As the excitements of the Olympic summer fade into Autumn, our thoughts turn to legacy: is there such a thing as lasting value and how do we honour it? A small Yorkshire publisher is doing just that for the novelist, journalist and playwright JB Priestley. Great Northern Books has already reissued two of his novels. As a third is published, along with his travel book, English Journey, we hear from his son Tom about a writer who was far more radical, both formally and politically, than many writers working today. And actor Roy Hudd joins us to salute a man with a Dickensian eye for character, who understood the muck and magic of the theatre better than anyone.
From a giant of the 20th century, we turn to a 21st-century master, whose novels have just joined the ranks of Penguin Classics. The Spanish novelist Javier Marías tells us what it means to be published as part of a series he read in his youth, explains how he writes without a map and how he has recently surmounted the difficulty of writing from a female perspective.
Reading list
Lost Empires and English Journey by JB Priestley (Great Northern Books)
The Man of Feeling, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, A Heart so White and All Souls, all by Javier Marías (Penguin Classics)
