Podcasts about lrb

In this extended extract from their series 'Conversations in Philosophy', part of the LRB's Close Readings podcast, Jonathan Rée and James Wood look at one of Friedrich Nietzsche's early essays, 'Schopenhauer as Educator'. For Nietzsche, Schopenhauer's genius lay not in his ideas but in his heroic indifference, a thinker whose value to the world is as a liberator rather than a teacher, who shows us what philosophy is really for: to forget what we already know. ‘Schopenhauer as Educator' was written in 1874, when Nietzsche was 30, and was published in a collection with three other essays – on Wagner, David Strauss and the use of history – that has come to be titled Untimely Meditations. Jonathan and James consider the essays together and their powerful attack on the ethos of the age, railing against the greed and power of the state, fake art, overweening science, the triviality of universities and the deification of success.James Wood is a contributor to the LRB and staff writer at The New Yorker, whose books include The Broken Estate, How Fiction Works and a novel, Upstate.Jonathan Rée is a writer, philosopher and regular contributor to the LRB whose books include Witcraft and A Schoolmaster's War.To listen to the rest of this episode and all our other Close Readings series, sign up;In Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/nietzscheapplecrIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/nietzschesccr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘The Church​ needs to change; the Church cannot afford to change,' Colm Tóibín wrote recently in the LRB. In this episode of the podcast, he joins Tom to discuss how the new pope will have to navigate this paradox. He also looks back at the Francis papacy, and the way that Francis behind his smile ran the Vatican with an iron first; at relations between the Vatican and the Trump administration; and at Francis's motives for bringing the future Pope Leo XIV to Rome in 2023: ‘the reason, in my view, is the same reason that Francis began to smile.'Read Colm Tóibín on Pope Leo: https://lrb.me/toibinpopepodSponsored links:To find out about financial support for professional writers visit the Royal Literary Fund here: https://www.rlf.org.uk/LRB AudioDiscover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Sheila Fitzpatrick first went to Moscow in the 1960s as a young academic, the prevailing understanding of the Soviet Union in the West was governed by the ‘totalitarian hypothesis', of a system ruled entirely from the top down. Her examination of the ministry papers of Anatoly Lunacharsky, the first Commissar of Enlightenment after the Revolution, challenged this view, beginning a long career in which she has frequently questioned the conventional understanding of Soviet history and changed the field with works such as Everyday Stalinism. In this episode, Sheila talks to Daniel about her work in the Soviet archives, about some of the obstacles researchers face, and her latest books, Lost Souls and The Death of Stalin.Read more by Sheila in the LRB: https://lrb.me/fitzpatrickpodSponsored links:To find out about financial support for professional writers visit the Royal Literary Fund here: https://www.rlf.org.uk/LRB AudioDiscover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.With the papal conclave convening in Rome to pick Pope Francis's successor, Matt and Sam are joined by novelist Brandon Taylor to discuss the 2024 film Conclave, directed by Edward Berger and starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. The film, as you might guess, depicts the shabby and conspiratorial inner-workings of a (fictional) College of Cardinals as they go about picking a new pope. Fun movie! Great chat!Furthering Reading:Brandon Taylor, Real Life, (2020)— Filthy Animals, (2021)— The Late Americans, (2023)— "Is it even good? Two Years with Zola," LRB, April 4, 2024.Ben Munster, "Cardinals are watching ‘Conclave' the movie for guidance on the actual conclave," Politico, May 6, 2025.Dan Walden, "Gender, Sex, and other Nonsense," Commonweal, March 1, 2021.

The Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee was set up in 1941 to foster connections with Allied countries and encourage British and US women to ‘invest personally' in the war effort. Two years later, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship in New York started its own letter-writing programme. The correspondence between a few hundred pairs of women in the US and the Soviet Union – sharing the details of their everyday lives, discovering what they had in common as well as their differences – carried on until the mid-1950s, even as hostilities between their governments escalated. In this episode, Miriam Dobson joins Tom to talk about her recent review of Dear Unknown Friend by Alexis Peri, which documents this ‘remarkable correspondence'. Drawing on her own research, Dobson also discusses other exchanges between ordinary people on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, and how the letter-writing changed the women's ideas about their own lives.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/penpalspodLRB AudioDiscover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's now possible to take a home pregnancy test eight days after ovulation, yet in the 16th century, women sometimes turned to astrologers for confirmation. And in the 1950s and 1960s, one might send a urine sample to an address in Sloane Street where they would inject it into a tropical frog that would lay eggs. In this episode of the LRB Podcast, Erin Maglaque joins Thomas Jones to discuss how the understanding of conception has changed over the centuries since the early modern period, what knowledge has been gained but also what may have been lost.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/conceptionpodLRB AudioDiscover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Judith Butler and Aziz Rana join Adam Shatz to discuss Donald Trump's use of executive orders to target birthright citizenship, protest, support of Palestinian rights, academic freedom, constitutionally protected speech and efforts to ensure inclusion on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation. They consider in particular the content of Executive Order 14168, which ‘restores' the right of the government to decide what sex people are, as well as the wider programme of rights-stripping implied by Trump's agenda.Read Judith's piece here:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n06/judith-butler/this-is-wrongRead Adam on Columbia University:https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/march/submissionLRB AudioDiscover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In response to several requests from our (wonderful) Patreon subscribers, we're unlocking this episode from behind the paywall. Consider subscribing at Patreon.com/KnowYourEnemy to never miss an episode. March 2025 marked five years since the formal start of the pandemic in the United States, when the federal government declared the arrival and spread of the novel coronavirus to be a national emergency. The official Covid death toll in the United States now stands at over 1.2 million; globally it surpasses 20 million people. Tens of millions of others were hospitalized, and many who survived infection are facing long Covid or related health complications. Our lives were upended, whether by sheltering-in-place, working from home, and barely leaving our home or apartment, or, for others, by endangering themselves by continuing to show up to work in hospitals, making deliveries, or staffing essential businesses. And yet, as David Wallace-Wells recently argued in the New York Times, "We tell ourselves we've moved on and hardly talk about the disease or all the people who died or the way the trauma and tumult have transformed us. But Covid changed everything around us."We wanted to have a conversation with David about that reality: why, collectively, we resist acknowledging what Covid really cost us, and the ways it continues to shape our lives. The discussion begins by revisiting the first weeks and months of the pandemic, the fear we felt, and the remarkable displays of solidarity that occurred in blue states as well as red states. From there we explore the different "phases" of the pandemic, how public-health measures became culture-war fodder, the impact of the vaccine on how both the public and elected officials perceived the risks of Covid, the pandemic's profound influence on our politics, the fallout from school closures, the Lab Leak Theory, and more.Listen again: "How to Survive a Pandemic" (w/ Peter Staley), Feb 21, 2021Sources:David Wallace-Wells, "How Covid Remade America," New York Times, Mar 4, 2025— "The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else," New York Times, Feb 26, 2025— "We've Been Talking About the Lab-Leak Hypothesis All Wrong," New York Times, Feb 28, 2023— "Dr. Fauci Looks Back: ‘Something Clearly Went Wrong'," New York Times, April 24, 2023David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)Nicholson Baker, "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis," New York Magazine, Jan 4, 2021Zeynep Tufekci, "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," NYTimes, Mar 16, 2025.Sam Adler-Bell, "Doctor Do-Little​: The Case Against Anthony Fauci," The Drift, Jan 24, 2021— "David Leonhardt: The Pandemic Interpreter," NYMag, Feb 24, 2022.Jacqueline Rose, "To Die One's Own Death," LRB, Nov 19, 2020.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are strange books, a testament to their author's defiant unconventionality. Through them, Lewis Carroll transformed popular culture, our everyday idioms and our ideas of childhood and the fantastic, and they remain enormously popular.Anna Della Subin joins Marina Warner to explore the many puzzles of the Alice books. They discuss the way Carroll illuminates other questions raised in this series: of dream states, the nature of consciousness, the transformative power of language and the arbitrariness of authority.