Caryl Emerson on Tolstoy’s art, ideas and life, and the extent to which these came together; Benjamin Markovits returns to a treasured childhood book: The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook; Eve Babitz – a “fizzy”, “fabulous” chronicler of 1960s and 70s Los Angeles – is mid revival. Megan Marz fills us in. Lives and Deaths: Essential stories by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Boris Dralyuk Leo Tolstoy: A very short introduction by Liza Knapp Leo Tolstoy by Andrei Zorin The Advanced Dun...
Feb 06, 2020•47 min
Lucy Dallas reports on theories, developments and disputes in the world of science fiction; Lawrence Douglas adds crucial historical context – stretching back to the Middle Ages, in fact – to the current US presidential impeachment; the poet Hannah Sullivan emerges from Princeton University Library with fresh insight into T. S. Eliot's love letters The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula Le Guin The Expanse, Volumes 1–8, by James S. A. Corey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more in...
Jan 30, 2020•53 min
Did Byron have an eating disorder? Mummy issues? Daddy issues? Does it matter? Emily A. Bernhard Jackson joins us to discuss; Stanley Donwood, the artist and designer of Radiohead's record covers, makes the case for this most democratic of artforms; Keith Miller on the work of the designer and architect Charlotte Perriand, a high-minded high modernist whose life spanned the whole of the twentieth century The Private Life of Lord Byron by Antony Peattie Charlotte Perriand: Complete works, by Jacq...
Jan 23, 2020•50 min
Between 1916 and 1940, Mecklenburgh Square was home to the poet and novelist HD, the detective novelist Dorothy Sayers, the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison, the historian and activist Eileen Power, and, finally, Virginia Woolf, who saw it reduced to rubble. Francesca Wade, the author of 'Square Haunting: Five women, freedom and London between the wars', talks to Thea Lenarduzzi about what drew the women to this small pocket of Bloomsbury. Read an exclusive extract from 'Square Haunting' in this w...
Jan 16, 2020•35 min
Muriel Zagha reviews Marriage Story and considers a few other deserving/undeserving films either lauded or ignored by this year's awards panels; a clip from an interview with Francesca Wade, the author of Square Haunting: Five women, freedom and London between the wars (you'll find the full interview in your podcast feed); this month marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anne Brontë, the sister whose reputation has been slowest to blossom but who, according to Samantha Ellis, was the most ...
Jan 16, 2020•54 min
Sanam Maher looks at how Muslim women are viewed in the West; Claire Lowdon finds puzzles and philosophy but no pleasure in J. M. Coetzee's recent work; Alan Jenkins explains the significance of the recently opened archive of T. S. Eliot's letters; Jeffrey Wainwright reads his poem "If all this did begin" Books From Victims to Suspects: Muslim women since 9/11 by Shakira Hussein It’s Not About the Burqa: Muslim women on faith, feminism, sexuality and race, edited by Mariam Khan The Death of Jesu...
Jan 09, 2020•43 min
Sam Graydon grapples with quantum physics and the subatomic world; Elaine Showalter considers the 'startlingly racy, contradictory, emblematic' E. Nesbit, the 'first modern writer for children'; Which out-of-print books should be back in circulation and why? Roz Dineen presents the results of a TLS symposium Books Six Impossible Things: The ‘quanta of solace’ and the mysteries of the subatomic world, by John Gribbin Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The search for what lies beyond the quantum, b...
Jan 02, 2020•51 min
TLS editors gather to consider some of the decade’s major cultural shifts and events, with specialist insights from Mary Beard on academia, Beejay Silcox on fiction and Zoe Williams on gender Go to the-tls.co.uk for the full twelve-page retrospective. For the competition, Barbican membership Terms and Conditions can be found here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/join-support/membership#faqs . The competition closes December 31, 2019. Good luck. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa...
Dec 19, 2019•1 hr 2 min
A newly discovered, pseudonymously signed mock-letter to the editor of 'The Lady’s Magazine' in 1823 tells the story of a wannabe writer who is visited by the "gentle spirit of Miss Austen". Not only might the letter offer new information on what Austen might actually have been like, says Devoney Looser, it is also the first piece of Jane Austen-inspired fan fiction; Anna Picard discusses the poet Anne Boyer’s memoir of modern illness and considers the intersections of literature and cancer; Jon...
