Bookylicious

A slightly shorter episode than usual, that's because we needed to get into a cool shady spot and read! In this episode Gwyn, Holly and Paul recommend books from their to be read pile for you to take on your Summer holidays. Be it your backyard or a beach far far away there may be a book just for you.

We give a shout out to an excellent podcast The Rest is History and you can listen to it here https://open.spotify.com/show/7Cvsbcjhtur7nplC148TWy

Here is the link to the Bloody Scotland website https://bloodyscotland.com/ 

Here are some of the books we discussed:

Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo

Bora Chung - Cursed Bunny

Virginia Woolf - Orlando

D. L. Marshall - Anthrax Island

Yukio Mishima - Star

Sally Rooney - Conversations with Friends

Rainer Maria Rilke - Letters to a Young Poet

Natalia Ginzburg - All Our Yesterdays

Lucinda Riley - Seven Sisters

T. S. Eliot - The Waste Land

Zoe Gilbert - Mischief Acts

S. G. Maclean - The Seeker

Amy Liptrot - The Instant

Tom Holland - Persian Fire

In this episode we explore travel and travel writing. Paul interviews Pete Evans (19 mins) author of 'Resurrection River' and 'The Holy Dee' and they chat about travel books that have inspired them, with lots of travellers tales weaved in. Gwyn, Lara and Paul also talk about travel writing that has inspired them (1:07).  Also a shout out to friend of the show Pat Bracewell and you can find her blog here http://www.patriciabracewell.com/blog/

Here are links to the books we chat about about:

Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo

Emily Houghton - Before I Saw You

Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (don't forget to check out the Big Jubilee Read list)

Anna Keay - The Restless Republic, Britain without a Crown

Michelle Paver - Wakenhyrst

As promised there is a very long list of books we talk about and we hope they inspire you to read and travel from your armchair or beyond!

Dervla Murphy - A Place Apart (Charlie Connelly's article in the New European is here )

Geert Mak - In Europe and In America

Robert Macfarlane - The Old Ways

Dan Richards - Outpost

Robert Macfarlane and Dan Richards - Holloway

Amy Jeffs - Storyland

Monisha Rajesh - Around the World in 80 Trains

Bill Bryson - Neither Here Nor There

Will Ferguson - Hokkaido Highway Blues

Heinrich Harrer - Seven Years in Tibet

Hilly Janes - Three Lives of Dylan Thomas

George Borrow - Wild Wales

Cees Nooteboom - Roads to Santiago

Bruce Chatwin - In Patagonia

Robert Harris - Pompeii

In this episode we have an interview with Patricia Bracewell author of the Emma of Normandy historical fiction series ‘Shadow on the Crown’; ‘The Price of Blood’ and ‘The Steel Beneath the Silk’. We discuss all things Anglo-Saxon, Viking and strong women in history! This leads Paul and Gwyn on to a chat about string female leads in fiction. We also briefly mention the BBC’s Big Jubilee Read which is an interesting list of 70 books that are representative of each decade since 1952 from across the UK and the Commonwealth. Oh and not forgetting you may wish to check out the magnificent Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers 

As some of our regular listeners may have noticed this episode is a little late going live. The technical gremlins offered some challenges, especially in the first section of the episode, rather than delay any further we have decided to go ahead. Hopefully the sound quality won’t detract from your enjoyment.

Here are some of the books which get a mention:

Wow! This is a bumper episode full of some wonderful things! We start with Paul and gwyn chatting about books that they are currently reading; there is an interview with poet and writer Peter Read at about 31 minutes in and we end at 1 hour 10 minutes with Lara in conversation with Paul and sharing here favourite poems and poets.

You can find links to some of Peter Read’s work here https://www.gwales.com/search_basic/

To get you tickets for Wrexham Carnival of Words 2022 click here https://wrexhamcarnivalofwords.com/events/

And here are just some of the books, poems and poets we mentioned:

Gwyn and I chatted about Michelle Paver author of Wakenhyrst and Dark Matter; The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles; Help the Witch by Tom Cox; Borderland, a Journey Through the history of Ukraine by Anna Reid; Putin’s People by Catherine Belton; Grey Bees and Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkuv and The Rumour by Lesley Kara.

