Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music

when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Anne McHawoy.

Thanks for downloading this Arts and Ideas podcast from the BBC's Free Thinking Team.

First, there was the swimming pool library. Then a few years later came the folding star, the line of beauty, and the stranger's child

followed.

Now we have the Sparshalt affair.

It's a dazzling list of novels that includes a Booker prize winner, and while we know prizes aren't everything,

they are at least an outward sign

of a writer's impact on the literary scene.

It's fair to say that from the outset, Alan Hollinghurst has had an unflinching eye and

elegant candor.

His debut novel, The Swimming Pool Library, gave many readers fresh insight into gay life in

contemporary Britain. It was both explicit and

vivid. The wit and elegance of the writing continued in the folding star, but I think it was with

the line of beauty that he established a wider reputation. The book's account of the 1980s was acute

and affecting.

Discontinuities in the narrative forced us to puzzle out psychological and emotional shifts in a way that reminded some of Henry James.

And yet at the same time, the book looked outwards.

It captured the impact of AIDS, an edge of venality in British society during the decade's economic boom, and the

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