Backlisted Podcast: calling all shut-ins

Herewith talk about the Backlisted podcast hosted by Jon and Andy wherein they discuss forgotten books and we listen and sometimes read them (or skip them or perhaps find the show irritating and dont even listen)!

Favorite episodes, favorite guests, gripes, discuss hence!

books i’ve read recently on their recommendation

So Long See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell; and Absolute Beginners by Nigel Macinness

bloody excellent! five stars for both: loved unreservedly

just got a copy of Ulverton by Adam Thorpe which was discussed in an intro to an ep i’ve now forgotten

dying to get my hands on a copy of Lolly Willowes imo

Laura whasermame the Beowulf guest HWAET is my fave guest

Lolly Willowes was reprinted by NYRB, so there should be used copies floating around for below retail, or even a public library copy you can nab. I read it and enjoyed it. This summer I read Summer Will Show by Warner and found it even more enjoyable!

i had been cherry-picking old episodes & occasionally listening to new ones … but now i try to always listen to new ones

recently i went back & started from the beginning but am only like maybe 10 eps into that

andy can be a bit of an interruptosaurus at times

in the early episodes i dont really understand who “matthew” is? like he’s not a host but he’s not a guest but he’s always there. is he their producer?

The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a wonderful book and a v good episode iirc. I also thought So Long, See You Tomorrow was fantastic.

I think Matthew was the original producer - now Nicky B.

I struggle with it sometimes because it feels so blokey and clubbable (despite best efforts to diversify with guests) but I think there's probably an element of jealousy in there because who wouldn't want to make a living this way?

Just looking at my podcast app and some favourite episodes: Autumn Journal, the Halloween ones, Good Morning Midnight, The Ice Palace, Of Walking in Ice.

I’ve known Andy since he was a Waterstones bookseller and note that Backlisted has a great record of covering writing by women, including titles that have come back into print because a couple of men started telling listeners how great they were.

Andy's great - his passion for reading is contagious. Looks like he's got a new book out next year: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Letting-Balloon-Listening-Occasionally-Dangerously/dp/0008203725

some old episodes that stick out to me:

All the Devils Are Here by David Seabrook
Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson
Look At Me by Anita Brookner (Brookner was an obsession of Andy's for a while)

can we talk about backlisted

― coombination gazza hut & scampo bell (wins), Friday, 17 December 2021 22:01 (two years ago) link

QI is a dismal product... miller really comes across as sort of a blowhard or two, like your nightmare of yourself down the pub (and I can't imagine wanting to look at any of his books)... & there is this clubbiness I can just barely stand, really the opposite of the alleged parasocial value of podcasts (I am glad I am NOT friends w these people!)

and yet I do like it a fair bit

― coombination gazza hut & scampo bell (wins), Friday, 17 December 2021 22:04 (two years ago) link

I basically agree with all of that. It's beyond parody - the clubbable enthusiasm, the lack of any sort of critical acumen, the endless line of posh voices presented as diversity - and I battle with myself for listening to it, but I've found lots of great things.

I read The Year of Reading Dangerously so you don't have to.

― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Friday, 17 December 2021 22:12 (two years ago) link

I’m an unqualified fan of backlisted and pay for their patreon (which includes an **even more sel-indulgent** free extra fortnightly podcast). I’m not blind to (or un-annoyed by) their cultural blind spots and chummy self-satisfaction as presenters, but I find them both very entertaining company, and they’ve led me to a lot of good books, just like ILB

― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 18 December 2021 00:28 (two years ago) link

I basically stand by what I said back then — if I had to live my life over again maybe I would have said windbag or gobshite instead — and there’s this particular species of OTT chortling that I only encounter here, usually after AM has read out a sentence of serviceable comic prose, that is like stepping on a cringe landmine. I can feel it taking years off my life

I am a sicko tho because I do listen to it and have even paid for the patreon eps where you get to hear the shit melt political opinions they’re too cowardly to say on main (yes these are the eps mitchinson describes as “an hour of tunes, musings and superior book chat” and that’s another few years gone every time I hear it)

Fundamentally I want there to be a show like this covering this stuff & backlisted is the best version of that thing that currently exists & prob the best version likely to exist — but that’s a shame imo (ilb folx could do better!)

I don’t subscribe to the Locklisted Patreon anymore – it’s an excellent podcast, but was costly and I didn’t have time to listen to them all. Music choices were very good IIRC - introduced me to the Lemon Twigs and Nicky played some excellent 90s jungle track I’ve forgotten the name of.

