Episodes

• 2021

• The Long Way Round

  John Lanchester talks to Thomas Jones about his experience of being on a cargo ship blocked from entering the Suez Canal in 1967, his subsequent journey round the Cape of Good Hope, and the modern-day business of containers. Read John's piece and more in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/longwayroundpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  April 13, 2021

  37 min

• Try, Try, Try Again

  Diane Williams talks to Thomas Jones about her short stories, and reads her latest two published in the LRB. Fine more stories by Diane Williams in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/williamspod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  April 6, 2021

  24 min

• Into the UbuVerse

  Gill Partington and Thomas Jones explore Kenneth Goldsmith’s online avant-garde archive, UbuWeb, listen to some of the things you can find on it, and consider what might not be found there. Find Gill's piece and more relevant LRB pieces here: https://lrb.me/ubuwebpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  March 30, 2021

  52 min

• Separateness

  Mouin Rabbani and Nathan Thrall talk to Adam Shatz about Israel’s vaccination programme, the system of apartheid that now effectively exists between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, the legacy of Trump’s policies, and how the Biden administration may or may not exert its influence. Read Mouin Rabbani in the LRB: https://lrb.me/rabbanipod Read Nathan Thrall in the LRB: https://lrb.me/thrallpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  March 23, 2021

  57 min

• Jorie Graham: ‘To 2040’

  In this extra episode, Jorie Graham reads her poem ‘To 2040’, published in the latest issue of the LRB. You can listen to Jorie Graham reading twelve more of her poems from the LRB on our website here: https://lrb.me/graham Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  March 18, 2021

  12 min

• Close Readings: On Derek Walcott

  Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of the Saint Lucian poet, playwright and Nobel laureate Derek Walcott. Find more pieces about Derek Walcott in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/walcottpodcast Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  March 16, 2021

  57 min

• Peeping Pat

  Terry Castle talks to Thomas Jones about Patricia Highsmith. Find Castle's piece on Highsmith, and pieces by Highsmith, in the LRB here: lrb.me/highsmithpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  March 9, 2021

  47 min

• Optimistic Caution

  Catherine Moore, a consultant clinical virologist at Public Health Wales, and Rupert Beale, a clinician scientist group leader at the Francis Crick Institute, talk to Thomas Jones about the vaccine rollout for Sars-CoV-2, the new variant originally found in Brazil, and whether the virus might ever be eliminated. Find Rupert Beale's latest piece and others here: lrb.me/bealemoorepod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  March 2, 2021

  35 min

• Analogous Patisseries

  Mary-Kay Wilmers, who retired as editor of the LRB last month, talks to Andrew O’Hagan about her career, first at Faber and Faber, then the Listener, then for 42 years at the London Review of Books. She talks about working with T.S. Eliot, the importance of being teased, and how a joke by Alan Bennett changed her life. The episode also contains extracts from Wilmers’s 1988 diary for the LRB, ‘Putting in the Commas’, and O’Hagan’s piece about Wilmers in the latest issue of the paper. Read and listen to them in full here: Mary-Kay Wilmers: Putting in the Commas Andrew O'Hagan: Miss Skippit Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  February 23, 2021

  28 min

• This Is Not a War

  Raphaëlle Branche talks to Adam Shatz about her new book, Papa, qu’as-tu fait en Algérie? (Daddy, What Did You Do in Algeria?). In it, Branche investigates the experiences of French conscripts in the Algerian war, what they saw and did, and, more important, how they did and didn’t talk about it afterwards. Shatz reviews Branche's book in the latest issue of the LRB. Find it and other related pieces here: https://lrb.me/branchepodcast Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  February 16, 2021

  50 min

• The View from Salvador

  Forrest Hylton talks to Thomas Jones about what’s happening in Brazil: the oxygen shortage in Manaus, Bolsonaro’s disastrous response to the pandemic, why Trump’s departure won’t hurt him, and the prospects for the left in next year’s general election. Find pieces by Forrest Hylton and others on Brazil in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/viewfromsalvadorpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  February 9, 2021

