The Booker Prize Podcast, Episode 25: Any Human Heart by William Boyd

Sara Cox, host of BBC Two’s TV book club, Between the Covers, joins Jo and James to discuss our December Book of the Month: Any Human Heart by William Boyd. Told through the journals of Logan Mountstuart, it’s an engrossing – and often funny – novel that takes in many of the defining events of the 20th century and the people who shaped them. The Booker Prize 2002-longlisted book was recently discussed on Between the Covers, so tune in to our podcast as Sara, James and Jo talk about William Boyd’s beloved novel, as well as Sara’s own reading habits and inspirations.

• The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Pessimism is for Lightweights by Salena Godden
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume
• Catherine Cookson novels
• Jilly Cooper novels
• John Boyne novels
• Margaret O’Farrell novels

Transcripts of The Booker Prize Podcast are generated using both speech recognition software and human transcribers, and as a result, may contain errors.

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James Walton:

Hello and welcome to the Booker Prize Podcast with me, James Walton.

Jo Hamya:

And me, Jo Hamya. And today it’s book of month time again with the choice for December falling on Any Human Heart by William Boyd, which was long listed in 2002, the year that Yann Martel’s Life of Pie became a hugely popular winner. Any Human Heart is probably the most beloved book of William Boyd’s 40-year career. And it was also adapted by the writer as a BAFTA winning TV series starring the likes of Matthew MacFadyen, Gillian Anderson, Jim Broadbent, Hayley Atwell and Tom Hollander.

James Walton:

But not only that, this week we’re joined by a special guest, Sara Cox, TV presenter, host of award-winning Drive Time Show on Radio two, but mainly for our purposes, the host of BBC Two’s weekly book show Between The Covers, running as we speak for its seventh series on Monday evenings before that top treble bill for us quizzes of Mastermind Only Connect and University Challenge. And I’m a big fan of Between The Covers too. I must say, in my experience TV book shows can either be way too reverent about books or a bit nervous of daring to assume that people read at all. But Between The Covers, the thing I really like about is it just takes reading entirely for granted as generally jolly celebrity guests discussing them with enthusiasm and even some jokes. So welcome Sara, lovely to have you with us.

Sara Cox:

Lovely to be here. Thanks for having me guys.

Jo Hamya:

What’s the impetus for having a kind of book show on TV?

Sara Cox:

Well, so what we wanted to do was to try and encourage people to read, but we wanted the books to be the focus and the stars of the show, but to almost recommend the books almost by stealth really, by having a lovely guest on that would make people laugh and would encourage people to read if possible. And it’s a little bit, I wouldn’t say that I was as funny as Rob Bryden and his team on Would I Lie To You, but we wanted something where the books are there and we chat about them, but there’s also some laughter and sort of human stories there as well.

Jo Hamya:

And all your guests bring a favourite book for the Bring Your Own book section. Are there any choices that have surprised you?

Sara Cox:

Well, Mel Geidroyc always brings a huge book so it’s not so much a surprise as more as like it’s a bit of a weightlifting session, trying to lift up whatever weighty tome that she brings in. I’ve just looked at my bookshelf upstairs because I ended up taking home a lot of the BYOBs and I’ve got Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, which is huge. And that was the first one I think she brought on and she brought on War and Peace as well. I think she read that when she was recovering from a hernia operation so she couldn’t move for a few weeks.

James Walton:

Yeah, quite a long recovery.

Sara Cox:

Yeah, and this series, Anita Rani brought in a book of poetry called Pessimism is for Lightweights by Salena Godden and poetry is something that I just really struggle with. I don’t know how you guys feel about it, if you’re fans of poetry. I just find it difficult to engage with and I’m not quite sure where you’re supposed to read poetry and how long for or exactly what the poetry rules are. It’s a bit like a party when somebody gets out a guitar, I don’t know where to look. And sometimes we have people on the show who will read a bit of poetry and I don’t quite know what to do with my face. Richard E. Grant brought in Alice in Wonderland and that he rereads a couple of times a year, I think, which always astonishes me that people have got time to reread books. Are you rereaders?

Jo Hamya:

I try to be. I think it’s good practise.

James Walton:

I’m not, no, just on the grounds of I don’t tend to go to holiday in the same place again and again because there’s always somewhere new. It does mean that some of my favourite books that I claim to be my favourite books, I can’t remember almost anything about. There is that downside.

