Grinny & You Remember Me! by Nicholas Fisk

Backlisted

Backlisted Podcast

Hobbies, Leisure, Books, Arts

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2024

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sam Leith, author of The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading, returns to Backlisted to discuss two novels by Nicholas Fisk, Grinny (1973) and its sequel, You Remember Me! (1984). Fisk's SF thrillers were tremendously popular with young readers during the 1970s and 1980s but his work is now rather forgotten, an error we wish to correct as a matter of urgency. The plot of You Remember Me! may be summarised as follows: a TV celebrity becomes the head of a mass populist movement in the UK, leading their country into fascism at the behest of an alien power. As such, Fisk's novel has something to tell us (and our children) right now, which is why we have released this episode early. Our conversation was recorded on Friday 8th November 2024, in the immediate aftermath of the US election results; in addition to Grinny and You Remember Me!, Sam, John and Andy offer suggestions of other books written for young people that warn of the reality of life under fascist regimes, including The Once and Future King, Watership Down and V for Vendetta. Just don't call it an emergency podcast. In the words of Timothy Snyder in his book On Tyranny: 'When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading. So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books.' * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and get extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a patron at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast which gives New Life to Old Books. Today you find us
0:17.1	standing in the kitchen of an English suburban house in the early 1970s. A tall, eager man
0:22.3	is filling up the glasses of his wife and two young children with Sherry. The centre of the room
0:27.0	stands a very short but neat elderly woman wearing a hat with a veil and gloves. She removes
0:32.8	both, takes out a pack of Goldwallars from a pocket and smiles.
0:41.8	I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, where people pledge to support the books they really want to read.
0:45.7	And I'm Andy Miller, the author of the Year of Reading Dangerously.
0:50.0	And today we are joined by returning guest Sam Leith.
0:51.3	Hello, Sam. How are you?
0:56.2	I'm all right, thank you. How are you both? It's great pleasure to be invited back. Thank you.
1:01.2	I am quite well. How about you, John? I am good. In fact, better than good.
1:08.5	Not traumatised by the week's election. It's funny you should say that, Sam, because that may come up during this podcast.
1:16.2	I think more inspired to think a little deeper and listen a little more carefully to the people around me.
1:18.1	I refuse the option of trauma.
1:19.3	Very good, John.
1:23.2	Sam Leith is the literary editor of The Spectator magazine.
1:29.6	His new book is The Haunted Wood, A History of Childhood Reading. And's also the author of You Talking to Me, Rhetoric from Aristotle to Trump and Beyond, gulp, and right to the point,
1:37.5	that's right with the W everybody, right to the point, how to be clear, correct and persuasive on
1:42.0	the page. He has joined us on previous episodes
1:44.8	dedicated to Ray Bradbury in 2019 and Thomas Pynchon in 2022. Sam, how is it going with the
1:52.9	Haunted Wood? A wonderful book, as listeners to Batlisted No, because I've burbled on about it on here.
1:58.3	Well, thank you. I think it's going okay. I mean, I'm doing what every
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