Two moments:
- Was incensed (incensed!) by Frank Cottrell-Boyce dissing Tehanu, then pleased to hear Una McCormack recommend it a week later
- Andrew Male’s heartfelt recommendation of We All Hear Stories in the Dark by Robert Shearman was an incredibly moving bit of radio (and a terrific recommendation)

In general, browsing the shelves at charity bookshops is much more exciting now thanks to ILB and Backlisted

As mentioned elsewhere - Andy seems very self-aware of his blokiness and also horrified by it – I think that’s really interesting!

Prob the worst ep I heard was on War Of The Worlds - or rather, it pretended to be about it, but actually there was almost no discussion of the book and instead a whole lot of some dude who adapted it for the BBC talking about what changes he made. I would not have clicked on an interview with a bbc drama showrunner and resented being tricked into it.

Also rather bad: the Passage To India episode, which of course has to have Andy drag out that fucking thing about the falling bookshelf in Howards End symbolizing Forster's contempt for the lower classes (a total misreading of the book, imo - it's not about how dude should have stuck to his level, it's about how these rich women adopt ppl as pet projects) while totally ignoring how the book is entirely about how the Brits are monsters in India.

Their politics are a sad reminder that yes there are people out there who are interested in culture and believe themselves to be on the left who somehow think Kier Starmer is not pure evil.

lol I guess I'm another loyal listener who kinda hates it

I read and very much enjoyed The Year Of Reading Dangerously. It's basically about falling back in love with reading, and how easy it is to let that slip.

A mutual on twitter was complaining about the ep on Natalia Ginzburg just last week. And it ran along similar lines, which is basically blokes waffling about nothing to do with the book for a long time. Sounds like the kind of thing designed to raise my blood pressure.

Podcasts are radio in an era where stuff like editing is nonexistent, maybe bcz that is a cost in expertise. They get away with it because that's the world we live in.

maybe bcz that is a cost in expertise.

Nah that's not it, they have a producer!

With podcasts in general it's a combination of the performer being in control (who doesn't run long when they're allowed to?) and audiences specifically preferring that due to long commutes, half listening while gaming, etc. (see also why every youtube essay is 3 hours now).

Wonder what that producer is doing...I mean, someone should be there to surely tell them not to waffle on, to control when they are out of it.

I've never listened to this and suspect I'd prob absolutely hate it, even tho I bet many of the books are books I'd like. I find the British literary scene fairly terrible in general, at almost every media level, just a bizarre bunch of people that don't seem in any way like anyone I know, even though the people I know enjoy reading a lot.

Maybe I should give it a listen, haha.

You’d hate it.

Andy (who is from Croydon FFS, not posh) is the guy who signed John Harris up to write the Britpop book (after I had a few meetings about it when it was just a hair too early for the main characters to speak about DRUCKS). His book about sports is pretty funny.

Anyone looking for books programming should try the Big Scottish Book Club hosted by Damian Barr, on iPlayer now.

If he’s from Croydon then how come he never mentions it?

(I assume the posh comment was more talking about like… basically every guest)

If you told me he was a posh sort I would believe it...similar set of behaviors...

lol and here was me wondering if anyone would post itt

i tend to disagree about the blokiness? they’re definitely better when they have women guests, but imo its only a very certain type of book/guest where they run aground in a mild kind blokiness **but even then it is nothing compared to actual blokiness i encounter elsewhere ****
so it doesnt really register

i loved the episode they did about Ann Sexton, it was really great

xxposts to Daniel - thats kind of funny what you said abt the Passage to India ep - that was one of the first I listened to that i enjoyed & it made me go out and buy a copy of the book lol

I’m not sure “blokey” is what I bump against either, it’s much more specific like “the kind of ppl who say ‘chapeau’”

But speaking of “self-aware about his blokiness” one time this manifested in a typically annoying was was miller making one of his pronouncements like “isn’t it a bit blokey though, it’s one of those things only blokes like, like the fall”

Which would presumably be news to all the women who listen to the fall or write about them, or those who make up the all-female fall tribute band, or who were actually in the fucking fall

Just kinda daft & clueless. & there’s like one of those an ep for me

maybe it’s just your personal cross to bear that you don’t enjoy him for whatever reason

like don’t take this the wrong way but it sounds like more of a you thing

I have to admit I love the clubbiness but I also (admittedly) don't have the context for it that you all do. It's like being with friends listening to them be smart about something, and their voices are low and gentle and no one is ever loud or talks too fast. So far I've only sought out eps that featured books I know and like. Looking forward to it for winter project listening.

I wish they talked about the books more, I complained about this in the other thread. Because they want to spur people to READ these books, they don't talk about the actual contents a lot (though Cassandra at the Wedding was an unusual counter example).

The The Dark is Rising ep is so, so good.

I would prefer if they talked less (or none) about what they're reading now -- everyone gets 5 mins iirc and it's like the first 20 mins of the thing.