Sara Cox:

Yeah, definitely is that. James, I’m exactly the same. So when I get asked, when I’m talking about the show and get asked about favourite books, it’s usually the one I’m reading at the time because my brain is a little bit like a 181 in car park when it comes to details and books.

James Walton:

You might have to cross out that question then for.

Sara Cox:

Yeah, please do.

James Walton:

Let’s a bit about your own reading history. Can you remember the first books that you discovered and really liked?

Sara Cox:

I think Judy Blume was a huge author for me growing up with Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Jo Hamya:

That’s a great one.

Sara Cox:

It was such a great book and it was the first book that seemed to talk to me at my age and not talk down to me. I quickly, I mean my mom’s, she was a big reader. I think now she’s very much, she reads on holiday, but there would always be Catherine Cookson novels lying around the house that my mom would be getting stuck into. But then we only had three TV channels back hundreds of years ago that I’m talking about.

But yeah, I quickly got into Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper and Riders and Polo and all that when I was sort of in my later teens, maybe when I was like 15, 16 because I’m a fan of horse riding. I’ve got a horse and there was some rude bits in there as well. So for me I was like, yeah, reading’s great fun.

James Walton:

I had to read Jilly Cooper for honestly sort of a worky thing once and I was amazed. I’ve spent all my life with women telling me how great Jilly Cooper is and really funny and great, really kind of, well, I think problematic might be the word now. Basically, she doesn’t like anyone, women who are sort of fat and hairy do they? And you know what they need, they need-

Sara Cox:

Yeah.

James Walton:

They need a good rogering, don’t they?

Sara Cox:

Like a lot of things they’ll be very much of their time. I mean I thought one of my old time favourite films was Grease the Musical, and that’s because it’s just in the sort of rose-tinted pass and when you actually watch it now there’s a lot of predatory behaviour on women and it’s problematic. So I watched that with my daughters and I’m like, “Oh actually leaves a bit of a sour taste. It’s probably best left in the past.” But yeah, those are my first experiences of reading.

Jo Hamya:

I always think it’s so interesting reading stuff from when you’re a child or a teen with adult eyes because you notice all the things you never did, but then it’s equally fun to see what you understood so clearly at the time, it’s horrifying in a way. So moving, maybe forward in time, do you have a favourite book or novel or favourite book or author?

Sara Cox:

Well, so we do the book of battle list on Between the Covers, so not all the author, they’re just from the ones that made the list that didn’t win, we like to shine a light on those. And from this series I enjoyed a few, I think this is a series where I enjoyed, most of them actually were absolutely, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle, I’d obviously read it, felt like the whole world had read it and it was lovely to go back to that and I listened to it on the audiobook actually because the easiest way, as you probably know, to get through a big chunk of books all at once. So I’d already read that.

I hadn’t read Any Human Heart, but it had popped up before on a past series. Somebody had it as their BYOB, but I hadn’t read any Anne Tyler. I’m busy working through Maggie O’Farrell and John Boyne’s backlist at the moment myself. This is a thing at the moment I’m doing. But then Anne Tyler has sort of thrown, there’s been a bit of a grenade in my reading habits because of Redhead by the Side of the Road, I really, really enjoyed. And so now I’m reading is A Spool of Blue Thread, I started that a couple of nights ago. So it’s getting complicated.

I’ve never really been one for trying to investigate a whole backlist of somebody else’s work, but I can’t resist it. This keeps happening now. So I’ve got Maggie O’Farrell. So it does get a little bit complicated because then the Miles Jupp’s BYOB was the Maggie O’ Farrell, the new one, The Marriage Portrait. So I’m listening to that at the moment as well. So I guess the short answer is I’ve really enjoyed them all this series, but that’s not actually an answer apart from I’ve enjoyed all of them, but maybe Anne Tyler is the one I connect to most because now I’m trying to read more of her.

James Walton:

Because you’re now also a writer yourself, the memoir Till the Cows Come Home about growing up on a Lancaster farm and this year the novel Thrown, they’re talk about the anxiety of influence when you’re writing a book yourself after you’ve read all these great books, does that make a difference? Is it scary?

