The Children of Men by P.D. James

Backlisted

Backlisted Podcast

Hobbies, Leisure, Books, Arts

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2024

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Novelist Andrew Hunter Murray and biographer Laura Thompson join us to discuss The Children of Men (1992), a dystopian thriller by the late P.D. James. The author is probably best remembered as one of Britain's greatest exponents of detective fiction, an heir to the Golden Age of female novelists such as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers et al. In The Children of Men, however, James depicts a nightmare near-future in which the world is literally coming to an end. The book became a bestseller; in 2006, it was adapted for the big screen by the Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón. We look at the ways in which James explored issues that seem eerily contemporary: the societal impact of an uncontrolled virus, falling fertility rates, an ageing population, the rise of populism and accompanying exploitation of migrant labour. She also knew how to grip her readers to the very last page. Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, lived a long and remarkable life and it was a pleasure for all of us to revisit her work and biography in this episode. *Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE show in London on Wednesday May 14th where we will be discussing The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, with guest Alex Michaelides. * 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 Patreon 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, a podcast which gives new life to old books.
0:17.0	Today you find us in the ancient forest of Witchwood in northwest Oxford in a
0:28.7	clearing this stands a wooden shed shadowed by a solitary silver birch. A tall woman emerges, her tight black curls dusted with white.
0:36.8	She surveys the scene briefly before striding across towards a narrow tree-lined lane from inside the shed, who is the sound of a baby crying.
0:46.5	I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher unbound, where people crowd-fund the books they really want to read.
0:52.0	And I'm Andy Miller, the author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And today we are joined by two guests, one new and one returning. Our new guest is Andrew Hunter Murray.
1:02.9	Hello Andrew.
1:04.4	Hi Andrew.
1:05.4	Andrew is a writer and broadcaster.
1:07.1	He writes for Private I magazine, spent 14 years writing BBC 2's QI, get less for a move and co-hosts the
1:16.5	podcast page 94 and no such thing as a fish his first novel the last day
1:21.8	was a Sunday Times bestseller and one of the top 10 fiction
1:24.8	debuts of 2020. His second novel, The Sanctuary, was a Waterstone thriller of the month.
1:30.9	His third, a beginner's guide to breaking and entering, has just been published by
1:35.1	Hutchinson Heineman.
1:37.1	Andrew, you have made the transition from the physical realm into that of the print realm.
1:45.1	What has been the most unexpected in a pleasant way,
1:48.6	because we like to keep this upbeat,
1:50.2	in a pleasant way about having your books published and seeing them in shops and things like that.
1:55.2	Oh, I didn't have any expectations going in.
1:58.0	I mean it's had a nice breaking in because you know QI writes lots of books obviously so you get very excited the first
2:04.6	time you're in someone's acknowledgments I think the first
	...

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