  46 min

• Forensic Midwives

  Erin Maglaque talks to Thomas Jones about abortion in 16th-century Italy, the stories of women who experienced it, how it was investigated, and why attitudes to pregnancy 400 years ago were in some ways preferable to those now. Find more LRB pieces by Erin Maglaque here: lrb.me/erinmaglaquepod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  February 2, 2021

  33 min

• Andrew O’Hagan: ‘Shy bairns get nae sweets’

  Andrew O‘Hagan reads his review of Sea State by Tabitha Lasley, a portrait of the oil rig industry, those who work in it, and a journalist‘s intensely close relationship with her subject. Read the review here: https://lrb.me/seastatepod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  January 26, 2021

  18 min

• Magical Authority

  Colin Burrow talks to Thomas Jones about the work of Ursula Le Guin. They discuss the way she brought anthropology into speculative fiction, her explorations of power and moral responsibility in the Earthsea books, and what it was like for Burrow growing up with another writer of fantasy and speculative fiction: his mother, Diana Wynne Jones. Find Burrow's piece on Le Guin and more here: https://lrb.me/ursulaleguinpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  January 19, 2021

  40 min

• The Colour Line in the Americas

  Hazel Carby talks to Adam Shatz about the increasing nationalisation of racial histories, and the way African-American studies in the United States have been influenced by ideas of American exceptionalism. She argues instead for a broader, global view of race and African culture. Carby explores these ideas in her review of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents: https://lrb.me/hazelcarbypod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  January 12, 2021

  54 min

• [Sponsored] Introducing Broccoli Book Club

  Listen to this extract from the first episode of a new podcast series, Broccoli Book Club, presented by Diyora Shadijanova (@thediyora). About this episode: Diyora is joined by Freddy McConnell (@freddymcconnell), a writer, journalist and trans dad (who gave birth to his child), and Tony Phillips (@tonyphillips40), Broccoli Content’s chief content officer (and also a parent), to discuss Laura Dockrill’s What Have I Done? a personal account of the author’s experience of postpartum psychosis. About Broccoli Book Club: Broccoli Book Club is not just about learning more about what you already know – it’s about opening yourself up to stories that you may not have otherwise explored and expanding your knowledge beyond the bounds of your comfort zone.​ New episodes every other Thursday, wherever you listen to your podcasts.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  January 7, 2021

  9 min

• Bom, Bom, Bom, Bom

  James Wood talks to Thomas Jones about Beethoven, drawing on his review of three recent books on the composer. They discuss some of the apparently immovable Beethoven mythologies – the keyboard pedagogy, the heroic glower, the many appropriations of the 9th Symphony – and the blend of Viennese tradition and radical invention which characterises his music, particularly the piano sonatas, from the ethereal melodic sweetness of The Tempest to the terrifying, thumping trills of the Hammerklavier. Read James Wood's piece here: https://lrb.me/beethovenpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Pieces and recordings featured in this episode: 5th Symphony: Berlin Philharmonic / Furtwängler (1954) 3rd Symphony: Berlin Philharmonic / Furtwängler (1952) Piano Sonata No. 29 (‘Hammerklavier’): Barenboim (1984) Piano Sonata No. 29 (‘Hammerklavier’): Solomon (1952) Piano Sonata No. 17 (‘The Tempest’): Gould (1960) 9th Symphony: Beyreuth Festival Orchestra / Furtwängler (1951) Piano Sonata No. 7: Horowitz (1959) Piano Sonata No. 26 (‘Les Adieux’): Kempff (1951) Piano Sonata No. 31: Hess (1953)   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  January 5, 2021

  43 min
• 2020

• John Lanchester: Twenty Types of Human

  John Lanchester reads his review of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes. Read the piece here: lrb.me/neanderthalspod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  December 29, 2020

  36 min

• ‘Tassel Rue’ and Other Stories

  Diane Williams reads nine of her (very) short stories published in the LRB, the most recent, ‘Tassel Rue’, from our Christmas issue. Find these stories and more, as well as a conversation between Williams and Lara Pawson from the London Review Bookshop, on our website: https://lrb.me/dianewilliamspod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  December 22, 2020

  32 min

• Diego! Diego!

  Thomas Jones reads his homage to Maradona, with help from some 1980s commentators. Read the piece here: https://lrb.me/maradonapod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
  December 15, 2020

  14 min