Sara Cox:

Well, Thrown came out last year and I’ve actually got a new novel coming out in April coming and what I try not to do, well actually the books that I’m reading for Between The Covers, especially the book of backlists are so good that there’s no way that they’re beyond intimidating for me. So it’d be easy to read and be like, “Oh my God, I just might as well throw my laptop through the window right now,” because I’m reading this. But what I write is so not in the same sort of category or not as literary as anything that I’m reading for Between The Covers. Certainly not for the book of backlist. So it doesn’t influence my writing. It sort of spurs me on a little bit. I could only dream of writing as well as Anne Tyler or William Boyd.

James Walton:

And do you enjoy the writing?

Sara Cox:

I love writing. Like anything I love it when it’s going well and when it’s not, it feels like, when I’m midway through a book, it feels like there’s a little gremlin just following me around the whole time. And whether I’m out on the yard or with the dogs or with the kids or doing something that isn’t writing, there’s a little gremlin going, “Hello, you should be writing there. Why aren’t you writing?” It sort of hangs over me. Well, like anything when it goes brilliantly, it’s a lovely feeling.

I played piano when I was little and I was terrible. And I think there was only one point with my teacher, Mrs. McCarthy, where I could read the music and where there was this lovely moment where the music just came through my fingers and I played this piece just for a few seconds and I’ve never forgotten it and I must have only been about 7 or 8-year-old. And sometimes writing is a bit like that where it just flows and it’s a beautiful feeling. And then other times you’re like, I’m strapping myself to a chair going, “I’m not leaving here until I’ve done a thousand words at least.”

James Walton:

Okay, thanks, Sara. I think we probably should at this stage, turn to Any Human Heart by William Boyd, our Book of the Month. Have you recorded the episode about that yet on Between The Covers?

Sara Cox:

Yeah, they’re all recorded. They’re all in the can.

James Walton:

And did people like it?

Sara Cox:

Everybody absolutely loved it. So we had Kerry Godliman on, comedian and actor. We had Ben Miller who just absolutely adored it, Nish Kumar and Laura Smyth and they all really, really loved it. And Laura Smyth is a comedian who used to be an English teacher, she speaks brilliantly about it. That’s in the episode five of this seven series and she said that she finds it difficult to talk about because it feels like she’s still in the story and it’s her story and it’s like you connected to it on such a level that it’s become part of her and yeah, I mean I listened to it on audiobook. I was recommended the audiobook and it is fantastic.

James Walton:

Okay, well that’s good to keep your powder a bit dry for now because just before we go into talking about the book a bit more, Jo rather ambitiously is going to summarise the 500-page novel now.

Jo Hamya:

Go. I actually think it’s not that difficult to summarise because it is essentially a collection of journals written by the fictional character Logan Mountstuart, and they run from 1923 to 1991. They span several countries including England. Most of the action takes place in London, but some of it takes place further up north in England, France and Paris, Spain, Nigeria, and through these, at first quite precise than gradually more scattered musings, what Boyd gives us is essentially an account of the 20th century through Logan’s eyes. And so we hear of Logan’s exploits in the Navy and as a spy in the Second World War, we see him meeting various cultural luminaries such as Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf. We hear of his involvement in the Spanish Civil War and his reporting on the Biafran War and it is episodic but still quite sprawling and very much the account of one man’s personal, but also historical life. How’s that?

James Walton:

What do you reckon, Sara?

Sara Cox:

Yeah, perfect. 10 out of 10.

James Walton:

So I mean I suppose the question springs to mind it is sprawling and it is episodic and he himself says it’s this collection of selves that makes up a life. Does it hang together and does it matter if it doesn’t hang together?

Sara Cox:

I think it does hang together brilliantly. You can feel it through the writing and you can feel Logan wrenched through age, the way he sees the world also ages along with him. And I just got swept along with the journey and just didn’t ever want it to end. I wanted to slow down the story and to keep going forever. I just love him because he’s quite a cad and a bit of a heartbreaker and he’s unfaithful and he’s a bit of a womaniser, but you just end up, you just still root for him and like him despite some of his behaviour and I think it was really interesting, I thought, “Oh, what are they going to do with the war now?” What William Boyd does is takes him off, makes him sort of a bit of a spy, gets him in prison.

It’s just different because sometimes with books when a war approaches you think, “Oh, here we go. Are they going to just try and cover it really quickly?” And be like, “Oh, he went off and either gets injured or gets sent home or whatever.” But I was like, I thought it was really interesting how we carried him through so many big historical moments. It’s a bit like, I think on the show we were saying, there’s a touch of Forrest Gump to it with the movie Forrest Gump and the book Forrest Gump obviously, where he’s there in all these moments of time meeting all these historical figures.

