It's Jim's final countdown and he rates the authors from the very best, through to those he wants to read more of, promising authors, those not quite good enough, the unpromising - and the just plain awful. He tells Wallace he still loves readi

The New Torchlight List - Asia and the Middle East

Oct 29th, 2016 15m 31s

This chapter of The New Torchlight List takes in a big geographical area and a variety of cultures.

The New Torchlight List: Africa

Oct 22nd, 2016 14m 42s

Jim agrees with Wallace's love for Disgrace, by South African writer J.M. Coetzee - though Jim says Coetzee's "not brilliant". He describes the Cairo trilogy by Egyptian Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz as "a landmark work". Jim recommends Som

The New Torchlight List: New Zealand & Australia

Oct 13th, 2016 14m 52s

Jim Flynn and Wallace Chapman discuss Australasian literature.Wallace takes on Jim over Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries - too long, says Jim. Not so, says Wallace. Jim says Catton can write but she needs to get her talent under control - "too

The New Torchlight List: Europe

Oct 8th, 2016 15m 6s

Jim Flynn tells Wallace Chapman that Italian Umberto Eco's best work is The Name of the Rose but this comes with a warning as Eco "loves to demonstrate his learning. The plot is interrupted by long essays which interest me because I teach medie

The New Torchlight List: Ireland

Sep 29th, 2016 14m 30s

Jim Flynn and Wallace Chapman discuss modern Irish literature. Jim rates John Banville's "wonderful style", but is less enamoured with John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The sex in Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls (which was banned in

The New Torchlight List: Britain

Sep 23rd, 2016 14m 24s

Some of Jim's favourite writers feature in this episode - V.S. Naipaul and Kazuo Ishiguro who, he says, is "perhaps the greatest novelist of our generation. His work is going to make him one of few novelists writing today who will be read throu

The New Torchlight List: South America

Sep 17th, 2016 13m 59s

Jim and Wallace discuss South American writers, including the politics and the passion reflected in the great writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez - recommending the memorable Love in the Time of Cholera but urging readers to avoid The Autumn of t

The New Torchlight List: North America

Sep 10th, 2016 14m 37s

Jim Flynn discusses North American authors and tells Wallace Chapman that everyone must read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. He also highly rates Philip Roth and Toni Morrison, but Wallace and Jim agree that Don DeLillo's Underworld, which recei

The New Torchlight List: The Need to Read

Sep 3rd, 2016 14m 10s

Jim Flynn is a world expert on human intelligence, and the author of many ground-breaking books on intelligence, philosophy and politics. He came from a poor family and owes all his success to reading great books. So the Emeritus Professor of P

Rate