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.

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Hello, I'm Anne McAlvoy.

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At the opening of Sebastian Fokes' new novel, Paris Echo,

we hear where the title comes from,

in a quotation from Victor Hugo's L'om Kierry.

What is history?

An echo of the past in the future.

A shadow of the future on the past.

And Hugo's words can be heard in so many of folks's 14 novels, which have often been set across several generations.

They explore in work like Birdsong, Charlotte Gray, and Where My Heart Used to Beat, World War I and World War II, and also the memory of those wars today.

His novels have been adapted for stage, television and screen.

Birdsong has sold over 3 million copies since it was published in 1993.

Sebastian's also known for his more light-hearted work too, his Jamesbourne novel and his tribute to PG Woodhouse, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells. He began his career as a journalist, first literary editor of The Independent

and then Deputy Editor of the Independent on Sunday before he left to concentrate on fiction.

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