James Walton:

Yes, it’s interesting what he does in the orders, it’s in two parts really. The first bit, well he’s asked to keep an eye on the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII, first of all in Lisbon and then in Bermuda, and he meets the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and it’s suggested they’re up to no good. And then he does this rather mysterious operation in Switzerland where he ends up in prison for two years, always suspecting that somehow the Duke of Windsor was behind it. That is good. What do you reckon, Jo, on the hanging together question?

Jo Hamya:

On the hanging together question, I think there are probably three points to that. One is that you can quite obviously tell that Boyd’s done a massive amount of planning and he’s said as much himself in interviews of how to carry Logan through essentially every major historical event in the 20th century. So early on in the book from, quite innocuously, giving the Duke of Windsor a box of matches to then ending up with him in Bermuda as a kind of attache to him, also spy. So it’s obviously very well thought through on that score.

What I kind of maybe question is there’s this bit where Logan’s talking to Gloria, who is his best friend’s wife, and also because Logan is a bit of a Casanova and paramour he’s having an affair with, and they’re having a bit of a grouch together, Gloria’s hypothesising over whether or not she’s going to become a lesbian because she’s done with men and Logan kind of counters, he goes, “Well, look at me.” I said, “Beginning to list my misfortunes.” “Who gives a shit about you,” she said, “You’ll be fine. You always have been. It’s me I’m worried about.” And I feel like she’s got a point there because this man ends up in a prison in Switzerland, he gets shot at in Spain. He’s got a plot against him by a contingent of the royal family. But he’s always fine and I do wonder whether-

James Walton:

Sort of fine. I mean some pretty terrible things happen to him.

Jo Hamya:

Well sure, but he always comes through them, doesn’t it? It’s sort of like, do you know when you watch TV show and there are already two or three seasons there, so when you begin watching, the sense of risk is eliminated because you know the character’s already going to exist in season three. You’re like, “Oh, they can’t die. Nothing bad can happen to them because I know that I’ve got two more seasons to watch.”

James Walton:

Yeah, it used to be like that about James Bond, wasn’t it? He could never die.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, I felt that way a bit about Logan to be honest, that there was no-

Sara Cox:

Although it takes a while for him to recover when he loses his great love.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah.

Sara Cox:

Way too much [inaudible 00:18:23].

James Walton:

[inaudible 00:18:24].

Sara Cox:

That’s really the heartbreaking and sudden as well, a real like, what? Hang on a minute. When two of his great loves at the same time, I guess.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah.

James Walton:

What you’re saying, Sara, I mean he is somehow lovable, isn’t he? Even though if you were to list his characteristics, they wouldn’t add up to obviously lovable bloke.

Sara Cox:

No, but he’s a bit of a bad boy, isn’t he? And he just seems, to Jo’s point, to sort of bounce from situation to situation and relationship to relationship and to always bounce back. So I think I quite liked the contrast when he really was almost wiped out by the incident that happens with the one woman that he actually really did love. I think that made him a bit more human.

Jo Hamya:

And now we’re just going to have a little break, but join us again in part two.

Welcome back to part two of this episode of the Booker Prize podcast. James, we were talking about-

James Walton:

And it is the book, it could be at one point I think Logan tries to summarise the meaning of life almost and it’s basically, it’s just luck. It’s just dumb luck. Your life is the amount of good luck he had and the amount of bad luck he had and that’s it.

Jo Hamya:

But isn’t that sort of his fatal flaw in a way, there’s this whole contrast between him and his best friend Peter Scabius and Peter becomes this sort of bestselling novelist as opposed to Logan’s career petering out and petering out is a great pun, not intentional. Peter becomes a knight. Logan ends up literally eating dog food to survive. And I do think that part of what Logan’s flaw is this sense that he writes it at some point in one of his early diaries, this complete utter lack of satisfaction ever, that he must always be striving towards something else. It’s not enough. For example, when he’s with Anna, it’s not enough that they have a wonderful time together in bed, talking, smoking, drinking. He has to follow her husband, he has to or the man who might be her husband. He has to unwind the backstory to her life and then write this salacious novel about it. It’s not enough to just be content in the moment.

James Walton:

Bookends obviously with him quite old and living in France and basically all ambition has died and that seems to come as a relief. I mean you’re quite young, Jo. The idea that, presumably the idea of ambition dying would be a hideous thought.

