, who was... Best thing I've seen in a long time. Out of this world. That and Bo Ningen. Oh, that's good, wasn't it? I thought they were amazing. So mine was Dexter Petley. Oh, Dexter Petley.

Yes, yes, yes. The kind of the outsider angling writer. Hasn't been in the UK for 15 years. Fascinating. At Port Elliot, John Andrews kind of almost breaking down when he introduced him to a small tent

of aficionados. Dexter Petley aficionados. That was a really that was one of the special men. That could be a really good pun couldn't it? An angler and aficionados. It could be. And I also, again my other festival highlight was at Green Man,

was seeing Michael Rotor from Noy playing in a tent. And I went along thinking, oh, well, this will be all right. You know, Michael Rotor, he's in his 70s, it'll be OK. It was so phenomenally brilliant. Really? Yeah, oh, God almighty. And he was picking all the best stuff from the harmonia and the noise and his solo stuff an hour and he looked and it was one of those amazing performances where the tent was really packed with people who were really into it and clearly

that energy was making its way up on stage and he just delighted delighted delighted to be there delighted that people knew what this music was basically which has been pretty you know with the best will in the world has been pretty obscure for a pretty long time yeah that was it that was extraordinary yeah um and i also i wanted to also mention i don't know if any any of you saw at port elliott our former guests um joel and Jason Haisley. Yeah, I saw them late one evening. Yes, indeed, yes. They were in the Idler Academy, which is where...

I have to say that was probably my literary highlight of the summer was seeing them read advanced text from the Lady Bird book of the zombie apocalypse. Absolutely brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And the audience were really with them as well. It was really, really funny. Really, really good event.

Yeah, I mean, I'm always... Since I had my epiphany, my techno epiphany two years ago, I've seen Andrew Weatherall twice this festival season, once at Port Elliot where he was awesome and recently just on Saturday night at Festival No. 6 where he was equally, weakly remarkable. I'm a late convert, as you know,

to the swirling mystical complexities of techno. The first volume of poetry, Techno Epiphany, will be published soon, I hear. Yeah, Lee Braxton, the Faber and Faber, reminded me that, and in fact, I was so impressed by it. This is such a ridiculous publisher-y response that I blogged about my conversion to techno. But we're not here really to talk about music. We're here to talk about books.

Andy, let's dig into some of the stuff that you've been reading. OK, I did another event at Port Elliot with a writer called Kieran Pym about his book Jumping Jack Flash, which is a biography of a man called David Litvinov. And to try to explain who David Litvinov is, it takes Kieran the 400 page book a brilliant 400 page book I will try and tell you in a nutshell who he was he's one of those shadowy 60s figures who connects Chelsea and the East End and Soho he worked for the Krays

he knew Lucian Freud there's a painting by Freud of David Litvinov on the cover. He was the technical advisor on the film performance. What that actually means, in terms of technical advice, is many of the ideas and much of the dialogue and indeed the inspiration for the film is based on Litvinov himself. Isn't technical advisor just means drug dealer? Because Donald Camel...

And there's some of that too. Donald Camel, the director, didn't really do much after performance, did he? No, he makes a film called What He Makes of Wives the Eye, which is also famous because it's about the only other film I can remember, Cathy Moriarty, the amazing actress in Raging Bull. That's right. She stars in that, but I would have expected her to have a much...

But it's one of those... It's going back to Jumping Jack Flash, and he knew the Stones, which is why it's called Jumping Jack Flash, and he was one of the great collectors of blues records of that era. There's an interview in the book with Eric Clapton where Eric Clapton says, you know, basically, if if it came to the blues who knew about the blues in britain in the 60s it was me it was keith it was brian and it was david litner you know he was the only guy you could go toe to toe with who would first of all know the record you were talking

about and come up with a better one you didn't know about uh and sounds great i love that it's such a good book but to give you it's not quite unpleasant though he's a he's a he's a deeply i think in in maybe in a review or two a deeply amusing and unsavory man yeah yeah in equal measure and um kieran had access to tape recordings of litvinov, which are a bit like... You know how when you're a... I think Pete Perfides says this, he's absolutely right. You know how when you're a teenager, the first time you see Don't Look Back, the Bob Dylan film,

you think, wow, look at Bob Dylan. Look what a cool guy Bob Dylan is, putting those people in their place. And then when you see it 20 years later, when you're in your 30s or 40s, you think, why is Bob Dylan being so rude to everyone to everyone in the single word answer amphetamine yeah i said well well yes and indeed in litvinov's case that's probably true you know litvinov liked his drug use as well but what you have and what why kieran's book is so good and also i think

important is it manages to tell you the story of the 60s that we've all heard a lot and make it fresh and make it new and make you understand why the coming together of different types of people from different disciplines and classes is a sort of uniquely 60s experiment that might not be repeatable and you know our again our former guest will say be saying this a lot but jonathan green um who knows this area all probably better than anyone else uh gave an absolutely incredible review for this book saying this is sort of the most important book to be published in this area in the last 20 years. Well, that's a pretty powerful encounter. Yeah, yeah.

