In this episode of Backlisted, John and Andy are joined by Rishi Dastidar, a poet and copywriter whose first collection Ticker-tape was recently published by Nine Arches Press. Rishi is also chair of the London writer’s charity, Spread the Word; consultant editor at the independent poetry magazine The Rialto and a fellow of The Complete Works II, a programme that promotes quality and diversity in British poetry. The book Rishi has chosen is The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives by Sebastian Faulks, his only work of non-fiction, first published by Hutchinson in 1996. Before that, Andy finally comes to terms with the sequence of Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St Aubyn (just before the first episode in the Sky adaptation was broadcast) and John plunges into the strange and haunting world of Folk by Zoe Gilbert.

Books mentioned:

• Sebastian Faulks - The Fatal Englishman; Birdsong; The Girl at Lion d'Or; Charlotte Gray; Devil May Care; Jeeves and the Wedding Bells

• Edward St Aubyn - Never Mind; Bad News; Some Hope; Mother's Milk; At Last

• Zoe Gilbert - Folk

• Daisy Johnson - Fen

• Claire-Louise Bennett - Pond

• Sarah Hall - Madame Zero

• Sylvia V. Linsteadt & Rima Staines - Tatterdemalion

• Richard Hilary - The Last Enemy

• Sebastian Faulks - Faulks on Fiction

• Simon Winder - The Man Who Saved Britain

• Javier Marías - Written Lives

• Miranda Carter - Three Emperors

• Marie Phillips - Oh, I Do Like to Be...

Other links:

• Patrick Melrose on Sky

• Interview with Edward St Aubyn in the New Yorker

• Christopher Wood on Wikipedia

• Richard Hillary on Wikipedia

• Jeremy Wolfenden on Wikipedia

• Sebastian Faulks on researching non-fiction

• Christopher Wood: a new biography

• Jane Gardam on The Fatal Englishman

• Richard Hillary reading from The Last Enemy

• Neal Ascherson on Jeremy Wolfenden

• Sebastian Faulks on Pointless