This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Michael Caines are joined by Jenni Quilter, the author of ‘New York School Painters and Poets: Neon in daylight’, to discuss the colourful and ceaselessly experimental work of the American artist Helen Frankenthaler; and Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford, reviews a radical (and watery) new production of ‘Macbeth’ that redeems the fallen world of this overfamiliar tragedy. ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’, Almeida Theatre, London; also...
Oct 20, 2021•56 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Russell Williams, to talk through the uniquely French phenomenon of the rentrée littéraire - the politics, the scandals, the big beasts and the new voices; and Michele Pridmore-Brown considers a recent book that offers a cultural history of breast milk and the rise of the bottle. ‘White Blood: A history of human milk’ by Lawrence Trevelyan Weaver A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Producer: So...
Oct 13, 2021•56 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Peter Parker, the biographer of J. R. Ackerley and Christopher Isherwood among others, to reconsider the gestation and legacy of E. M. Forster’s final novel, ‘Maurice’, a love story between men across the class divide, published fifty years ago; ‘Keep up, watch out: Or why the people next door have always mattered’ – the historian Arnold Hunt reviews two studies of neighbourly love, and hate, in early modern Britain. ‘Faith, Hope and Chari...
Oct 07, 2021•48 min
In this bonus TLS long read, the former politician Rory Stewart discusses to power of modern politics, Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and the corrosion of morals. www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/long-players-tom-gatti-book-review-paul-genders If you would like to listen to more audio articles from The TLS, you can do so on The TLS website or the News Over Audio app. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor...
Oct 03, 2021•26 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the scholars Janet Todd and Derek Hughes to revisit the life and work of Restoration England’s first woman of letters, the playwright Aphra Behn, who “seems formed for our noisy, sex-obsessed times”; the translator, poet and critic Sasha Dugdale considers Russian protest poetry and the rise of Galina Rymbu; plus, literary festivals rebooted. ‘The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Aphra Behn: Volume IV: Plays, 1682–1696’, edited by Rachel A...
Sep 29, 2021•49 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Skye C. Cleary to discuss Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘lost’ novel, ‘The Inseparables’, published almost seventy years after it was written; Anna Picard reviews a very dark production of ‘Rigoletto’ at the Royal Opera House; plus, buying and selling (and maybe stealing) Emily Dickinson’s hair (maybe). 'The Inseparables' by Simone de Beauvoir 'Rigoletto' by Giuseppe Verdi, at the Royal Opera House, until September 29, then February–March, 2022 A s...
Sep 23, 2021•49 min
In this bonus TLS long read, the writer Paul Genders discusses the influence of pop music on literature. www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/long-players-tom-gatti-book-review-paul-genders If you would like to listen to more audio articles from The TLS, you can do so on The TLS website or the News Over Audio app. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 20, 2021•12 min
This week, Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig are joined by the critic and gym-sceptic Irina Dumitrescu to consider a clutch of books about fitness – how it came to be the industry it is, what it means to us, even what the smell of sweat does; Alex Clark, a regular contributor to the TLS’s fiction pages, runs through this year’s Booker Prize shortlist, just announced, before turning to a real-life story that reads like a mystery novel: the “Stonehouse affair”, the tale of the MP and former Cabinet min...
Sep 16, 2021•49 min
Lucy Dallas and Michael Caines are joined by Dennis Duncan, the author of ‘Index, A History of the’, to discuss how we navigate the contents between books' covers, taking in alphabets, concordances, ancient search engines and much more; What is Substack: a publishing start-up or a reboot of a nineteenth-century literary idea?; and the writer and translator Miranda France discusses a new book by the famed psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, which takes us to Peru, in the footsteps of his great-grandf...
Sep 08, 2021•49 min
Throughout the summer, we are revisiting the very best of the podcast during the last year. In this episode - it's movie week; the author Colin Grant discusses Steve McQueen's Small Axe and the Academy Award-winning Nomadland starring Frances McDormand, Yoojin Grace Wuertz talks us through the Korean American Dream film Minari, and Clifford Thompson reviews Regina King's directorial debut One Night in Miami - which sees Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Cassius Clay gather for a heated debate....