And the event that we did at Portelia, Kieran had invited a couple of his friends who are actors to act out bits of the book. This is my favourite part of the event. So they acted out a couple of bits of the book. And I'd ask Kieran, I'd say, so when you were writing this book, did you sort of, do you like David Litwin?

You know, this guy, he doesn't seem a very likeable guy. Did you like him? And he'd say, well, you book, did you sort of, do you like David Litvinoff? You know, this guy, you know, he doesn't seem a very likeable guy. Did you like him? He said, well, you know, he was sort of, yeah, I don't know. I could sort of respect him. Anyway, when Kieran's friends were then reading out bits of these transcripts of Litvinoff's appalling behaviour, Kieran was just sitting there laughing and laughing and laughing. He clearly got Stockholm Syndrome as a result of spending five years longer with this crazy, inspirational dead guy. But I cannot recommend that book highly enough.

It's absolutely wonderful. 400 pages, I read it in a couple of days or something. Couldn't put it down. Wonderful. Cool. Now, if I'm not mistaken, the Venn diagram that links the four of us is a pretty meagre one, isn't it? Like, maybe none, except for you two.

Oh, I see. The books that we've read. Oh, I see. I'm a bookworm. No, no, it's human beings, obviously. It's almost like four completely perfect circles on top of one another. Like a slinky. I'm pushing it too far now.

Falling downstairs. Bad metaphors. No, but there is one book that I know you two, Matt and Matthew, have read, which is the Booker-winning large tome from Marlon James called A Brief History of Seven Killings. Yes, so I picked up in Bridport. So I've turned into this thing of, and Bridport's become important to me because it's a stopping point down to the West Country. And it's a great book town.

It's a great place to stop if you want to buy books. So for the last few years, heading down to Cornwall, me and my family have stopped in Bridport to buy books. There's a Waterstones there. There's a great independent booksellers. There's a Waterstones there. There's a great independent book sellers. There's a lovely second hand book shop and there's a bunch of charity shops as well. It's also, it's got port in its name

and it's not actually a port, is it? That's true. And there's a literary place. There's a Bridport literary place. That's interesting. Does that stand for bridge? I don't know, but the port's like three miles inland or something. Wind it back in, you two. Wind it back in. Okay. I don't know, but the port's like three miles inland or something. Wind it back in, you two. Wind it back in.

OK. So I bought it there, and I've loved it. You're about halfway through. I'm halfway through. The book's about... It's centred on the attempted assassination, which really happened, the attempted assassination really happened, of Bob Marley just before the 1976 election in Jamaica when he was shot in his compound in the middle of Kingston.

And the reason that Marlon James has managed to construct something around it is that the killers were never... or the attempted killers, the assassins, were never caught. Nobody knows who did it. And the book, interestingly enough uh eric clapton has a walk-on part previously mentioned because there's a bit where they discuss about a racist singer singing i shot the sheriff and then standing on stage and proclaiming for the nf in in the in the uk but it's just so much more than that it's uh it's told from the part from the point of view of a number of a lot

of different characters uh cia agents based in uh kingston um a woman that marley's had a one-night stand with a couple of young boys from different parts of the ghetto in um kingston you've got to remember as well that that that kingston at that point and jamaica at that point was riven by politics that that you were one side or the other there were two political parties and they really hated each other one was socialist and and there were worries that they were going to become uh that um jamaica was going to become another outpost of of communism in the caribbean um and the other was quite a kind of right-wing government that was supported by the CIA and various other nefarious interests. And I'm not finished it yet,

but I think it's a brilliant book. I enjoyed it. I don't think it's a masterpiece. One of the other books I read this summer was... We don't bandy that term around lightly on this show. I'm not going to. We're not going to do that, are we? City on Fire,

which is a book about New York in the 70s, is again an ambitious book it's a thousand pages long um and i had a similar feeling about that as i did about a brief history of seven seven killings i really enjoyed them but they didn't really uh live with me that much longer they're um i don't think they're extraordinary pieces of writing i said did. And why did you two gentlemen decide you wanted to read A Brief History of Seven Killings? I'd actually been given it for my birthday. I think just because I'm interested in the music, because it's got a record label on the cover.

I think that's a good one. And I'm quite interested in 60s Jamaican music. It was as simple as that, really. And did the fact that it had won the Man Booker Prize make any difference to how you felt about reading the book when you started reading it? Yes, I think it did. I think my expectations of it were different from what it actually...

