Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books.

Today you find us in the depths of rural Norway sometime in the mid-20th century.

It's very cold and dark enough for stars to appear and a hard frost covers the ground.

The young girl strides purposefully down the road, wrapped in a thick coat, her forehead all

that is left exposed, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. Along drawn out crack echoes like a gunshot.

Which is the ice moving in the lake below. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound,

the platform where readers crowdfund books they really want to read.

And I'm Andy Miller, author of Year of Reading Dangerously and today we're joined by two guests,

one returning and one making their debut. Welcome. Back Max Porter and welcome Carl Ovek,

now scarred. Hello both of you. Hello. Hello.

Carl Ovek is a Norwegian writer whose work, including the six volume sequence, My Struggle,

the novel A Time for Everything, the season's quartet and most recently in English,

the Morning Star has been published in 35 languages. He is published 22 books spanning fiction,

non-fiction essays and biographical portraits of Edvard Munch and Anson Kiefer.

Early next year there will be a publication of the paperback of Carl Ove's collection of essays

in the land of the Cyclops. He is joined by Max Porter, who was last with us back in August

2019, goodness me, it feels like a long time ago, to talk about Ridley Walker in our live

recording at the Paul Elliott's festival. Incidentally, if listeners you've never heard that particular

episodes, it is genuinely one of our favourites partly because of the readings by Max and by

Unimical Mac from the remarkable novel Ridley Walker in front of a live audience totally captivated

by what they heard, a really magical, magical moment. So I felt it was anyway, Max, did you feel

that felt really special that one? Yeah, I have really warm memories of that time, partly because

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