Dec 12, 2019•46 min
Norma Clarke considers the third and final volume of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher; having spent the past twenty years reporting on Russia, Owen Matthews tries to put his finger on why Vladimir Putin may prove to be one of the most successful political leaders of our era Books The Code of Putinism by Brian Taylor Putin’s World: Russia against the West and with the rest by Angela Stent The Putin System: An opposing view by Grigory Yavlinsky Kremlin Winter: Russia and the second c...
Dec 05, 2019•45 min
It's that time again... TLS contributors and editors share recommendations from a year of reading Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 28, 2019•45 min
The author of 'The Five: The untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper', which won the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, speaks to Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 28, 2019•17 min
Just over ten years since introducing readers to a frustrated maths teacher called Oliver Kitteridge, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout reprises the character in a new novel, ‘Olive, Again’. Here, Strout talks to the TLS’s Roz Dineen about the craft of writing, why Olive has returned, and ageing on the page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 21, 2019•19 min
“Apart from capitalism itself, is there any cultural and economic manifestation in the world today as ubiquitous, powerful and globalized as football?” John Foot assesses two new studies of the game; just over ten years ago, Elizabeth Strout introduced readers to a frustrated maths teacher called Olive Kitteridge. The novelist speaks to Roz Dineen about bringing Olive back onto the scene; the famously over-the-top cookery show ‘Two Fat Ladies’ last graced our television screens twenty years ago....
Nov 21, 2019•40 min
TLS editors talk about Virginia Woolf's writing for the TLS, as we publish a collection of the reviews she wrote for us over a period of thirty years; on the eve of George Eliot's bicentennial, Rosemary Ashton talks about how she came to conclusions, moral and otherwise, in her novels; Caryn Rose sees Bruce Springsteen's new film and looks over his 'storied fifty-year career' Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on How to Read by Virginia Woolf Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen, edited ...
Nov 14, 2019•51 min
Sarah Lonsdale recounts how writers became enmeshed in national struggles; Jane Yager tells the surprising story of DIY punk in the DDR; we talk to Robert Potts about the pleasures of reading John le Carré ("I was never happier than when I was reading John le Carré") Cold Warriors: Writers who waged the literary Cold War, by Duncan White Burning Down the Haus: Punk rock, revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall, by Tim Mohr Agent Running in the Field by John le Carré Hosted on Acast. See acast...
Nov 07, 2019•46 min
Michael Caines reports on an unprecedented gathering of work by William Hogarth, “replete with a bitter exuberance, folly finely observed and sin satirized”; “Sometimes a dark and stormy night calls for nothing more innovative than a classic chilling tale.” Joanna Scutts considers three new compendiums of the spooky and the macabre; Les Green makes a case for changing the UK's constitution (writing it down in one place being a good start...) Hogarth: Place and progress, at the Sir John Soane’s M...
Oct 31, 2019•50 min
Having asked a selection of writers to nominate their favourite magazines/journals, for a symposium in this week’s TLS, we pick through the results; as Granta turns forty, Alex Clark dives into the magazine’s archives, recently given to the British Library, and emerges clutching gems and old boots (including meeting minutes and evidence of fantasy commissioning); finally, the novelist and translator Lydia Davis talks us through her Thoreau-inspired approach to gardening Hosted on Acast. See acas...
Oct 23, 2019•56 min
Bernardine Evaristo speaks to the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig about her novel 'Girl, Woman, Other' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 17, 2019•23 min
Having been staged in Edinburgh and Melbourne, David Greig's adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 'Solaris' is now at the Hammersmith Lyric Theatre in London. The TLS's Arts editor Lucy Dallas asks him about returning to this strange story of contact, consciousness and how to avoid using "fremulators" on stage Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 17, 2019•43 min
As the Nobel in Literature and the Booker Prize break the rules, split opinion, and (probably) boost sales of a few books, a bunch of TLS editors share their thoughts on the whole endeavour of prize-giving (Michael: "you may as well throw a stone..."); Alexander van Tulleken considers 'War Doctor: Surgery on the front line', David Nott's tales from the operating tables, and floors, of war-torn places; as his stage adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 'Solaris' comes to London, David Greig, the artistic...