Sep 01, 2021•50 min
Throughout August, we are revisiting the very best of the podcast during the last year. In this episode; the comedian David Baddiel joins Toby Lichtig to talk about his book 'Jews Don't Count' which explores the insidious, pervasive, exclusionary nature of ‘progressive’ antisemitism, Éadaoín Lynch remembers fully and truthfully the relationship between the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, and Lucy Scholes reviews a clutch of novels in the British Library's Women Writers series, dedicate...
Aug 25, 2021•50 min
In this bonus TLS long read, the writer and author of Mind the Gap, Ferdinand Mount, asks - how much is too much meritocracy? www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-aristocracy-of-talent-adrian-wooldridge-book-review-ferdinand-mount If you would like to listen to more audio articles from The TLS, you can do so on The TLS website or the News Over Audio app. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 22, 2021•18 min
Throughout August, we are revisiting the very best of the podcast during the last year. In this episode; the TLS's Classics editor Mary Beard emphasizes the importance of teaching Classics in context, the medievalist Hetta Howes reviews a female take on 'Beowulf', and Ruth Scurr reveals the true history of the secretive Freemasons. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 18, 2021•49 min
Throughout August, we are revisiting the very best of the podcast during the last year. In this episode; the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig talks to Douglas Stuart about his 2020 Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain, the writer Laura Thompson joins Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas to discuss the work of Agatha Christie and how she has managed to move with the times, and Edmund Gordon to reviews 'Klara and the Sun' - Kazuo Ishiguro’s new Booker Prize longlisted novel about an Artificial Frie...
Aug 11, 2021•50 min
In a special bonus podcast we bring you an episode of Secrets of the Side Hustle that we think you might enjoy. Host Laura Jackson speaks with Alighieri Jewellery founder, Rosh Mahtani, about her business journey, the importance of connecting with your customers and why a 14th century epic poem makes the perfect inspiration for a 21st century business... Visit the Alighieri Jewellery website Follow Alighieri Jewellery on Instagram Follow The Sunday Times Style https://www.instagram.com/theststyl...
Aug 11, 2021•35 min
In this bonus TLS long read, Michele Pridmore-Brown, researcher at The University of California - Berkeley, discusses what science can tell us about manliness. www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-better-half-sharon-moalem-are-men-animals-matthew-guttmann-guynecology-rene-almeling-review-michelle-pridmore-brown If you would like to listen to more audio articles from The TLS, you can do so on The TLS website or the News Over Audio app. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls...
Aug 08, 2021•14 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Thomas Morris, the author of 'The Matter of the Heart: A history of the heart in eleven operations', to discuss the extraordinary life and influence of the Nobel prize-winning Jewish biochemist Otto Warburg, whose research into cancer, as well as his audacious character, helped him to survive Nazi Germany; the art critic and historian Frances Spalding celebrates the energetic and sophisticated paintings of Nina Hamnett, whose colourful soc...
Aug 04, 2021•49 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Nick Groom, Professor of Literature in English at the University of Macau, to discuss William Blake, who saw wonders everywhere (including a tree on Peckham Rye), and communicated them urgently in art and poetry – what does he have to tell us now?; the critic and writer Michael Kerrigan guides us through the ‘improbably enthralling mundanities’ of the Uruguayan novelist Mario Levrero; plus, a dazzling history of Sicily, the demise of local...
Jul 28, 2021•49 min
In this bonus TLS long read, the writer Joan C. Williams discusses how Amazon’s business practices harm America. www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/fulfillment-alec-macgillis-review-joan-c-williams-amazon If you would like to listen to more audio articles from The TLS, you can do so on The TLS website or the News Over Audio app. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 25, 2021•8 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas as joined by Keith Hopper, a critic of film and literature, to revisit the film ‘Midnight Cowboy’ (1969), a 'dark, difficult masterpiece' starring Jon Voight as an aspirant sex worker and Dustin Hoffman as his friend, an ailing con man; before it’s available in English, the journalist Henri Astier delves into the 'secret' diary of Michel Barnier, the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, who the British tabloids named 'the most dangerous man in Europe'; p...