Because I think it's very much like an Irving Welsh book. It's really not the sort of book that i think would win the book of primes well i'm interested in in prizes because there's always a lot of you know there's a lot of talk about whether why prizes work and we sort of know that prizes do work yeah generally the book of prize works not all of them but there is this there is this sort of thing that happens number years ago andy we did some research at Waterstones just asking people about prizes. And the interesting thing was that what people said was

it wasn't necessarily that they thought it was going to be a good book, but it was a book that they felt there was a context to, so that when they read it, they would be able to share their experiences with other people because there was a much better chance. There are some people, I think, who really, really love to be early adopters and to be pioneers and who will go out and read stuff that is obscure and difficult.

But a lot of people... It's an interesting thing. I'm sure this is why book groups sort of took off, which sort of have taken off in the last 20 years in a major way, is that people like to contextualise their reading, they like to talk to other people, they like to sort of have taken off in the last 20 years in a major way, is that people like to contextualise their reading, they like to talk to other people, they like to sort of swap opinions. It's a sort of reading as a social activity, which I guess is something that we're...

You know, it's what we're engaged in too, it's what we're doing with the podcast. The reason why I asked Matthew and Matt that is, like, I have read two Booker Prize winners this summer. One by Anita Brooke. Which I'll do that. Indeed. And the other by Ian McEwan.

Which was? So Amsterdam wins the Booker Prize in 1998. I almost forgot that. I bought a copy in 1998 and it's sat on the shelf ever since. And I should put it in context, I have read most of Ian McEwan's other novels. And are writing about him. And books of short stories.

And indeed, I'm writing about him. So I thought I ought to catch up with some of the ones that I hadn't read. Hey, let's pick this up again shortly. Two freshly cracked eggs any way you like them. Three strips of naturally smoked bacon and a side of toast. Only $6 at A&W's in Ontario. Experience A&W's classic breakfast on now. Dine-in only until 11 a.m.

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Wherever you're going, you better believe american express will be right there with you heading for adventure we'll help you breeze through security meeting friends a world away you can use your travel credit squeezing every drop out of the last day how about a 4 p.m late checkout just need a nice place to settle in enjoy Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. And I went into Amsterdam thinking,

I don't know what I thought. The Booker Prize seems a tremendous weight to hang around the neck of quite a slight book. And you don't think about Amsterdam. People, anecdotally, people seem not to like Amsterdam as much as they like some of the other Ian McEwan books. But take on its own terms, Amsterdam is fine. It's quite lightweight. It's fun.

It's sort of rather silly in a way. But it's a bit like a Maupassant short story, you know. And yet, as soon as you start thinking of it as... A Booker Prize. This won the Booker Prize. Well, it's interesting that I had to... You can't bear the weight of that. It's interesting that I had to qualify that

by saying it's not a masterpiece. It doesn't have to be, does it? Maybe I only said that simply because it had won the Booker. So I felt that it had to have that tag around it. I think it's interesting you said that. But I imagine, given that it is nearly 700 pages about quite an esoteric subject, that Seven Killings...

There's no way that the number of people who have read Seven Killings would have read it if it wasn't a prize winner. You know, 700 pages on the attempted assassination of Bob Marley and the politics of Jamaica in the kind of mid-1970s. Yeah, OK. 700 pages on the attempted assassination of Bob Marley and the politics of Jamaica in the mid-1970s. I mean, I can't see... It's broadened a lot of people's horizons, I imagine. The thing that I enjoyed reading most, though, this summer

was Backlisted Related, which was the short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Oh, tell us about that. Which I picked up and I absolutely loved them. So we did the crack-up, in case people haven't heard it, we did the crack-up with Jesse Armstrong at Port Elliot. I mean, they are fabulous. Diamond as big as the Ritz.

Diamond as big as the Ritz, amazing. Because I presume that was going to be a story about flappers, and it's not. It's this mad story about this kingdom in the middle of nowhere with a mountain that's made of diamond.'s a mad psychedelic story like we were saying on the podcast though what's so interesting about is the division you know the division in in Fitzgerald's lifetime between the short stories which were perceived by other writers and by him as being the things that he did to make money. And the novels, which were the true art, you know.

Which didn't. Which didn't sell apart from the first one. Yeah. Because it didn't win the Booker Prize. Here's an interesting segue, which is talking about prizes. The English writer who I think is the best English writer who hasn't won a major literary prize I would put forward

I would put forward Rupert Thompson I think Rupert Thompson has written 10 remarkable novels it's not just because we are we're very much hoping he will become a guest I'm not just saying that to blow smoke if you're listening, Rupert.

