Behind the Bookshelves

The Doors, Thompson Twins, Supertramp, Tears for Fears.... there are numerous bands that took their names from books. We look at the stories behind some of these band names, and discover the impact of Billy Idol's mum and the villain in David Copperfield.

Simon Garfield is the author of In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate The World - a study of miniature things and the people who create them. We discuss model trains (and Rod Stewart), miniature villages, flea circuses, matchstick models of ships, tiny books and so much more.

We pull on our hiking boots and discuss writers who made some seriously long walks and then wrote about them.There's Patrick Leigh Fermor, who walked 1,590 miles across Europe, and Laurie Lee who walked around Spain. There's also Thoreau, Wordsworth, Bill Bryson, Cheryl Strayed and several wandering poets. Enjoy the show.

Annie Barrows is the co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, one of the most popular novels of the past 10 years. Hear how Annie became involved in a project started by her aunt Mary Ann Schaffer. We discuss occupied Guernsey, early book clubs, epistolary fiction, and the challenge of writing for both children and adults.

Our guest is award-winning Canadian wine critic Natalie MacLean. She is the author of two books about wine, hosts a podcast about vino, and runs a website that is a huge resource for winelovers. We discuss the world’s top vineyards, $15 wines versus $30 wines, tasting in the digital age, wine in literature, pairings with food, & much more.

With The Very Hungry Caterpillar celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2019, we speak to Courtney Waring from The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, an institution dedicated to inspiring a love of art and reading through picture books. We trace the history of Carle’s classic book, which began as A Week with Willi the Worm, his involvement with the museum and discuss the importance of picture books.

A new book fair is about to make its debut. Rare Books Los Angeles occurs on February 1 and 2. We interview Brad and Jen Johnson, the husband and wife bookselling team, who are organizing the event. We discuss the fair, their bookshop dog, heavy metal books, Wayne's World, acting, menus, vintage board games, and Hugh Hefner's library.

Scott Wallace Baker has been proclaimed Australia's biggest Agatha Christie collector. Scott describes his book collection and the other objects that he also collects. Dedicated to the world's most famous writer of detective fiction, Scott has traveled to places associated with Agatha Christie and has a deep knowledge of this author's remarkable life. Enjoy our interview with this very special collector.

"A boot camp for booksellers," that's how Anthony Smithson describes the York Antiquarian Book Seminar in the latest AbeBooks podcast. Anthony is a co-founder of this annual event and he also owns Keel Row Books, an antiquarian bookshop in North Shields in the UK. Enjoy our interview with bookseller Anthony Smithson.

We interview Rebecca Baumann about her collection of books covering crime, science fiction, horror and pulp paperbacks. Rebecca's day job is working as a librarian at Indiana University's Lilly Library but this interview covers her wide-ranging personal book collection, which stretches from HP Lovecraft to Arthur Machen, and Shirley Jackson, as well as a host of less famous authors.