Jo Hamya:

I don’t know if it’s his ambition that’s died so much as everyone he loves in his life has been wiped out, so what have you got to live for? It’s more than anything, I know it’s a book about the 20th century and all the events and people attached to it, but the bits that really shine to me are the people that Logan lives for, whether it’s his father at the beginning or Tess or Freya and Stella. I think once that big event that Sara has alluded to happens and the loves of his lives sort of wiped out, that’s when he really, he has this brief reunion with his son Lionel, which seems to start to bring him back together and of course that ends horrendously, no spoilers. And then what has he really got except his dog and his cat and then even his dog dies. I don’t know if it’s ambition that dies, but the ability to give and receive love just kind of fizzles out of his life really cruelly.

Sara Cox:

You think it’s just he gets to a place of acceptance where he stops, where he just makes peace with the fact that he doesn’t have as much power as he used to or he can’t make a change like he used to be able to, so he’s eventually, just before dying he’s definitely more in the moment.

James Walton:

Exactly that he accepts he’s a failed novelist, which obviously for decades gnaws away at him.

Sara Cox:

Yeah, but was a successful person though and still, yeah.

Jo Hamya:

I was only going to say he’s still trying to write a novel at the time of his death. He’s writing Octet.

James Walton:

That is true, but you don’t get the impression that he’s gnawed away regret with his failure quite so much as he was when he was a younger man, don’t you think?

Jo Hamya:

But was he gnawed away with failure? I mean-

James Walton:

He’s ferociously jealous of Peter who does make it.

Jo Hamya:

Only for a brief moment. And to be fair, I kind of read that since he slept with most of Peter’s wives, there’s a weird little ever since the school days-

Sara Cox:

Well then Peter’s no angel though. We don’t want to paint that Peter’s been a nice guy.

Jo Hamya:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

James Walton:

No, no, no. He’s a mad narcissist and he-

Sara Cox:

He’s horrible. Yeah.

James Walton:

Were there any bits of the book that you particularly liked or because it is so episodic, Sara, any bits of the book sections that you particularly liked and particularly or particularly didn’t?

Sara Cox:

Well, I think I’m a bit of a sap, but I really like when he found happiness because, well, I actually enjoyed it when he got married, despite knowing that perhaps it’s not the right person or he sort of just got carried along and got married. And I’ve actually done that, so maybe that’s why I empathised with that a little bit. And then he actually did find the love of his life, which I did too, so maybe that bit is I just see myself in that round bit of narcissist moment. But yeah, I quite liked him, I’m a bit soppy, I quite liked it. Well despite him having to hurt his wife and her loaded family, I did love actually when he was stuck out, it was in Norfolk or somewhere in a lovely big posh house and constantly having to entertain the in-laws and they were just around the corner and all that. I really enjoyed all of that actually, where he was just like, “Jesus,” where he just wanted to escape and get away from the in-laws and get back to town and get back to back where the action was.

James Walton:

He’s really trapped by his marriage and then his wife says, “Good news, I’m pregnant.” He’s like, “Oh God.”

Sara Cox:

Oh my God, yeah.

Jo Hamya:

James, what about you?

James Walton:

I really liked the school section at the beginning. I mean I did like most of it too, but I did wonder towards the end when the bit where he goes to see Biafran war, I mean, Boyd has said, “You know what? You’ll never guess, but I just wanted to write about the Biafran War because I grew up while that was happening.” And the thing is, yes, you would guess completely. It’s a book which allows William Boyd to write about all the things he’s interested in and all the people he’s interested in, and I thought the bit at the end or not towards the end, he becomes involved in sort of urban terrorism and the Baader Meinhofs. I thought, nah, to that.

Jo Hamya:

That’s enough.

James Walton:

Yeah, I thought that’s enough 20th century big events, Ed, but all the rest, no, terrific.

Sara Cox:

Yeah, the school stuff’s great, isn’t it? With the rugby injuries, the bone crunching rugby injuries because they’ve got that bet on at the beginning.

James Walton:

Yeah, they make a series of mad challenges to each other, the three main characters. Did you have a theory about that?

Jo Hamya:

I had a theory about that. It might be a pretentious theory.

James Walton:

Let’s hear it.

