THE BIBLIO FILE is a podcast about "the book," and an inquiry into the wider world of book culture. Hosted by Nigel Beale it features wide ranging, long-form conversations with authors, poets, book publishers, booksellers, book editors, book collectors, book makers, book scholars, book critics, book designers, book publicists, literary agents and many others inside the book trade and out - from writer to reader.
Timothy Heyman on B. Traven and how to manage a literary archive
B. Traven's novels and stories have sold more than 30 million copies over the past century in more than 30 languages worldwide. He was Einstein's favourite novelist. Der Spiegel ranks his The Death Ship as the third greatest German novel ever written (okay in the past 100 years), after Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and Kafka's The Castle; and yet, despite this, few today, in the English speaking world at least, have heard of him. It's only thanks to the movie, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, based on one of his stories, that he's known here at all. Why is this?
Perhaps because no-one knows with absolute certainty who Traven was. No-one is 100% sure of his true identity.
Timothy Heyman (CBE) is 99% sure. We talk here about his hypothesis, plus the tasks he's set himself to re-establish Traven's reputation and re-gain an audience for his works.
Heyman, a considerable person in his own right, is co-manager (recently promoted to managing director) of the B. Traven Estate along with his wife (who is proprietor), Malú Montes de Oca de Heyman, Traven's stepdaughter.
I met Tim up in the couple's beautiful apartment overlooking Mexico City to talk about what he's achieved to date with Traven's literary archive, and, again, who he thinks Traven really was. We were surrounded by a library of books written by the mystery man, accompanied by a glorious panoramic view of the city.
After our conversation we went upstairs to a special room which holds the archive - the place where Tim occupies himself with the business of legacy building.
28 Mar 2025
David McKnight on Collecting The Beatles
Some years ago I interviewed David McKnight about a collection of Canadian “little magazines” he’d hunted down and later donated to the University of Alberta’s Bruce Peel Library. It was very easy to get caught up in David’s enthusiasm, and I was really impressed by the catalogue he’d produced. Shortly after our conversation I learned that he didn’t just collect Canadian poetry, he was also a serious Beatles collector.
We stayed in touch. I drove down to Philadelphia where David hosted me at his home for a weekend. We got a lot done. Took the train into New York for the opening of a film about a bookseller; went on a tour of the rare book and manuscript library at the University of Pennsylvania where David worked at the time as director; attended the Allentown Paper Fair (https://www.allentownpapershow.com/) where I picked up some old Fortune and New York Times magazines. It was great. A non-stop exchanging of excited thoughts about books, collecting, and cool periodicals.
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I’ve been wanting to interview David about The Fab Four ever since I learned of his passion. He’s a real expert on the band. I was particularly keen to find out about his personal relationship to the music, and of course, about his experience collecting and documenting its impact on print culture, internationally, high and low. Finally, after years of talking about it, we got down to business. The albums, the books - from limited editions to paperbacks - the magazines, the fan zines, the ephemera, the scrap-books, the puzzles. Liverpool. It’s all here.
15 Feb 2025
Michael Erdman on the history of magazines (and women's rights) in Turkey
Michael Erdman is Head of Middle East and Central Asian Collections at The British Library with overall responsibility for all manuscript holdings in Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Chagatai, Coptic, Hebrew, Kurdish, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Syriac.
I talked with him about my recent magazine hunting exploits in Istanbul, and how what we found fits into the overall history of magazine publishing in Turkey. Esoteric, I know, but hey, this is where passion takes you.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.3 / 5
18 ratings
Spotify
3.3 / 5
3 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 58 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
96
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
50
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