Oh, there goes the smoke alarm. I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. No, but I interviewed him about... I'm kidding. Multiple. Stop. I interviewed him about his tenth novel, Catherine Carlyle, at Port Elliot. And the thing that for me it was that he you know there are some writers who you feel literally the first week I started

as a bookseller in back in uh 1987 um Rupert published his first book it was one of the very early Bloomsbury yeah novels Dreams of Leaving and you know you kind of read you remember Andy as a bookseller your first proofs you read you're so excited that you you remember Andy's a book seller your first proofs you read you're so excited that you feel it's the most I remember the very first proof I was given by a rep was a Galant's Proof of Mort by Terry Pratchett which is why I have been absolutely kind of solid

in my defence of Terry Pratchett ever since because it was I mean I'd never read anything like it when I had I'd read sort of do you remember that brilliant pastiche Board Board of the Rings, that was written? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, it was funnier than that. Perhaps it was good.

But also, Rupert Thompson. So I became a kind of a Rupert Thompson... I wouldn't say fanatic, but certainly a kind of a zealot. And got to know him. And have read more or less, I think I have read all his novels. And I've read This Party Has to Stop, he's kind of brilliant. I hear that's fantastic It's a great memory

and he's so lovely and sanguine and kind of ageless and elf in him he shocked the audience by saying he was 60 He's 60? It really doesn't look it, he's amazing and this book is again beautifully constructed, it's just beautifully constructed.

It's perfectly written. It's got a character, Catherine, or Kit as she's known, is a test tube baby. And the amazing recurring theme through the book is that she's been frozen for eight years before she is fertilised. So there's this period when she's alive but not alive which he kind of works into the book the book i mean is he's he's also one of the most european

of english writers um he was a big fan of the harville list when i was there and i think the book he wants to talk to on that listed is patrick modiano's honeymoon which was a harville book back it was i read it here i can't so we I read it here. We can't talk about it. We can't talk about it. Anyway, the point is that he's just one of those remarkable writers. He doesn't write the same book. He's written sort of science fiction. He's written thrillers.

The last book was set in the Renaissance. It's historical about a silversmith. This book is contemporary. But again, I think the sort of the... I mean, prizes in the end shouldn't mean as much as they do. But it is remarkable what it is that makes... I mean, there's a strange flowing together that happens,

sort of alchemy that happens that makes one book rather than another. And a lot of the prizes, when you look back across the Booker list, you'd be hard to say that they are always the best books published in that year or or even you know sometimes they're not even don't even seem to be very good books but um anyway i just thought rupert thompson he was incredibly generous and yeah and and as always incredibly articulate about his work. But Catherine Carlyle, definitely one for anybody who likes intelligent kind of... I mean, the sort of literary fiction that I think is finding it more...

I mean, he has got... The other thing he told me was how has he managed to survive. He has literally got a benefactor. He has got somebody who who said i will publish everything you write so he doesn't make a masses he doesn't make masses of money but he was at a point where he was looking like almost more or less it was looking like he was going to have to stop altogether i mean well that's the kind of old school patronage that i think is very rare and he certainly deserves that but is it something that may come more back into fashion?

I don't know. In a funny kind of way, I suppose it's slightly what we're trying to do with Unbound. It should be about quality. It shouldn't be about fitting into some neat, pre-decided genre. That's the great thing about Rupert. I think he dissolves genre. He writes a different book every time, which is, as every publisher will tell you, a problem when you're trying

to position him in a market that doesn't really care. Well, we're talking about a prize someone who hasn't... Rupert hasn't won the Booker. I read another book over the summer that is long-listed for this year's Booker Prize, which is called The Sellout

by Paul Beattie. Oh, great. OK, and I'm just going to read... I'm saying that I'm going to read you the opening paragraph of The Sellout by Paul Beattie, long-listed for the Booker Prize. Whether you listeners get to hear it or not will depend on what Matt decides, whether he decides it can go out. But you decide, gentlemen, if this will make it onto the booker shortlist here we go prologue this may be hard to believe coming from a black man but i've never stolen anything

never cheated on my taxes or at cards never snuck into the movies or failed to give back the extra change to a drugstore cashier indifferent to the ways of mercantilism and minimum wage expectations to a drugstore cashier indifferent to the ways of mercantilism and minimum wage expectations. I've never burgled a house, held up a liquor store, never boarded a crowded bus or subway car, sat in a seat reserved for the elderly, pulled out my gigantic penis and masturbated to satisfaction with a perverted yet somehow crestfallen look on my face.

Yeah, here I am, in the cavernous chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, my car illegally and somewhat ironically parked on Constitution Avenue, my hands cuffed and crossed behind my back, my right to remain silent long since waved and said goodbye to, as I sit in a thickly padded chair

that, much like this country, isn't quite as comfortable as it looks. It's got Richard and Judy written all over it. I have to say, it's great writing. It is the most brilliantly written yet exhausting thing I have read for ages. I can't see... Why is it exhausting? Because it's relentless.