Oct 16, 2019•55 min
As #PublishingSoWhite continues to shame publishers into diversifying their lists, Colin Grant discusses some of the anxieties and complexities beneath the surface; Andrew Motion on why he keeps returning to William Wordsworth; Kate Miller reads a new poem, "Turned-down" Wordsworth’s Fun by Matthew Bevis The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and their year of marvels by Adam Nicolson Wordsworth’s Poetry: 1815–1845 by Tim Fulford Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat...
Oct 09, 2019•44 min
In this bonus edition of the podcast, William Collins have taken over the feed to play a new episode of their podcast, Ideas Matter. In this exclusive extract, science writer Phillip Ball talks to his editor Myles Archibald about the ideas explore in his book, How To Grow A Human. To subscribe to Ideas Matter and discover more authors by William Collins, click here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 09, 2019•41 min
Was the 1960s a good decade for Norman Mailer? Thomas Meaney reconsiders the work; Henry Hitchings on Auberon Waugh, anarcho-snob and master of the "vituperative arts"; Toby Lichtig on the vitality of documentary filmmaking ‘Collected Essays of the 1960s’ and ‘Four Books of the 1960s’ by Norman Mailer A Scribbler in Soho: A celebration of Auberon Waugh, edited by Naim Attallah Waugh on Wine, by Auberon Waugh Say What Happened: A story of documentaries, by Nick Fraser Open City Documentary Festiv...
Oct 02, 2019•41 min
Elaine Showalter on the “avid, ardent, driven, generous, narcissistic, Olympian, obtuse, maddening, sometimes loveable but not very likeable” Susan Sontag; Patrice Higonnet goes in search of the real Robespierre; A. N. Wilson cuts through class, aristocracy, family and fantasy in Downton Abbey Sontag: Her life, by Benjamin Moser Robespierre: L’homme qui nous divise le plus, by Marcel Gauchet Downton Abbey (Various cinemas) Almanach de Gotha 2019, two volumes, edited by John James Hosted on Acast...
Sep 25, 2019•54 min
"When future historians study these troubled times, they will marvel at the relentless rise of sea levels, strongman politics and Kardashians." So says Irina Dumitrescu, who joins us to discuss the phenomenon of celebrity, from Sarah Bernhardt to the Kardashian-Jenners; Rafia Zakaria on the murder of the Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch, aka "How I'm looking?" girl; Lamorna Ash on 'Bait', a new film about a timeless clash between them and us, set in a small Cornish fishing village The ...
Sep 18, 2019•51 min
The future of the planet is in question this week, or at least, humanity's place on it, as Gabrielle Walker discusses possible solutions to climate change and why we don't need to panic - yet - but we do need to act, together. The TLS's fiction editor, Toby Lichtig, talks us through the hype and hoopla around Margaret Atwood's sequel to The Handmaid's Tale - and what the book itself is like. And are you Team Scott or Team Zelda? Joanna Scutts looks at 'the messy intertextuality of a marriage', a...
Sep 11, 2019•43 min
We turn to children's and YA literature in this week's episode, with Rozalind Dineen and Toby Lichtig presenting new releases (as reviewed by a selection of young readers), as well as discussing some of the pros and cons of age-specific reading; Robert Douglas-Fairhurst reintroduces J. M. Barrie's classic work Peter Pan, where a wild imagination masks tragic, sometimes disturbing, realities Alfie On Holiday by Shirley Hughes The Fate of Fausto: A painted fable by Oliver The Good Thieves by Kathe...
Sep 04, 2019•36 min
What kind of son was Philip Larkin? The TLS's poetry editor Alan Jenkins finds insight in some of the 4,000-odd letters and postcards the poet sent home to his "Mop" and "Pop"; Helen Macdonald, the author of H is for Hawk, tells us more than we could ever hope to know about pigeons and pigeon fanciers; Norma Clarke considers the internet artist Cold War Steve, whose ‘furious absurdism’ has won him some 192.8K Twitter followers, and ponders connections with the eighteenth-century satires of Hogar...
Aug 21, 2019•48 min
The whereabouts of the "Salvator Mundi", the most costly artwork in the world, are still uncertain, as is its attribution to Leonardo da Vinci. Federico Varese, best known for his studies of the mafia, follows the trail; the TLS's history editor David Horspool considers the inner and outer worlds of Anne Frank’s diary, the actual anniversary of the Peterloo massacre, and a selection of other contributions to this week's special issue; Ladee Hubbard reflects on the late Toni Morrison, who died la...
Aug 14, 2019•50 min