Peter Read mentions a biography of one of his favourite philosophers Clare Carlisle’s – Philosopher of the Heart, the restless Life of Soren Kierlegaard

These are some of the poems and poets Lara and I mention, Spike Milligan; Ogden Nash; Daffodilsby William Wordsworth; Rememberby Christina Rosetti; Treesby Joyce Kilmer; Sonnets from the Portuguese 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Miraclesby Walt Whitman; I Felt a Funeral in my Brain by Emily Dickinson; Annabel Leeby Edgar Allan Poe; Still I Riseby Maya Angelou.

Finally the new book by Ian Lucas is called Digital Gangsters

In this first of two episodes Paul and Holly explore the joys of all things poetic.

At 20 minutes in you will find an interview with poet and writer Liz Lefroy. You can find out more about Liz at her website https://lizlefroy.wixsite.com/liz-lefroyand this is a link to her blog here https://someonesmumsays.blogspot.com/

This is a link for the playlist that goes with this show, please feel to add relevant tracks for us all to enjoy! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5rTORm6NCVm6CTYjRkUyct?si=25adc661b2474702

Here are some of the books and poems that get a mention

Marc Morris – The Anglo-Saxons, a history of the beginnings of England 400-1066

Hermann Hesse - Steppenwolf

Max Porter – Grief is a Thing With Feathers, Lanny, The Death of Francis Bacon (Grief is a Thing with Feathers title is a play on the Emily Dickinson poem ‘Hope is a thing with feathers’

Emma Souton – A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Murder in Ancient Rome

John Suchet – Beethoven: the man revealed

John Suchet – The Last Master Trilogy a fictional biography of Ludwig van Beethoven

T.E. Carhart – The Piano Shop on the Left Bank

Bloodaxe Anthologies – Being Human, Staying Alive, Being Alive

T S Eliot – Collected Poems 1902-1962

Andrew McMillan - Physical

Phillip Gross – Love Songs of Carbon

John Donne – The Sun Rising

James Joyce – Chamber Music

Kate Tempest – Brand New Ancients

Wendy Cope – Serious Concerns

Sylvia Plath – Lady Lazarus

Hannah Lowe – The Kids

Mary Oliver – New and Selected poems Volume 1

In this episode our theme is London. At 19 minutes you will find an interview with author Jennifer Kavanagh about her book ‘Let Me Take You by the Hand, True Tales from the London’s Streets’. You can find more about Jennifer and her work here https://www.jenniferkavanagh.co.uk/

There is an eclectic Spotify playlist to accompany this episode and you can it here https://open.spotify.com/playlist/27R7wCg3896XowhqMszYyg?si=297b766b62c34384

Here are some of the books we mention ( Lara and Paul are preparing a more extensive bibliography of London books so keep an eye on our website www.bookylicious.com for that):

What Paul, Gwyn, Holly and Lara reading:

Grace Dent – Hungry

Emily St John Mandel – Station Eleven

Pat Barker – Silence of the Girls, Regeneration Trilogy

Yoko Ogawa – Memory police

George Eliot - Middlemarch

Ian Fleming – Man with the Golden Gun

Hannah Lowe – The Kids

Nick Hayes - Book of Trespass

Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind

Books set in or about London:

Henry Mayhew – London Labour and the London Poor

Arthur Conan Doyle – The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Sarah Perry – The Essex Serpent

Zadie Smith – NW and White Teeth

Neil Gaimen – Neverwhere

Colin MacInnes – City of Spades

Beryl Bainbridge – The Bottle Factory Outing

Ben Aaronovitch – Rivers of London

Terry Pratchett – Dodger

Andrew Taylor – Ashes of London

Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Iris Murdoch - Under the Net

Paul and Lara chat about books that they might like to see under the Christmas tree, their favourite Christmas/winter poems and stories and what books they would like to give to others.