They got rid of that segment this year! It's been moved to Locklisted. But, yeah, if anything, there is not enough waffle - it's a tight 50 mins to an hour, so sometimes it feels like it could be longer. The Agatha Christie episode for example - a bit too much Christie trivia, and not quite enough about the book itself. I also love the clubbiness - they can be annoying, but in the same way friends are annoying (i.e. forgivably). It was a lifeline during the emptier parts of 2020-21.

I would def classify Andy as "blokey" (but not "laddish"). There's a good comic bit in "Living Dangerously" where he suddenly frets about having written a boring, blokey book. I enjoy the way he pingpongs between gallows humour and extreme enthusiasm.

Good episodes that I can remember offhand - The Vet's Daughter, Human Voices, The Brain of Morbius, Hitchhiker's Guide, the High Window, the Jilly Cooper one, the Robert Aickman one, the Return of the King... "The High Window" is a good example -- a great podcast about nobody's favourite (or first-remembered) Chandler novel.

"The Agatha Christie episode for example - a bit too much Christie trivia, and not quite enough about the book itself"

I would say this is what I mean by 'waffle' but wrt Christie maybe the trivia is more interesting?

yeah i didnt mind that in the Agatha Christie one bc it was all very relevant to the book

the Hitchhikers one was fascinating but had v little to do w the text itself, that one was all reminiscenses and trivia too

Ha, yeah, I really enjoyed that one. Great to hear people talk about Adams in a loving but decidedly non-hagiographic way.

yeah i was riveted

yeah, i enjoyed the Adams one, though i wish there had been a little more about the writing - they just take "ah, so brilliant" as a given, and I don't know if he is! Like, those novels (i've only heard bits of the radio plays) are so much associated with my reading them as a kid, and so much of them is ingrained in the culture now, that I have no way of judging them as books. (I mean, I definitely enjoyed Mostly Harmless a lot less, but I don't know if that's because it's a bad book or just a huge bummer or both.)

i do enjoy the recent-ish addition of Andy introducing a movie adaptation or a song at the end —they’re often very funny

i've gotten at least one good recommendation from their "what have you been reading" segments - Ghost Wall, by Sarah Moss. And I bought the Shearman book as a gift for a friend after hearing of it on there, though I haven't read it myself.

I always forget to listen but when I do remember I love backlisted so, so much. full disclosure they had an ep with me once and they were simply lovely but the whole concept of the show is just catnip to me.

HOLD UP which episode!?

thats so awesome!

Seeing a live show tomorrow! Quite excited. With Laura Varnam on Conan Doyle.

oooh lucky!!! laura is such a cool guest

HWAET!

Nice!

Liked the James Young episode.

The new Secret Diary of Adrian Mole ep was delightful, thinking i might give it a re-read

i was trying to remember when i first read it. I think 1986ish, i was 10? which seems too young idk
i was given it for a birthday, but re-read it a bunch of times

i also watched the BBC tv show but i remember i didnt much like the casting, no one looked the way i thought they should

my favorite bit of the book was when he goes to the roller rink with the pound of grapes bc he’d heard (or saw it on the toilet wall) that this girl sharon would do it for a pound of grapes

A lovely episode! I think I read it when I was around 12 or 13 - 1987 or 1988. I feel like I know it front to back - that and The Growing Pains.

Hahahaha, at that pound of grapes memory. I think about bits of it all the time. For some reason 'I implore ye, don't ignore me' floats through my head weekly. And finding Bert's false teeth in Sabre's kennel.

loool omg i forgot abt that

wasnt there a poem about Skegness? have a dim memory of something like that

Unfortunately John has been cancelled by the woke mob for sniffing loudly into the mic 600 times an ep so it will be miller + another cohost from now on apparently

srsly!?

Loads of stuff is coming out about his indie publisher absolutely fucking authors so he is stepping back, I’m sort of riffing on the surviving cohost’s constant vague muttering about cancel culture and the censorious left (which is one source of this correspondent’s “this content is decent enough but maybe don’t trust these further than you can throw em” sceptical note)

Also he (the good one, now bad) would totally do the sniffing shit it was INSANE lol

Was just gonna post about JM and the huge debt owed to Unbound authors - remember, these were authors who raised the money to publish various books a la Kickstarter - many of whom were expecting some huge chunks of cash this week.

had no idea abt any of that! awful

I was a little taken aback in the Elia Kazan episode when they completely dismissed the idea that anyone could legitimately hold a grudge against Kazan for naming names.

I wasn’t frankly

I'm listening to the episode on The Unconsoled while standing on a train platform having been kicked off a broken train, waiting for a replacement due at an ever receding time. Could only be more appropriate if I were in middle europe. Good episode, I wish it was twice as long, great to hear people enthusing about it.