Jul 21, 2021•50 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Noo Saro-Wiwa, the author of ‘Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria’, to discuss developments in travel writing; Alice Kelly, the author of ‘Commemorative Modernisms: Women writers, death and the First World War’, considers how conflict permeates American culture; plus, a new poem by André Naffis-Sahely, ‘At the Graves of Labour’s Fallen’ ‘The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in search of a genre’ by Tim Hannigan ‘War and American ...
Jul 15, 2021•50 min
In this bonus TLS long read, the writer Joyce Carol Oates explores the quintessential American minimalism of Walker Evans. www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/walker-evans-svetlana-alpers-review-joyce-carol-oates If you would like to listen to more audio articles from The TLS, you can do so on The TLS website or the News Over Audio app. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 11, 2021•24 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Adam Watt, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Exeter, to mark 150 years since the birth of Marcel Proust, whose legacy seems stronger than ever; Sarah Lonsdale, the author of 'Rebel Women Between the Wars', re-considers ‘Diary of a Provincial Lady’, a funny novel about interwar life in deepest Devon whose darker tones tend to be overlooked; plus, Mary Beard on new developments at the Colosseum. A special su...
Jul 07, 2021•51 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the novelist Margaret Drabble to consider the ‘curiously free-floating reputation’ of Russell Hoban, whose adult novels, including ‘Riddley Walker’, now appear as Penguin Modern Classics; as twin exhibitions mark the centenary of the birth of the English sculptor, painter, writer, designer and illustrator Michael Ayrton, the critic Boyd Tonkin delves into the myth-laden maze of the artist’s thought ‘From Oprah to Medusa: The endlessly vari...
Jun 30, 2021•50 min
This week: How far off is a world in which robots do most of our jobs? Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Benjamin Schneider, a DPhil Candidate in Economic and Social History at Merton College, Oxford, to explore Artificial Intelligence, societal change, real and imagined, and the future of work; what will our writers, from Andrew Motion to Joyce Carol Oates, be reading this summer?; plus, it’s Independent Bookshop Week and the nominations came thick and fast… 'Summer books 2021 – Our...
Jun 23, 2021•50 min
This week, Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig are joined by Paul Griffiths to discuss the beauty and grace of Mozart, the untortured genius; David Edgerton talks us through the decline and fall of British coal mining and its relationship with the Labour Party; plus, new discoveries about Locke and Leviathan , obituary codes and the Buddha's wife 'La Clemenza di Tito' by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 'Mozart in Prague' by Daniel E. Freeman 'Mozart: The reign of love' by Jan Swafford 'The Shadow of the Mine: ...
Jun 16, 2021•51 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Rosinka Chaudhuri, the author of ‘The Literary Thing: History, poetry and the making of a modern cultural sphere’, to discuss Rabindranath Tagore, who, in 1913, became the first non-white and non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature – since which he has been largely overlooked; Kate Kennedy, the author of ‘Dweller in the Shadows’, a new Life of the war poet Ivor Gurney, considers the “peculiarly direct, urgent intensity” of the la...
Jun 09, 2021•50 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Michael Caines are joined by the critic and literary scholar Marjorie Perloff to discuss an encyclopedic work that sets out to tackle ‘Art and thought in the Cold War’, from Jean-Paul Sartre to Elvis Presley; the English professor and literary critic Rohan Maitzen explores the meticulously observed world of Olivia Manning’s Balkan novels; plus, the unhappy story of a youthful romance between Eric Arthur Blair and Jacintha Buddicom, played out in poetry ‘The Free Wo...
Jun 02, 2021•50 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Gerri Kimber to discuss a bold new biography of D. H. Lawrence, 'the most judged writer of his age'; twenty-odd writers share their formative encounters with nature, including the novelists Maaza Mengiste and Ali Smith; plus, reviews of the television adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s 'The Pursuit of Love' and 'Harm', a new play about loneliness and social media addiction Burning Man: The ascent of D. H. Lawrence, by Frances Wilson 'Sinister, ...
May 27, 2021•49 min
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Devoney Looser, Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and the author of ‘The Making of Jane Austen’, to discuss new research into the Austen family’s ties with slavery; Colin Grant, critic and writer, introduces Writers Mosaic, a new platform for writing and recordings; and Mary Beard considers the Roman love of temple-building and Euripides as reimagined by a poet and a comic-book illustrator. Jane Austen & Co write...
May 20, 2021•49 min