Jo Hamya:

Well, just to explain to anyone who may not have read the book, it opens out on Logan’s school days and his two best friends, Peter Scabius and Ben Leeping, and to kind of make the term go by faster, they set each other these challenges. So Ben’s challenge is to become a paid up member of the Roman Catholic Church because he’s Jewish. So to essentially change faiths, convincingly, compellingly. Peter’s challenge is to get with a farm girl called Tess, who he then does and ends up marrying. And Logan’s challenge is to become a star player in his school rugby team. And so, I think, that it’s really broad, but then this is a really broad novel. Each of those challenges are kind of representative of the interests that Logan kind of carries with him for the rest of his life.

So he’s really, really attentive, the kind of rugby challenges, the kind of aspect of his body and how his body carries him through life and it allows him to attain certain glories. So in adulthood those are mainly sexual conquests, but also the ways that his body betrays him and breaks down as in maybe in prison or when he gets hit by a truck later on in life. Then there’s the question of, I suppose love or motivations for love and how decent love is with Peter’s challenge and with Ben’s challenge, the question of spirit or faith, although Logan’s quite adamantly an atheist for all of the novel, but I suppose just an attitude to faith that he ends up kind of parlaying into the idea of luck. The amount of luck one is given in life and those themes kind of go quite smoothly through the book.

James Walton:

The body, mind and spirit.

Jo Hamya:

Body, mind and spirit.

James Walton:

Oh, it’s a good theory. My theory of those challenges is much bleaker actually, which is just life consists of setting yourself essentially pointless challenges.

Jo Hamya:

Well, do you know what? You know when Logan’s writing his book on Shelley, and there’s a note in retrospect that he writes says, “Why Shelley? I can’t really remember now. I’d read the lyric poems at school and like most adolescents, I thought I understood them. I remember reading a quotation from Byron’s mistress, ‘She came to know Shelley and Pisa not long before he died and described him as being very tall with a slight stoop and reddish hair. He had very bad skin,’ she observed, ‘but also impeccable manners.’ I think it was this brief portrait which presented me with a Shelley that I did not recognise that stimulated me. Shelley was suddenly real, not the fay blonde genius of popular iconography and I wanted to know more about him and as I did learn more about him, I wanted to present my Shelley to the world as the accurate critical one.”

And I kind of feel like that’s Logan’s entire, from the challenges to the travelling, to the sex, to everything, I think if you heard about this man objectively, you’d think, my God, what a life, what a mythical figure. But instead you get this kind of boy who has been setting himself sort of like pointless challenges for the entirety of his life, but that’s what humanises him. That’s what makes him an actual believable person.

James Walton:

Sara, do you want to referee the theories on the school challenges or do you not want to bother?

Sara Cox:

Don’t want to bother, to be honest. No, I saw them just as schoolboy japes really and just hammered home how hellish that public school system.

James Walton:

That’s honest as I think that might be right. I think Jo and I might be striving to find a structure in this book, which is essentially random. I mean, I think partly one of the reasons he did Shelley was because Boyd did his PhD on Shelly and also Boyd went to Gordonstoun, which is the public school that Prince Charles so famously hated for its complete toughness.

Sara Cox:

Yeah.

James Walton:

I think that there’s that in it too.

Sara Cox:

Oh, and when, oh God, it’s just heartbreaking when he receives the news of his father dying from the schoolmaster and then he gets thrashed, he gets a jolly good thrashing, doesn’t he? For his misdemeanour. I think he’s skipped out on a bit of the cross country run.

James Walton:

That’s right. He gone to the Perbunstan, the cross country run and the headmaster, basically he says, “Your dad’s died and now I’m going to thrash you.”

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, well that’s instead of expel you.

James Walton:

That is pretty grim. I don’t think this is a spoiler, the final line of the book is there were no obituaries, which remind the more pretentious among us of the end of the tempest that everything disappears, leaves not a rack behind. Do you think it is a melancholy book that basically your life happens and then you’re dead and there are no obituaries? Or am I just going through some sort of crisis?

Sara Cox:

No, you’re okay. Do you just need a snack, James?

James Walton:

Just a little hug. I’ll be fine.

Sara Cox:

Low blood sugar. You’re like, “Oh God.” Well, I think there’s really lovely uplifting moments and there’s a lot of passion in there and a bit of adventure and I found it, you’ve got to remember I was also ploughing through other books at the same time. So I would get in and drive up six junctions of the M1 whilst listening to William Boyd and I found it a really sort of soothing listen because it’s just so far away from my world, from my upbringing and my life and class with the whole public school and with his travels. It was just such an escapism for me that I really, really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it as a listen for sure. I wonder how I’d feel about it if I’d read it on the page.

