This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Joyce Carol Oates to talk about the minimalist beauty in the photographs of Walker Evans, and his austere approach to his art. Colin Grant discusses the new film Nomadland, a blend of fact and fiction about US citizens who take to the road when they realize they cannot afford to grow old...and we look through a science fiction dictionary and check up on the latest writing by robots. Walker Evans: Starting from scratch by Svetlana Alpers No...
Feb 25, 2021•49 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Alan Rusbridger, former editor of the Guardian, to discuss the rise of Bellingcat, an investigative body, started in one man’s bedroom in 2014, now able to get to the bottom of even the murkiest global events; Dante, Dante, Dante…. and Anne Weber’s epic of Annette Beaumanoir; and who was Keats’s mysterious Mrs Jones? The biographer Jonathan Bate shares a theory. We Are Bellingcat: An intelligence agency for the people by Eliot Higgins Dant...
Feb 18, 2021•50 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Cal Revely-Calder, who finds that, in Samuel Beckett Studies, jargon and certainty too often crowd out impressions of the work and the importance of ‘knowing what you don’t know’; Alice Wadsworth brings snippets of interest from this week’s TLS, including ‘women who wouldn’t wait’ and Borges in Inverness; and Ruth Scurr on the history of the secretive, ritual-loving Freemasons. Beckett’s Political Imagination by Emilie Morin Samuel Beckett...
Feb 11, 2021•49 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Avril Horner, author of a biography of Barbara Comyns whose quirky, menace-laced novels, long championed by Graham Greene, are finding their way back to us; a new poem by John Kinsella, 'Villanelle of Star-Picket-Hopping Red-Capped Robin'; and En Liang Khong describes the powerful pull – particularly difficult to resist during lockdown – of the fantasy urban landscapes portrayed in video games and anime Several novels by Barbara Comyns, in...
Feb 04, 2021•49 min
The writer and comedian David Baddiel has written a book called 'Jews Don't Count', which explores the insidious, pervasive, exclusionary nature of ‘progressive’ antisemitism. Here, he talks to Toby Lichtig about how and why one of the most persecuted minorities in history continues to be overlooked 'Jews Don't Count' by David Baddiel Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jan 29, 2021•31 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by David Gallagher to discuss two new books about Jorge Luis Borges – one a collection of essays and remembrances by the great Latin American writer Mario Vargas Llosa, the other a more curious offering by the American writer and critic Jay Parini; David Baddiel on the insidious, pervasive, exclusionary nature of ‘progressive’ antisemitism; Alice Wadsworth and Lucy Dallas on food podcasts and the French comedy-drama Call My Agent! Medio siglo...
Jan 28, 2021•50 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Clifford Thompson to discuss One Night in Miami, a film by Regina King, which sees Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Cassius Clay gather for heated debate; from exclusivity and luxury in imperial China to cheap ubiquity in modern day Europe, Norma Clarke considers the rise and fall of porcelain; plus, a new poem by Anne Carson, “Sure, I Was Loved” One Night in Miami, dir. Regina King The City of Blue and White: Chinese porcelain and the ...
Jan 21, 2021•50 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the TLS's Classics editor Mary Beard, who, via an old exam paper, emphasizes the importance of teaching Classics in context (Q1: "Dryads, Hyads, Naiads, Oreads, Pleiads … Does 'Classical influence' in modern poetry always come down to snobbery and elitism?”); Zachary Leader reports on the latest offerings from the Joyce Industry; and Jane O'Grady considers how the Enlightenment undid itself. James Joyce and the Matter Of Paris, by Catherin...
Jan 14, 2021•49 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the Karachi-based journalist Sanam Maher to discuss cliché and originality in foreign correspondents' writing on Pakistan; a whistle-stop tour through (some) of the books of 2021; Lucy Scholes reviews a clutch of novels in the British Library's Women Writers series, dedicated to once-popular writers The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a divided nation, by Declan Walsh O, the Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn Smith The Tree of Heaven by...
