Bookylicious

In this episode Paul interviews Sian hughes the Booker longlisted author of ‘Pearl’ in her beautiful bookshop Magpie Books in Malpas , Cheshire https://www.magpiebookshop.co.uk/

Sian talks about the long process of writing ‘Pearl, Old English poetry in the Cheshire dialect, being longlisted for the Booker prize, the Wales/Cheshire border and much more!

For more information about Sian here are a couple of sites with more information:

https://theindigopress.com/sian-hughes/

https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/authors/sian-hughes

And as always here is our bookshelf.org bookshelf with some of the books we mention:

https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/bookylicious-series-3-episode-2-sian-hughes

Apologies because this was recorded on location the sound levels are a little variable but hopefully this won’t spoil your enjoyment.

https://www.discoveryinthedark.wales/project-nos

https://darksky.org/news/dani-robertson-monthly-star/

https://darksky.org/news/dani-robertson-monthly-star/

As always you can see books we talked about in our bookshop.org bookshelf ⁠https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/bookylicious-series-3-episode-1-dani-robertson-all-through-the-night

In this show Paul and Holly chat about novels featuring libraries and librarians inspired by the Electric Literature reading list https://electricliterature.com/7-novels-that-reveal-librarians-behind-the-shelves/ From which emerges ‘The Name of the Rose’ by Uberto Eco as our book of the month.

Gwyn shares her favourite reads about magic and mysticism.

Paul and Holly discuss their current reads and hopefully we will inspire you in our varied choice!

All books mentioned can be found on our Bookshop.Org bookshelf https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/books-featuring-librarians-and-librarians-and-gwyn-explores-all-things-magical-and-mystical-bookylicious-series-2-episode-12

If you want to get in touch with us please email info@bookylicious.com we love to hear from you!

If you want to know more about Jennifer and her writing you can find out more here https://www.jenniferkavanagh.co.uk/

To buy or find out more about Jennifer’s book and some of the other books we mentioned here is our Bookshop.org bookshelf https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/jennifer-kavanagh-and-this-shall-be-my-dancing-day-bookylicious-series-2-episode-11

In this episode Gwyn and Paul explore the graphic novel ‘The Sandman Volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes’ by Neil Gaiman and its recent Netflix adaptation. If you feel inspired to explore the world of graphic novels and comics why not have a look at the excellent Page 45 bookshop site https://page45.com/

For most of the books we discuss in this episode go to the bookshelf in our bookshop here https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/neil-gaiman-s-the-sandman-bookylicious-series-2-episode-9

Gwyn also mentions Joanna Biggs book ‘A Life of One’s Own’ which has only just been published, you can read an extract here https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/04/03/on-mary-wollstonecraft/

Plus there is a unofficial playlist on Spotify for the Sandman series https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1WiEftzChg34LESRtnJehr?si=49b8ca8c968b464d

To see some of the books we mention go to https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/max-porter-the-medieval-and-much-more-bookylicious-series-2-episode-8

For more information about Paul Kingsnorth and Dark Mountain see https://www.paulkingsnorth.net/

And for more about Max porter and his books go to https://www.maxporter.co.uk/

You can find the full text of Tolkien on Fairy Tales here https://archive.org/details/on-fairy-stories_202110

If you wish to watch the BBC adaptation of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase you can find it here on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA_LNZIHHj8&t=61s

All the books we discuss are in our Bookshop.org bookshop here https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/the-wolves-of-willoughby-chase-and-other-fantastic-imaginings-bookylicious-series-2-episode-7

Gwyn also mentions Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero with a Thousand Faces’ which you can find here https://archive.org/details/the-hero-with-a-thousand-faces-by-joseph-campbell

There is only one episode of Bookylicious this month we will be back with two in May!  

Paul, Gwyn and Lara chat about ‘Edgelands’ by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts

It leads to a great discussion about nature in unexpected places and on our back doorstep. One other book gets a brief mention along the way and that is ‘How Green was my Valley’ by Richard Llewellyn where nnaature and industry collide in the South Wales valleys.

For the insatiably curious among you here is a link to an episode of ‘Old Country’ starring Jack Hargreaves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpRvcEC2fnY this will give you a flavour of who we were talking about. His biography is interesting as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hargreaves

Lara recommends two Liverpool bookshops News from Nowhere in Bold Street http://newsfromnowhere.org.uk/and Out of Print in Smithdown Road

For a list of some of the books we talk about on the show go here https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/from-harry-potter-to-hag-seed-bookylicious-season-2-episode-5

Troutmark Books (Cardiff and Newport) https://www.troutmarkbooks.com/

Books Llangollen https://www.booksllangollen.co.uk/

Booka Bookshop (Oswestry) https://www.bookabookshop.co.uk/

Juno Books (Sheffield) https://www.junobooks.co.uk/shop

To see and buy some of the books we discussed in this episode go to https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/treasure-island-and-our-favourite-bookshops-bookylicious-series-2-episode-4

To get early bird festival tickets for Wrexham Carnival of Words 2023 go to https://wrexhamcarnivalofwords.com/ 

For a flavour of what Dicken’s World’ was like here is a brief video from 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jdx1docVTI

For some of the books we mentioned go to our Bookylicious bookshelf here https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/what-the-dicken-s-bookylicious-series-2-episode-3