Like that, that is like okay i've put i've locked the car into 110 miles an hour and now we're going to go 110 miles an hour for 200 pages watch out everyone i mean it is simultaneously brilliantly written by about halfway through i was thinking oh exhausted oh yeah yeah what wonderful but you you were saying matt you'd read something by him Simultaneously brilliantly written by about halfway through. I was thinking, oh. Exhausted. Oh, yeah, yeah. Wonderful. But you were saying, Matt, you'd read something by him before? Yeah, a couple of his things before, which I've got back and pulled off the shelves,

but haven't re-read since we had a conversation about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you showed me that paragraph. I think he's a really interesting writer. I think he's, I mean. But he wouldn't have been, the point is that he wouldn't have been on the Booker list like two, three years ago because he wasn't open to...

Americans. American writers, right. And I know it's sort of... There's a lot of... ...crutching about it, which I kind of understand. There are few enough prizes and the Booker's the one that ever... The Man Booker's the one everybody goes for.

But it is also... It's interesting, isn't it, to have an English prize that draws on the US and Canada as well as, well, and the rest of the Commonwealth. Yeah. I mean, it's, I guess, you do get a really interesting mix. It's a very curious long list this year. I mean, I'm kind of intrigued by it. I really like the Folio Prize, but unfortunately that seems to have run aground.

Miriam Taves was shortlisted for that prize. That's right. That's an incredible book. Yeah, the list isn't good. Or My Puny Sorrows. It's a wonderful book. You were talking, John, about doing, like, backlisted catch-up reading.

So I also read a few things that I wouldn't have read if we hadn't talked about them on here. I read The Harpole Report by J.L. Carr. J.L. Carr, who we did Month on the Country on the first podcast that we did. And the extent to which... You're talking about people not writing the same book twice. Yeah, you know, we talked on the podcast, didn't we, about J.L. Carr never writing the same book twice.

You would never pick this book up. The Harpold Report, which is a book about a primary school, the headteacher of a primary school. Really funny, right? A really funny book. J.L. Carr himself was for many years the headteacher of a primary school. You would never, never know it was written by the same person who wrote A Month in the Country. But that's a sign of a good writer. Well, it's a fascinating writer who would take... Clearly, many of the things he wrote about

were drawn from personal experience, and yet he had a way of approaching them completely differently every time, depending on what had caught his imagination or what had inspired him. So I read that. That was wonderful. That was very funny. I read, remember we talked about the winter book by Thuve Jansson. I read her last, her final novel, which is called Fair Play,

which again is a very autobiographical book based on her life with her partner, who was also an artist. And that was really special. Very moving. Very, very spare by that point. I mean, I think it isn't even 100 pages long. At the campsite I was staying at, there was someone reading the summer book.

Yeah, that's one. And I wanted to go... They were French. I wanted to go they were French I wanted to go and say I do this podcast and they really did this what were you telling me what were your kids reading

I had this terrible cancer when my children had been reading Mallory Towers Enid Blyton and my daughter loves it and my son reads absolutely anything Well, my children have been reading Mallory Towers, Enid Blyton. God. And my daughter loves it and my son reads absolutely anything, so he just picked it up.

But he started adopting the language that's in there. So there was this awful moment on the campsite. And presumably, and also the outfits as well. We like that smell. Luckily not the outfits. But there was this awful moment on the campsite where we'd been the only English family there, and then another English family arrived. It was a small campsite,

and their children were playing in the playground as were mine. And my son shouted to me from the top of this scaffolding thing, shouted, Dad, be a brick and go and get my towel. And I could see this other family, you know, they were just sharing little glances like, oh, my God, it's very embarrassing. Well, the thing that I've enjoyed reading most with my son this summer, which has been kind of really entertaining to go back to,

and it's a collection of newspaper strips by Bill Waterston, Calvin and Hobbes. Yeah, my son's been reading Calvin and Hobbes. And it's brilliant reading those with a child who's the age of the child in the strips, because all of a sudden you get that huge recognition of him saying, somebody this age can get away with this, with being this ridiculous.

It's just so brilliant. The light bulb goes off over his head every time. I really miss the boys who are all too old. My youngest is now reading the collected H.P. Lovecraft story. Yes! Massive time. We had this there.