Jan 07, 2021•49 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the critic Muriel Zagha to marvel at a five-volume, “definitive” study of the iconic French filmmaker Jacques Tati, every aspect of whose apparently chaotic cinematic universe was controlled to the nth degree; Calum Mechie considers some new approaches to the life and legacy of George Orwell; and – “Can we take it? Can Dickens take it?” – ’tis the season for adaptations of A Christmas Carol… The Definitive Jacques Tati, edited by Alison Ca...
Dec 17, 2020•48 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Toby Lichtig are joined by Stephen Lovell, Professor of Modern History at King’s College London, to discuss two important biographies of Joseph Stalin, covering the opposite ends of the dictator’s life; the debate around the official Home Office history of Britain, a document full of omissions and riddled with errors, rolls on; and can a book make you a better person? Can even the high modernists be mined for lessons in life? Joanna Scutts considers the relationshi...
Dec 10, 2020•49 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Paul Griffiths, the author most recently of the novel Mr Beethoven, to discuss the heroic oeuvre of the great composer, 250 years after his birth; Joseph Farrell takes us through the life and work of Gianni Rodari, a kind of Italian George Orwell transplanted to Neverland. Selected books: Beethoven's Conversation Books, translated and edited by Theodore Albrecht Beethoven's Lives by Lewis Lockwood Beethoven: A Life by Jan Caeyers Beethoven...
Dec 03, 2020•49 min
In this special bonus episode, the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig talks to Douglas Stuart about his 2020 Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 27, 2020•30 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Colin Grant, the author of Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush generation, to discuss Small Axe, a series of films by Steve McQueen that centres on Black British life between the 1960s and 80s; and the author and musician Wesley Stace tells the story of the “real” James Bond, a celebrated ornithologist whose "dull" name was poached by Ian Fleming. Plus, the TLS's Fiction editor Toby Lichtig talks to Douglas Stuart, the winner of this year’s...
Nov 26, 2020•49 min
Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Mark Glanville to mark the centenary of the birth of Paul Celan, probably the most important post-war German-language poet, by revisiting the early poems in light of his later transformation; and Margaret Drabble considers the literature of urban walking, via the fiction of G. K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells and other metropolitan ramblers. Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The collected earlier poetry: A bilingual edition, translated by Pierre Joris Mic...
Nov 19, 2020•49 min
Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by two TLS editors, David Horspool and Toby Lichtig, to discuss books that have sustained and stimulated over the past twelve months, as selected by sixty-five writers from around the world; and we discuss the controversy surrounding a long-awaited statue of – or "for" – Mary Wollstonecraft. Read the TLS's Books of the Year feature here [ https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/books-of-the-year-2020/ ] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa...
Nov 12, 2020•49 min
As Remembrance Day approaches, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Éadaoín Lynch to remember fully and truthfully the relationship between the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon; and the TLS's sports editor David Horspool talks us through a couple of books on professional game playing, including a football memoir of obsession and crucial omissions by Arsène Wenger. My Life in Red and White by Arsène Wenger This Sporting Life: Sport and liberty in England, 1760–1960 by Robert Coll...
Nov 05, 2020•49 min
Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Lucy Scholes to revisit the work of the master of terror Shirley Jackson and review the new film Shirley (“about as far from a traditional biopic as you can get”); and Jane Darcy grapples with the neither quite Romantic nor quite Victorian Thomas De Quincey, whose life-writing paved the way for the autobiografiction to come Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker (various cinemas / Hulu) Thomas De Quincey: Selected writings, edited by Robert Morrison H...
Oct 29, 2020•49 min
In a special bonus podcast we bring you an episode of Stories of our times that we think you might enjoy. The Times's chief music critic, Richard Morrison muses over whether a combination of the coronavirus, environmental concerns and the MeToo movement will be the end of the 'maestro' - the classical music conductor - as we know it. Guest: Richard Morrison, Times chief culture critic and music writer. Host: David Aaronovitch. Clips used: Metropolitan Opera, Aurora Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic...
Oct 27, 2020•27 min
The critic and novelist Elizabeth Lowry joins Thea Lenarduzzi and Toby Lichtig to discuss the Italian Baroque master Artemisia Gentileschi, the subject of a major exhibition at the National Gallery in London, a painter whose Life is as dramatic and moving as her art; and Toby reviews new fiction steeped in dread, paranoia and failure, including a short work by Don DeLillo and the debut novel from the Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman Artemisia – National Gallery, London, until January 2...