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrffIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsffFurther reading in the LRB:Marina Warner: You Must Not Askhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v18/n01/marina-warner/you-must-not-askDinah Birch: Never Seen A Violethttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n17/dinah-birch/never-seen-a-violetMarina Warner: Doubly Damnedhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n03/marina-warner/doubly-damnedGet the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklistNext episode: The stories of Franz Kafka, with Adam Thirlwell.Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.Anna Della Subin's study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemyThis month marked five years since the formal start of the pandemic in the United States in March 2020, when the federal government declared the arrival and spread of the novel coronavirus to be a national emergency. The official Covid death toll in the United States now stands at over 1.2 million; globally it surpasses 20 million people. Tens of millions of others were hospitalized, and many who survived infection are facing long Covid or related health complications. Our lives were upended, whether by sheltering-in-place, working from home, and barely leaving our home or apartment, or, for others, by endangering themselves by continuing to show up to work in hospitals, making deliveries, or staffing essential businesses. And yet, as David Wallace-Wells recently argued in the New York Times, "We tell ourselves we've moved on and hardly talk about the disease or all the people who died or the way the trauma and tumult have transformed us. But Covid changed everything around us."We wanted to have a conversation with David about that reality: why, collectively, we resist acknowledging what Covid really cost us, and the ways it continues to shape our lives. The discussion begins by revisiting the first weeks and months of the pandemic, the fear we felt, and the remarkable displays of solidarity that occurred in blue states as well as red states. From there we explore the different "phases" of the pandemic, how public-health measures became culture-war fodder, the impact of the vaccine on how both the public and elected officials perceived the risks of Covid, the pandemic's profound influence on our politics, the fallout from school closures, the Lab Leak Theory, and more.Listen again: "How to Survive a Pandemic" (w/ Peter Staley), Feb 21, 2021Sources:David Wallace-Wells, "How Covid Remade America," New York Times, Mar 4, 2025— "The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth Than Anyone Else," New York Times, Feb 26, 2025— "We've Been Talking About the Lab-Leak Hypothesis All Wrong," New York Times, Feb 28, 2023— "Dr. Fauci Looks Back: ‘Something Clearly Went Wrong'," New York Times, April 24, 2023David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)Nicholson Baker, "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis," New York Magazine, Jan 4, 2021Zeynep Tufekci, "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," NYTimes, Mar 16, 2025.Sam Adler-Bell, "Doctor Do-Little​: The Case Against Anthony Fauci," The Drift, Jan 24, 2021— "David Leonhardt: The Pandemic Interpreter," NYMag, Feb 24, 2022.Jacqueline Rose, "To Die One's Own Death," LRB, Nov 19, 2020.

‘If ever a book of history was blessed with contemporary relevance, this one is', writes Andrew O'Hagan of Helen Castor's The Eagle and the Hart (Allen Lane). ‘The dumbfounding, delusional, narcissistic King Richard; the white-knuckle ride of Henry IV, dogged all the way by notions of illegitimacy. I feel these men could have been ripped from today's headlines.' Castor, whose 2010 book She-Wolves was adapted for television by the BBC, discussed Richard and Henry with Mary Wellesley, author of Hidden Hands: Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers and co-presenter of the medieval strand of the LRB's Close Readings​ podcast series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back at The Tabernacle in March with another fantastic line-up of speakers! Join us for an inspiring evening of storytelling. Katherine Rundell is a fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, and a contributing editor at the LRB. Her novels for children have won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Costa Children's Book Award, among many others. Her books for adults include Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, and Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

The folk tales collected and rewritten by the Brothers Grimm may ‘seem to come from nowhere and to belong to everyone', Colin Burrow wrote recently in the LRB, but ‘this is an illusion'. In the latest episode of the LRB podcast, Colin joins Thomas Jones to talk about the distinctive place and time in which Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm lived and worked, as well as the enduring appeal and ‘vital weirdness' of the tales.Sponsored links:Visit the Munch exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery: https://www.npg.org.uk/munchSee The Years at the Harold Pinter Theatre: https://theyearsplay.