I said to him the other day, I said, Rory, I would just dip in and out. I don't think you should try and blast your way all through. Ask him, ask him. The thing about Lovecraft, because I read some Lovecraft

for the Year of Reign of Danger, I didn't write about it. The thing about Lovecraft, which really, I love, we must do Lovecraft on here. We have to get someone to come in and't write about it. The thing about Lovecraft, which really... We must do Lovecraft on here. We have to get someone to come in and talk about Lovecraft. The thing about Lovecraft, the horror writer,

the understander, who was never public, who never got a book out in his lifetime, there's a reason for it. I'll tell you what it is. He couldn't write. He was no good at writing. And yet, because he cannot phrase a sentence in a pleasing literary manner, he can take you places that a literary writer would never be able to.

That's the genius in it. That's great. The insane genius of it. Where do you start with Lovecraft? Awful racist. Awful anti-Semite, H.P. Lovecraft. He's a horrible, horrible man. On the other hand, A good storyteller.

Master storyteller, if you will. Where do you start with Lovecraft? What should you read? Colour Out of Space. No, Colour Out of Space. Call of Cthulhu. How do you say that? Nobody knows.

I just did. I'm not repeating it. It never comes out the same way twice. That's part of the uncanny nature of it. Did you see the website where Cthulhu was running for the US presidency? Yes, I did. And speaking of not nice men and anti-Semites, I also read... Is this next person also dead, please?

Yes. Okay, okay. So I also read, as a result of stuff we've done on Backlisted... You read Selene? So people may remember that when Selene Gordon came in and we did a brilliant episode about Last Exit to Brooklyn, she said, you know, one of the other books I loved when I was a teenager was Journey to the End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Selene.

And we were talking about it, weren't we? And I said, I've never read it. I bought a copy in Waterstones on staff discount yeah 25 years ago since when it's yeah so since when it's sat on the shelf so i thought okay well you know i i like a challenge i like a reading challenge it's like 450 pages long during the end of the night i lose my so i read that over the summer it's literally the worst summer reading choice. It just grinds on remorselessly. I have to say, I didn't enjoy it at all. And also, one of those books...

What's it about? Oh, it's about 400 pages. It's also one of those books where you open it and you know by the third page that there will be no... Let up. Let up, yeah. That it will go on and on and on until it stops.

There will be no dawn. Right, and there will be no dawn. I'm just going to read a little bit here. It sounds much like Matthew's... It's the literary equivalent of Matthew's techno festival. Ah! So curl up on the beach with this, right? So this is the First World War.

So for night after idiotic night we crept from ambush to ambush, sustained only by the decreasingly plausible hope of coming out alive, that and no other. And if we did come out alive, one thing was sure, that we'd never, absolutely never forget that we had discovered on Earth a man shaped like you and me, but a thousand times more ferocious than the crocodiles and sharks with wide-open jaws that circle just below the surface

around the shiploads of garbage and rotten meat that get chucked overboard in the havana roadstead the biggest defeat in every department of life is to forget especially the things that have done you in and to die without realizing how far people can go in the way of crumminess when the grave lies open before us let's not try to be witty but on the other hand let's not forget but make it our business to record the worst of human viciousness we've seen without changing what's one word when that's done we can curl up our toes and sink into the pit that's work enough for a lifetime etc and now what i'm i think what the only repository that is it you might find it more engaging in its original French. Actually, you know what?

And here's the thing. I hope the person who did this isn't listening to this, right? So I said on Twitter, oh, I've just started reading... Happy days are here again. I've just started reading Journey to the End of the Night by Celine. And they said, oh, there's only one English translation. It's very inferior. You think, OK, I haven't even started yet.

I can't, you know, I'm sorry about it. I haven't got the journals. I can't, you know, I can't even started yet I can't you know I'm sorry about I haven't got the journals I can't you know I can't I'm just trying my best I feel drawn somehow to go back to the famous to Enid Blyton my favourite I think I've already shared it with you

my favourite famous five fact which is that the lashings of ginger beer that everybody goes on about she never used she only used the phrase lashings once is that the lashings of ginger beer that everybody goes on about, she never used. She only used the phrase lashings once when it was lashings of boiled eggs. And why are we all so familiar with that phrase then, lashings of ginger beer? I think it's comic strip, isn't it? It is comic strip, isn't it?

Is it really? Is it just that? Five Go Mad endorsed it on the first night of Channel 4. But the award surely for pusillanimity in all kind of media spheres has got to be the new Swallows and Amazons film, where they have renamed the character Titty Tattie. I mean, that is just... I mean, honestly, that is just so pathetic. Do you not think the audience could have coped with Titty as a name?

In all other respects, that film, I haven't seen it, but it seems to be, you know, it seems to be very much a keep calm and carry on style, lovely knitted jumpers and cakes. Is it a Brexit movie? It's a Brexit. Everything's Brexit, Matt. Everything's Brexit. No, no, no, we've got to be careful

because I love those. One, I love those books, and B, he's a really seriously good writer, Anson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a seriously interesting man. He worked in Russia. He covered the Russian Revolution for The Guardian. So you're saying his decision to name the character Titty had communistic backdrop to it?

