Backlisted

A timely revisit of our 2022 Christmas special which celebrates Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, a classic of children’s literature and the childhood favourite of our producer, Nicky Birch. We are jo...

9 Des 20251h 34min

Writer and critic Matthew De Abaitua joins Andy, Una and Nicky to discuss Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future (1930), the astounding first novel by Olaf Stapledon. The book is one o...

25 Nov 20251h 22min

Something a little different this week. Andy, Una and Nicky discuss the novel Transit by Rachel Cusk, the second part of her award-winning Outline trilogy. Outline, the first volume was published in 2...

11 Nov 20251h 18min

For this year's Halloween episode, we take a windswept walk across the Yorkshire moors with Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights — not as a tale of doomed romance, but as a novel steeped in gothic horror,...

28 Okt 20251h 13min

To honour the life of Jilly Cooper, we are replaying this joyous episode from 2019 with a new introduction. Joining Andy and John in this episode are Daisy Buchanan, writer, feminist, host of the bri...

13 Okt 20251h 12min

Writer Jason Hazeley joins Andy, Una and Nicky for a celebratory investigation - or investigative celebration - of All the Devils Are Here, the ungovernable literary brainchild of the late David Seabr...

29 Sep 20251h 13min

Emmy Award-winning writer David Quantick (Veep, The Thick of It) joins Andy and Una for a discussion of Marc Behm's surreal thriller The Eye of the Beholder (1980). David last appeared on Backlisted a...

15 Sep 20251h 9min

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan (1971), the second Earthsea novel, is the subject of this episode. Joining Una and Andy is writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce, current Children’s Laureate. We look at h...

1 Sep 20251h 11min