Jo Hamya:

I think on the page, it’s quite funny in a way. I laughed a lot.

Sara Cox:

Yeah.

James Walton:

I mean it is a funny book as much as anything else, isn’t it? Just going back to my crisis, Boyd himself has said, “I am essentially a comic novelist because I think life is comic and absurd,” and I think that’s there too. So Sara, one traditional question we ask, and I always find it quite a tricky one myself, is who would you recommend this book to?

Sara Cox:

Oh, that’s a great question. Who would I recommend it to? Is it somebody personal to me that I recommend it to or that’s no use to people listening?

James Walton:

It can, it may be a bit niche, but you can go for it.

Sara Cox:

I could just tell you I would recommend it to my husband. Thanks. He always reads nonfiction, so I’m kind of push him towards a world of fiction. I would recommend it to somebody who wants to really lose themselves in a different time, in a different place and also is quite fond of a bit of a cad and a heartbreaker and it is a funny book like you say. So yeah, I would recommend it’s somebody wants to escape away to a world of posh people and high jinks and a bit of drama.

James Walton:

But I agree with your thing for people who think they don’t like fiction for nonfiction, I got into a bit of trouble for gross sexism by suggesting that bloke like history books and I’m getting it again because I can see Jo’s face.

Sara Cox:

Yeah. What was the punishment me today, Jo? What happened?

Jo Hamya:

Oh, nothing.

Sara Cox:

What was the incident?

Jo Hamya:

James just said that women hate historical fiction. Women have no concept of historical fiction.

James Walton:

I’d still maintain that on the whole Stalingrad by Antony Beever would be read by more blokes, I think that kind of thing. So people who, middle-aged men who like that kind of book and think, I’m not sure about fiction. This would be a nice way into fiction.

Jo Hamya:

It’s the Roman Empire thing all over again.

Sara Cox:

Yeah, that’s it. I will tell the middle-aged man in my life to read it.

James Walton:

Yeah, it’s a nice way into fiction.

Jo Hamya:

Copy that.

James Walton:

Thanks so much, Sara, for your time. It’s been absolute pleasure to have you.

Sara Cox:

Thanks so much.

Jo Hamya:

Thank you.

Sara Cox:

Yeah, thanks so much. Lovely to be on. Thank you.

James Walton:

Between The covers Continues at 7:00 on Mondays on BBC two.

Sara Cox:

Absolutely. Yeah. I’ll pass the episodes on iPlayer. Yeah, and thanks for having me. It was really nice.

Jo Hamya:

Thank you.

James Walton:

Thanks again.

Jo Hamya:

How’s that, James?

James Walton:

That was good. I think certainly for British listeners, that’s the most famous person we’ve had on the show, I think. Worldwide listeners, maybe George Saunders, people like that. But as I wasn’t lowing smirk, I wasn’t being a showbiz lovely or no more. No, I wasn’t at all by saying how much I love Between The Covers. I think it’s really hard to get that balance with books shows, I think, between basically it’s very hard to get the balance between taking books seriously, but not too reverently. Not thinking they’re like these China beautiful thing with their books. And I think it’s really good at that balance.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah. That’s it for this week. Huge thanks again to special guest, Sara Cox.

James Walton:

And you can find out more about our December book of the Month, Any Human Heart by William Boyd at thebookerprizes.com. And if you want to watch the episode of Between the Covers where Sara and her guests discuss the book, check the show notes for the iPlayer link and definitely worth a watch.

Jo Hamya:

Next week we have a special almost end of the year treat for you, which is a fascinating and funny interview with the 2023 International Booker Prize winners, Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel.

James Walton:

We did that a while ago, let’s be honest. And it was really good.

Jo Hamya:

It was amazing.

James Walton:

We recommend that. And finally, remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Substack at the Booker Prizes.

Jo Hamya:

Until next time.

James Walton:

Goodbye.

Jo Hamya:

Bye.

James Walton:

The Booker Prize Podcast is hosted by Jo Hamya and me, James Walton. It’s produced and edited by Kevin Meolo and the Executive Producer is John Davenport. It’s a Daddy’s Super Yacht production for the Booker Prizes.