No, not at all, I just think it was... That was Letitia. Letitia, yeah. But also, surely everyone who reads it, everyone who sees it does exactly what they read it, snigger for five minutes and then get on with it. Everybody knows that. And it's just sort of, why do that?

It's just like, as though that would matter. I mean, I haven't seen it, I have to say. I've still got the, whatever it was, Virginia McKenna version from the 1970s locked in my head and I probably won't be able to get that out. Ransom is interesting. Russian Folktales book is a really remarkable book.

We should do him on here. That would be great. Lots of work. The journals. Always. Elected correspondents. Shall I tell you I had to read, I did a talk on the uses of cheerfulness

so I read a few things that were really, I hadn't read properly before one was the art of happiness which is obviously in translation not the original Latin Greek Epicurus which is great, I kind of totally fell in love with I've always had a fondness for Epicurus and his school.

Not just because... Largely because he's been a sort of victim of a kind of a hijacking, which is everybody thinks Epicureanism means, you know, drinking and eating too much. In fact, he was an extremely balanced and kind of, you know, sensible person. Much like yourself, John yourself much like myself but what he loved really was friendship and food and drink were all part of friendship um and he had this rather wonderful i love this kind of he had a little motto which he used to which he used to sort of

trot out when people were were talking about um it was basically don't fear god don't worry about death what is good is easy to get and what is terrible is easy to endure. It was called The Four Cures. And this is basically, it's kind of quite a useful philosophy for living, really. It was basically, he didn't believe in that there was any need for the supernatural. That fear was the thing we were all really trying to avoid. The fear of death, or the fear of being found out. So incredibly wise and sensible, but so wise and sensible.

fear of being found out. So incredibly wise and sensible, but so wise and sensible. His great teacher was a guy called Democritus, who we all now know as the guy who suggested that the universe was composed of particles called atoms that couldn't be divided any further. But Democritus was also known as the laughing philosopher, and he made himself incredibly unpopular in Athens in athens by just going around and laughing a lot plato in particular wouldn't even have his name mentioned and i quite like it i quite like the idea he was he was from the north he was from the north he was from abdera in the north and

he arrived he basically didn't believe he was a materialist you know believe that the universe didn't believe in any of the gods and would stand at the back going oh crap you useless punch plate and i just kind of i find that i find that sort of school of things so the other thing i did was i read about richard and think about richard feynman and and and but i just wanted to read one paragraph of dickens because i was trying to find bits which encapsulated for me cheerfulness in all its and this is the brilliant bit in Christmas Carol where the Fezziwigs, do you remember the Fezziwigs? Yes, yes.

It's just a great bit of writing. A positive light appeared to issue. Now Mr and Mrs Fezziwig are broadly I think probably in their 60s as a couple. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons you could have predicted at any given time what would become of them next and when old

Fezziwig and Mrs Fezziwig had got all through the dance advance and retire hold hands with your partner bow and curtsy corkscrew thread the needle and back again to your place Fezziwig cut and cut deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs and came upon his feet again without a stagger a small matter said the ghost to make these silly folks so full of gratitude it isn't that said scrooge heated by the remark and speaking unconsciously like his former not his latter self it isn't that spirit he has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service light or burdensome, a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks, in things so slight and insignificant

that it's impossible to add and count them up. What then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune. I just love that. That's great. And that's that idea, the Wordsworth idea, you know, small, unremembered things. You were talking there, you mentioned Richard Fineland there. Oh, I love that. That's great. And that's that idea, the Wordsworth idea, you know, small, unremembered things.

You were talking there, you mentioned Richard Feynman there. Oh, I love Feynman. I must just mention this while it occurs to me. So one of the other things that's happened... He's a great physicist, but also a madman. He used to write, work in it, he used to go... And lecturer, right? Amazing lecturer.

Won the Nobel Prize at the age of 30. Was a guy who famously solved the the d-rings problem with a great bit of theater where he he took a frozen d-ring and snapped it in the in front of the challenger investigation and proved that the you know that that had been the problem i my one of the other things that's been happening this uh summer is that my son uh during his school holidays has been playing a game has been playing a game on his new PlayStation called The Witness. And The Witness is a game where you are...

Have to raise a bar. You are dumped. No, listen, listen. You are dumped on an abandoned island. You receive no instructions. All you have are a series of puzzles that you have to solve. And as you solve each puzzle, you learn something else about the island where you're staying. There are hundreds of these

puzzles. And it's a great game. He's really enjoyed it. One of the strangest but most fascinating things about it is at certain points, as a reward, you will unlock a video clip. And the video clips are not as we might expect. Way to go, man! Right? They are... There's a ten-minute clip from Stalker by Tarkovsky. Really? Yeah.