Oct 22, 2020•49 min
From a ballet stream to Homer's wine-dark sea. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the historian and critic Judith Flanders to review the return of dance with new offerings from the Akram Khan Company and the Royal Ballet, and the novelist and poet Will Eaves returns to the Odyssey to explore the nature of memory. Back on Stage – The Royal Ballet, available online until November 8th The Silent Burn Project – Akram Khan Company Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer – Barbican, until January 2021...
Oct 15, 2020•49 min
From a carvery lunch in Howards End to emotional Eurocrats. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Norma Clarke to discuss the role in literary creation of food and its increasingly fraught means of production, and Russell Williams reports on the bookshops of Paris during lockdown and reviews the new novel by a totemic figure in French literature, Jean-Philippe Toussaint. The Literature of Food: An introduction from 1830 to present by Nicola Humble Farm to Form: Modernist literature and e...
Oct 08, 2020•49 min
From Ovid to the "Black Spartacus". Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the TLS's classics editor Mary Beard to pick apart the story of "seduction", ancient and modern, the poet Fiona Benson reads her latest work, and the TLS's history editor David Horspool explores two accounts of America's domestic slave trade and a new biography of Toussaint Louverture. Strange Antics: A history of seduction by Clement Knox Williams’ Gang: A notorious slave trader and his cargo of Black convicts by ...
Oct 01, 2020•49 min
From Poirot on the River Nile to Verdi's take on the infamous Scottish play. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas talk to writer Laura Thompson about the work of Agatha Christie and how she managed to move with the times, and Professor Larry Wolff joins us from Florence to discuss the tentative return of live opera in Italy with Verdi's Macbeth at the Parma Verdi Festival. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 24, 2020•48 min
Toby Lichtig talks us through this year's Booker shortlisted novels, plus a couple of others, and Lucy Dallas reports on the French scene (where real life and fiction blur...); finally, we explore the situation in Israel and Palestine from three rather different perspectives. An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defence Forces made a nation by Haim Bresheeth-Zabner The Conflict over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine campus debate by Kenneth S. Stern The new peace? – Israel’s unexpected ray of ...
Sep 16, 2020•37 min
In 1405, Christine de Pisan took up the pen in defense of her maligned sex, imagining a 'City of Ladies' in which the most virtuous female leaders of history might be preserved from the distortions of misogyny. Six hundred years later, with Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine the Great as her guides, the novelist and historian Lisa Hilton revisits the City to shake the foundations of the way we write about power Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 09, 2020•24 min
Throughout August, we are revisiting our books roundups from previous years, and today we’re returning to last year’s suggestions. In 2019, our contributor Diana Darke said in the paper: "A lot of things need saving this summer – tangible things like bees, Notre-Dame, water … and intangible things like democracy, humanitarian ideals, community". Among the many subjects under discussion here are Oulipo, impeachment, and climate change. We’ll be back with new weekly episodes from September 10th. U...
Aug 26, 2020•45 min
Throughout August, we are revisiting our books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance to catch up on books you might have missed. Today we are sauntering back to the summer of 2018, and an episode in which we learnt which books our contributors – including Bernardine Evaristo, Claire Lowdon and Carlo Rovelli – were looking forward to. We’ll be back with new weekly episodes from September 10th. Until then, head to the website – the-tls.co.uk – to keep up with the weekly magazine. Host...
Aug 19, 2020•36 min
Throughout August, we are revisiting books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance once again to hear recommendations from our writers and editors, on subjects like Marcel Proust’s letters, tech-ensnared science fiction and Euripides. In this episode, from 2017, there is also an interview with that year’s Man Booker International Prize Winner, David Grossman, and his translator Jessica Cohen. We’ll be back with new weekly episodes from September 10th. Until then, head to the website –...
Aug 12, 2020•57 min
Throughout August, we are revisiting books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance to catch up on all that good stuff. Today we’re skipping back to 2016’s books of the year recommendations. We’ll be back with new weekly episodes from September 10th. Until then, head to the website – the-tls.co.uk – to keep up with the weekly magazine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 05, 2020•39 min