Here are links for Horatio Clare’s Sound Walk in the Faroes and Dan Richards Only After Dark

To see and buy all the books mentioned on the show go to https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/new-year-reading-challenges-bookylicious-series-2-ep-1 

In this episode Paul interviews author David Ebsworth (aka Dave McCall) about his new book ‘The House on Hunter Street’ set in Liverpool in 1911. For more information about Dave and his previous books go to www.davidebsworth.com

Paul also talks to Monika Evans about her love for ‘The Master and Magarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov and the challenges and surprises (Robert Burns in Silesian!) of literature in translation. Dave also speaks from about having his novel ‘Until the Curtain Falls’ translated into Spanish. You can go and check out Monika’s excellent work as a singer songwriter here https://soundcloud.com/monikaevans-music

Gwyn, Lara and Paul catch up after the long summer and check in on their current reading.

Here is a link to Bloody Scotland and click here if you want to find out more about Shelterbox Book Club and Adventurous Ink

Here are some of the other books we talked about:

Alexandre Dumas – The Count of Monte Cristo

Charlotte Belton – Putin’s People

Janina Ramirez - Femina

Elise Downing - Coasting

Arthur C. Clarke – Cradle

John Woolf – The Wonders, lifting the curtain on the freak show, circus and the Victorian age

Dan Jones – Hollow Crown

Graham Swift – Waterland

Nyuyen Phan Que Mai – The Mountains Sing

Cixin Liu – The Three Body Problem

Andri Snaer Magnason - Lovestar

Tove Jansson – The True Deceiver

Stieg Larsson – The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

Victor Hugo – Les Miserables

Marjane Satrapi - Persepolis

Nora Krug - Heimat

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:

• Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden
• Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
• Jennifer Lucy Allen - The Foghorn's Lament
• Mark Billingham - Rabbit Hole and Cry Baby
• Carys Davies - The Redemption of Galen Pike and The Mission House
• George Eliot - Middlemarch
• Charles Dickens - Bleak House and Little Dorrit
• Michelle Paver - Wakenhyrst
• Manda Scott - Boudicca Series
• Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
• Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones Diary
• Thomas Hardy - Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D'Urbervilles
• Sarah Hilary - Fragile
• Terry Prachett - Discworld Series
• Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

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

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

‘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

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'

In this special episode Paul speaks to Peter Francis, Warden and Louisa Yates, Director of Collections and Research at Gladstone's Library in Hawarden. In the interview we discover how Gladstone's Library was originally created and how it has evolved. We also find out what has been going on behind the scenes while the Library has been closed and look forward to the re-opening today 1 September 2021 and the forthcoming Gladfest which takes place online 11-12 September. For more information about this unique and wonderful place visit their website at www.gladstoneslibrary.org 

Books in the fantasy genre can represent a diverse range of subjects and ideas. In this episode we explore what fantasy literature might or might not be. Gwyn interviews Tiffani Angus author of 'Threading the Labyrinth' you can find out more about her here http://www.tiffani-angus.com/

Here are some of the books we mention in this episode:

Robert Macfarlane - 'Underland' and 'The Old Ways' You may also like to check out Robert's recent appearance on Desert Island Discs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000y641

Matthew Syed - 'Rebel Ideas'

Franz Kafka - 'The Trial'

Samantha Shannon - 'The Priory of the Orange Tree'

Madeline Miller - 'Circe' and 'The Song of Achilles'

Lewis Carroll - 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass'

Neil Gaiman - 'The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains' and 'Coraline' and 'The Sandman Vol. 1'

Alice Roberts - 'Ancestors a Pre-history of Britain in Seven Burials'

Robert Holdstock - 'Mythago Wood'

H P Lovecraft - 'The Call of Cthulhu'

Eoin Colfer - 'Artemis Fowl'

JRR Tolkein - 'The Hobbit' and 'Lord of the Rings'

Barbara Erskine talks about her new novel The Dream Weavers.

Dave McCall (AKA David Ebsworth) and Holly Thorpe talk about the importance of historical fiction to them. You can find information about Dave's books here  http://www.davidebsworth.com/ and the link to the Young Walter Scott Prize is here https://www.walterscottprize.co.uk/young-walter-scott-prize/ 

Rebecca Hill talks about how The Last Kingdom series of boom/3nc9tmmr oks changed her life.  Rebecca  shares her favourite historical fiction reads on Good Reads at https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3639817-rebecca?shelf=historical-fiction 

Our book recommendations include:

Paul Morley - A sound mind, how I fell in love with classical music...

Clare Whitfield - People of abandoned character

Kiana Davenport - Shark dialogues

Maggie O'Farrell - Hamnet

Charles Dickens - A tale of two cities

Markus Zusak - The book thief

For more information about the podcast go to https://www.bookylicious.com/ 

Ray Bradbury - All Summer in a Day

Ursula le Guin - The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Robert Louis Stevenson -  The Body Snatcher

Ted Chiang - The The Story of Your Life 

Arthur Conan Doyle - A Scandal in Bohemia

The Idler

Anton Chekhov - The Black Monk

Sheena Mackay - Curry at the Laburnums

Amanda Thomson - Craw Sunday

Helen Phillips - The Knowers

Italo Calvino - Daughters of the Moon

Lisa Cupolo - Fort Pierce, Florida