My son went, Dad, I'm not sure what's happening in the game. I said, like all viewers of Stalker. And then we were playing one bit, and Richard Feynman pops up. Brilliant. And there's a ten-minute extract in black and white from a television lecture by Feynman.

And then there's another bit, and this was the thing that made me... I fell off my chair laughing. So you solve this logic puzzle, it's quite difficult, you have to move some blocks around. He did it. My son went, yes! Immediately a clip came on screen of his reward of James

Burke. A ten minute extract from one of those brilliant James Burke programmes, right? And he was saying, what is this? I was going, you know what? Who is that man? He's wonderful, though. Absolutely wonderful.

What's he called? The Witness? Yeah, the game is called The Witness. It's terrific. Oh, it's good. But Feynman was just one of the great... He was a brilliant genius physicist, obviously, but he was also just one of the... sort of a life enhancer, full of exuberance.

He was a bongue player, and he used to go and work. He'd go and work in sort of the sort of a life enhancer full of exuberance he was a bongay player and he used to go and work he'd have it he'd go work in a sort of the local in um where he was in um in california um whatever that institute of technology he'd go and work in a local kind of uh strip bar in the in the in the afternoons he was just uh and spent a lot of his last years of his life trying to get to tuva this russian this strange Russian republic. But he was also a fantastic lecturer. And, you know, he was the person who said, you know, quantum physics is a great little quote from me. He said, what I'm going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school. It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it.

You see, my physics students don't understand it. That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does. You've got to love that. John, you were reading that brilliant extract from Dickens about cheerfulness. I would like to provide balance now. Are we ending on a high? Yeah, we are.

Anita. It's Anita. Excellent. Everything leads back to Anita. reading so of my one are we ending on a high yeah we are anita it's anita excellent everything leads back to anita so i've like read 100 like saying i've read 137 books this year my favorite of those books is a close thing but my favorite i just read a few weeks ago is anita brookner's third novel which is called look at me which for me i read this and i thought okay well this is one of these once in a decade things where you read something and I thought, OK, well, this is one of these once-in-a-decade things where you read something and you just think it's impossible to conceive of how this book could be any more perfect.

It's so beautifully written. It's funny. It's incredibly moving. It's a book about books. It has a sort of feeling of existential horror about it as well as it goes on. I'm sort of thinking, you know, beer, is there anything it can't do? In the words of Homer Simpson. Is there anything? Is there anything?

Is it television? Is there anything it can't do? Anyway, this novel is so wonderful. And anyone listening to this,oklyn's first three novels are starting life providence and then this one a look at me kind of hang together as a trilogy you could read those in the space for a few days your life would be enriched by doing so but the the the first chapter of look at me ends with a paragraph which i have to say i read and i felt like someone had walked over my grave um so i'm just going to read

it and and you you'll probably see why i liked it so much uh but it provides the perfect balance for the dickens that you just read right the happy-go-lucky the the essential glory of being alive that you've just brought us i'm here to bring us the counter argument. So here we go. This is the end of this chapter. That's why I write and why I have to. When I feel swamped in my solitude and hidden by it, physically obscured by it, rendered invisible in fact, writing is my way of piping up, of reminding people that I am here.

And when I've ordered my characters, plundered my store of images, removed from them all the sadness that I might feel in myself, then I can switch on that current that allows me to write so easily once I get started and to make people laugh. That, it seems, is what they like to do. And if I manage this well enough and beguile all the dons and the critics, they will fail to register my real message, which is a simple one. If my looks and my manner were of greater assistance to me, I could deliver this message

in person. Look at me, I would say. Look at me. But since I am on my own in this matter, look at me but since i am on my own in this matter i must use subterfuge and guile and with a bit of luck and good management this particular message will never be deciphered and my reasons for delivering it in this manner remain obscure i think that is magnificent. I think if ever there was a moment to end a podcast, it has to be that. Summer reading, everyone. Brilliant. Summer reading. That seems as good a point as any which to end. Thanks as usual

to Matthew Clayton, to producer Matt Hall, and thanks once again to our sponsors Unbound. You can get in touch with us on Twitter at BacklistedPod, on Facebook at forward slash BacklistedPod, and on our page on the Unbound. You can get in touch with us on Twitter at BacklistedPod, on Facebook at forward slash BacklistedPod, and on our page on the Unbound site, unbound.co.uk forward slash

Backlisted. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with another show in a fortnight. Until then, goodbye from me. Happy autumn, everyone. Goodbye. Goodbye. See ya. goodbye see ya you can choose to listen to Backlisted with or without adverts

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