Our Christmas stories and poems are:

‘The Dark is Rising’ by Susan Cooper (Gwyn)

‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ by Christina Rossetti (Lara)

‘The Oxen’ by Thomas Hardy (Lara)

‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ by Thomas Hardy (Paul)

‘What the Donkey Saw’ and ‘Not the Millennium’ by U.A. Fanthorpe (Paul

The books we’d like for Christmas:

‘Help the Witch’ by Tom Cox (Gwyn)

‘Free; a Child and a Country at the End of History’ by Lea Ypi (Paul)

‘Lily’ by Rose Tremain (Lara)

‘Ariadne’ by Jennifer Saint (Lara)

The books we would like to give others:

‘The Bell’ by Iris Murdoch (Paul)

‘How to be Free’ by Tom Hodgkinson (Gwyn)

‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell (Lara)

And the Christmas playlist can be found here https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1oQMeFB078Tzw1Rl9xa2ar?si=6b651d8eae59402c

In this episode Paul, Gwyn and Holly celebrate the 150thanniversary of the publication of Alice Through the Looking Glass. Paul dives down the rabbit hole with Mark Davies author, guide and Oxford local historian to discuss aspects of Lewis Carroll and Alice. You can find out more about Mark’s books here Alice in Waterland and King of Balloons and a link to the Lewis Carroll Society here https://lewiscarrollsociety.org.uk/

Also in this episode we muse on the joy of bookshops with a shout out to the Ladies Who Londonpodcast and their episode on London Bookshops which you can find here https://www.ladieswholondon.com/post/bookmarking-the-best-bookshops-in-london

One of Gwyn’s favourite bookshops is Troutmarkbooks in Cardiff. You can find the links for crowdfunding to keep Book-ishin Crickhowell open here https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-keep-bookish-on-the-high-street?member=15332081and the link to support the staff at Berwyn Books which burnt down recently here https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-staff-at-berwyn-books

This is the link to the episode playlist with songs inspired by Carroll and Alice https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1dpcHN6KDDidmiSHwAPJo4?si=52b7cc95e0e04694

And finally here are the links to some of the books we talk about in this episode:

Oliver Burkeman - Four Thousand Weeks

Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart

Virginia Woolf – To the Lighthouse

Edgar Allan Poe – Short Stories

Margaret Atwood – Handmaids Tale

Robert Tombs – The English and their History

Timothy Snyder and Nora Krug – On Tyranny

Nora Krug – Heimat

Timothy Snyder – Bloodlands and The Red Prince

George Eliot – Middlemarch

In this episode Gwyn and Paul chat about scary stories and things that go bump in the night. Ghosts, witches and exorcists and even Holst's Planet Suite. As well as some of the books and stories we chatted about listed below we have also done a Spotify playlist to accompany the episode you can find it here https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3yTJ7q7EhKyJqS5uJNkW7u?si=4e1e0d2f08674c8d 

Here are some of the stories and books we discussed

Edward Parnell - Ghostland, in search of a haunted country

Charles Dickens - The Signalman

Susan Hill - The Woman in Black and The Small Hand

Jason Bray - Deliverance

Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels (the first in the Merrily Watkins series)

Graham Swift - Waterland

M. R. James - Rats

Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13

In this episode Holly, Gwyn and Paul explore the literature of the American West. Including an interview with Anna North author of 'Outlawed'. You can find more about Anna on her website www.annanorth.net where you will also a suggested soundtrack to accompany 'Outlawed' and some excellent further reading. Other books we discuss or touch on in this episode include:

James Fennimore Cooper - The Last of the Mohicans (the 1971 BBC adaptation starred Welsh actor Philip Madoc as 'Magua' and the series is said to have popularised the Mohican hairstyle)

Owen Wister - The Virginian 

Zane Grey - Riders of the Purple Sage

Arthur Conan Doyle - A Study in Scarlet

Elmore Leonard - Hombre

Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses

Thomas Eidson - St Agnes' Stand

Patrick De Witt - The Sisters Brothers

Charles Frazier - Cold Mountain

Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

Stephen King - The Gunslinger

Louis Sacher - Holes

Dee brown - Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee and The American West

Apologies if I've missed any. Last but not least the mystical western starring Pierce Brosnan that I couldn't recall in the podcast was of course 'Seraphim Falls'