This week John and Andy are joined by super-librarian Nancy Pearl, possibly the only librarian in the world to have their own action figure, to discuss Rose Macaulay's gloriously eccentric family saga Told by an Idiot. John has been reading Sally Bayley's acclaimed bibliomemoir Girl With Dove, while Andy waxes lyrical over Andrew Sean Greer's Pulitzer-winning novel Less (and has a surprise in store...) This episode was recorded in the library at the recent Stoke Newington literary festival.Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)9'04 - Less by Andrew Shaun Greer, 17'44 - *Unnamed Memoir* by Sally Bailey, 32'04 Told by an Idiot by Rose Macaulay* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Told by an Idiot by Rose Macaulay

The literary podcast presented by John Mitchinson and Andy Miller. For show notes visit backlisted.fm and get an extra two shows a month by supporting the pod at patreon.com/backlisted

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Books

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Novelist Andrew Hunter Murray and biographer Laura Thompson join us to discuss The Children of Men (1992), a dystopian thriller by the late P.D. James. The author is probably best remembered as one of Britain's greatest exponents of detective fiction, an heir to the Golden Age of female novelists such as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers et al. In The Children of Men, however, James depicts a nightmare near-future in which the world is literally coming to an end. The book became a bestseller; in 2006, it was adapted for the big screen by the Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón. We look at the ways in which James explored issues that seem eerily contemporary: the societal impact of an uncontrolled virus, falling fertility rates, an ageing population, the rise of populism and accompanying exploitation of migrant labour. She also knew how to grip her readers to the very last page. Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, lived a long and remarkable life and it was a pleasure for all of us to revisit her work and biography in this episode. 

*Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday May 14th where we will be discussing The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, with guest Alex Michaelides. 
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here 
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The Children of Men by P.D. James

Award-winning poet Emily Berry joins us to consider the work and troubled life of Anne Sexton. We focus on her brilliant second collection All My Pretty Ones (1962). Sexton was a trailblazing American poet of the so-called 'confessional' school of the 1960s, one whose writing continues to provoke controversy and debate; her friends and contemporaries included Sylvia Plath and John Berryman. We hear from Sexton herself, in recordings of readings and interviews, and fronting own experimental jazz-rock ensemble, Anne Sexton and Her Kind, and also from her daughter Linda. Please note: Anne Sexton was an unflinching chronicler of her own struggle with mental illness, and this episode contains extensive discussion of suicide and sexual abuse.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here which has book recommendations from our hosts and guests.
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All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton

This fully illustrated, lavishly produced episode of Backlisted represents the last word in coffee table books. Join John, Andy and Nicky as we dip into the origin, design and continuing appeal of specialist hardcover publishing, via some of our favourite cookery books, exhibition catalogues and sumptuous volumes simply too beautiful to leave on the shelf. As you will hear, we loved making this show, which is as deep as it is long. And remember: a coffee table book is for life, not just for Christmas.
 To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show, join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get two extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here 
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Coffee Table Books

This episode of Backlisted is devoted to A Life in Movies (1986), the first volume of memoirs of the filmmaker Michael Powell who, with his partner Emeric Pressburger, is responsible for some of the finest, most magical and soulful films ever to come out of the UK: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and many more. Joining us for a discussion of Powell's life and work - and his vision of cinema as a space in which all the other arts may find expression - are memoirist and critic James Cook and film writer and academic Melanie Williams. We focus on four productions of the Archers that between them tell the story of Powell and Pressburger's achievement: The Spy in Black, A Matter of Life and Death, "I Know Where I'm Going!" and Gone to Earth. If for some reason you have yet to see these films, or any of Michael Powell's work, set aside some time for your next personal obsession. You'll be glad you did.
* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.
* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm
*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted
*You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter
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A Life in Movies by Michael Powell

This episode was recorded in the great city of Liverpool and celebrates the life and work of a great Liverpudlian: George Melly, sometime writer, jazz and blues singer, artist, critic, lecturer and aficionado of surrealism. We are joined by two resident experts: the writer Jeff Young and the playwright and screenwriter, Lizzie Nunnery. The book under discussion is Melly’s Scouse Mouse, which is chronologically the first part of Melly’s memoirs. It was first published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1984 and was the third to be released despite covering the first fourteen years of Melly’s life, painting a vivid portrait of growing up in a middle-class Liverpool family, tinged with eccentricity and theatricality, and his painful experiences at boarding school. Subtitled ‘I Never Got Over It’, it was preceded by Rum, Bum & Concertina, an account of his time in the navy, published in 1977, and Owning It, which covers his years as an aspiring musician in the jazz world of the 1950s, first published in 1965. The final volume, Slowing Down was published in 2005, two years before Melly died. 
 
Scouse Mouse was his Melly’s personal favourite of the four: ‘I don’t know why the events of over sixty years ago should be so much clearer than those of yesterday afternoon, but they are.’ He also adopted that ever-useful motto for the memoirist: ‘Life is lived forwards but understood backwards.’ How much this classic childhood memoir helps us understand the outrageous, complex and multi-faceted life of the grown-up George Melly is just one of the things the panel explore. They also revisit his brilliant book on the pop culture of the1960s, Revolt into Style, a book Andy first discussed back on episode 22 on Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family.
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Told by an Idiot by Rose Macaulay

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