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Backlisted

The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald

Backlisted

Backlisted Podcast

Arts, Books, Leisure, Hobbies

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2021

⏱️ 70 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Joining John and Andy this week are Natasha McEnroe, the Keeper of Medicine at the Science Museum in London, and novelist Lissa Evans, Backlisted's old friend and the show's Original Guest, both of whom are Betty MacDonald superfans. The Plague and I (1948) is the author's unflinching and hilarious memoir of the nine months she spent as a patient at a TB sanatorium in the Pacific North West of America. We discuss this book and the eventful life of its million-selling author (The Egg and I, Anybody Can Do Anything, Onions in the Stew), are exposed to a selection of TB-related public information films and music, and there is even a 'communicable disease in literature' quiz. Also in this episode Andy is grabbed by Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper (1943) by Donald Henderson, reputedly Raymond Chandler's favourite crime novel; while John has been enjoying Olivette Otele's recently published history African Europeans, which traces a long African European heritage via the lives of individuals both ordinary and extraordinary. Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length) 08:16 - Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper by Donald Henderson 15:49 - African Europeans by Olivette Otele 20:37 - The Plague And I by Betty Macdonald *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, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

And Natasha, you work at the Science Museum. How long is it since you set foot in the

0:29.6

Science Museum? Well, actually, I was in yesterday, which is a really... Oh, well, thanks for that.

0:36.5

I had been working for mostly for the last year, but we're starting to put actually on display

0:42.2

and we're starting to prepare for opening on the 19th of May, so I am going in to do some work

0:49.4

on gallery, which is mega exciting. How exciting. Natasha, do you actually prefer going to the

0:55.7

Science Museum when no one's there? Is it really lovely? It must be. Well, it sort of turned on

1:00.6

its head to be honest, because if you work in museums, it is always a perk of the job that you get

1:05.9

to go through early in the morning or late at night and there's no one there, and it's amazing.

1:10.8

But actually, when it comes to a pandemic and we're closed a lot of the time, it's actually miserable

1:16.4

because you're doing all this work, and you want to see what people think of the exhibitions and

1:22.0

the galleries, and it's just really disappointing, but I think we all cannot wait to be open.

1:27.0

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lister Evans, when were you lost in... Oh, no, I can't ask you about the library again,

1:32.6

because I know you practically live in a tent outside the library. I was in 0.2 of a second after

1:41.2

they owned the doors on the 8th of April, yeah. Shall we get this show on the road?

1:47.7

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

1:52.3

Today, you'll find us in a sanatorium near Seattle in the late 1930s, shivering under paper blankets

1:58.3

as the wind and the rain rattle the window of the ward, and the squeaking wheel of the food trolley

2:03.2

edges closer in the bed next door. A woman begins to bark like a dog. I'm John Mitchell,

2:09.9

the publisher of Unbound, the platform where readers crowdfund the books they really want to read.

2:14.6

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

2:19.8

for the first time, Natasha McEnroe. Hello, Natasha. Hello, Natasha. Thank you for coming.

2:26.4

And the OG herself, teenagers everywhere, screaming in horror, I just said, the original guest.

...

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