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two recent books, by Peter Beinart and Rachel Shabi, discuss the response of Jewish communities in the West to the Hamas attacks of 7 October and Israel's subsequent destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza, and the shifting politics of antisemitism. In this episode Adam Shatz talks to Peter and Rachel about the moral rupture Israel's actions have caused, particularly along generational lines, among Jews in both the US and UK, and why the question of antisemitism has become separated from the larger politics of anti-racism, allowing the political right to claim this moral territory in defence of Israel.Sponsored Link:Visit the Munch exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery: https://www.npg.org.uk/munchLRB AudioDiscover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Italo Calvino's novella Invisible Cities is a hypnagogic reimagining of Marco Polo's time in the court of Kublai Khan. Polo describes 55 impossible places – cities made of plumbing, free-floating, overwhelmed by rubbish, buried underground – that reveal something true about every city. Marina and Anna Della read Invisible Cities alongside the Travels of Marco Polo, and explore how both blur the lines between reality and fantasy, storyteller and audience. They discuss the connections between Calvino's love of fairytales and his anti-fascist politics, and why he saw the fantastic as a mode of truth-telling.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrffIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsffFurther reading in the LRB:Salman Rushdie: Calvinohttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n17/salman-rushdie/calvinoJames Butler: Infinite Artichokehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n12/james-butler/infinite-artichokeJonathan Coe: Calvinoismhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n06/jonathan-coe/calvinoismNext episode: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.Anna Della Subin's study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alex Andreou talks to investigative journalist Peter Geoghegan about the mysterious - and increasingly influential figure - the owner of GB News, Unherd, and The Spectator, Paul Marshall. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD*** Peter's substack Democracy for Sale. It's free and you should subscribe. Peter's LRB profile of Paul Marshall. Our bookshop featuring many of the books we have featured - including Peter Goghegan's - can be found at uk.bookshop.org/shop/quietriot. Kick your X habit, finally, by using one of three Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Packs. With one click, it will hook you up with, among many good accounts, Alex, Naomi, and Kenny. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD*** With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. ALEX ANDREOU'S PODYSSEY launches on the 15th of March and can be found here: APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alex-andreous-podyssey/id1798575126 SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2x7cD3HjkOyOKTF4YT5Goy?si=e7a86b762431451f AMAZON MUSIC: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/8c996062-ef8d-42e4-9d80-5b407cb6e2e2/alex-andreou's-podyssey OVERCAST: https://overcast.fm/+ABN4Gd7AP9Q POCKET CASTS: https://pca.st/podcast/9e98d690-d812-013d-ea22-0affdfd67dbd YouTube Music: Coming Soon Or you can add it to any app, using the RSS feed: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/podyssey SUBSCRIBE OR FOLLOW NOW! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A decade ago, the hedge fund manager Paul Marshall was known as a Lib Dem donor and founder of the Ark academy chain. Now, as the owner of UnHerd, GB News and, since last September, the Spectator, he's a right-wing media tycoon. Peter Geoghegan joins Thomas Jones to discuss Marshall's transformation. He explains the ‘symbiotic relationship' between Marshall and Michael Gove, their shared connection to evangelical Christianity, and the changing shape of conservative politics in Britain.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/marshallpodSponsored links:Use the code ‘LRB' to get £150 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Love Peacock didn't want to write novels, at least not in the form they had taken in the first half of the 19th century. In Crotchet Castle he rejects the expectation that novelists should reveal the interiority of their characters, instead favouring the testing of opinions and ideas. His ‘novel of talk', published in 1831, appears largely like a playscript in which disparate characters assemble for a house party next to the Thames before heading up the river to Wales. Their debates cover, among other things, the Captain Swing riots of 1830, the mass dissemination of knowledge, the emerging philosophy of utilitarianism and the relative merits of medieval and contemporary values.In this extended extract from 'Novel Approaches', a Close Readings series from the LRB, Clare Bucknell is joined by Freya Johnston and Thomas Keymer to discuss where the book came from and its use of ‘sociable argument' to offer up-to-date commentary on the economic and political turmoil of its time.To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrnaIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsnaSponsored links: Use the code ‘LRB' to get £150 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrbSee A Knock on the Roof at the Royal Court Theatre: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/a-knock-on-the-roof/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since 1995, at least 51 prisoners aged 21 and under have died in Scottish prisons. These include Katie Allan and William Lindsay, who shared strong support networks and, despite vastly different life experiences, died in alarmingly similar circumstances. Their deaths were deemed preventable in a long-awaited inquiry that identified a ‘catalogue' of failures but led to no prosecutions.Dani Garavelli has been investigating William and Katie's deaths since 2018. She joins Malin to discuss the high rate of suicide in custody and why Scotland's supposedly enlightened approach to youth justice is deeply flawed.Find Dani Garavelli's piece on the episode page: https://lrb.me/deathsincustodypodSponsored links: Use the code ‘LRB' to get £150 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrbSee A Knock on the Roof at the Royal Court Theatre: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/a-knock-on-the-roof/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2015, a vigorous response to climate change seemed possible: even fossil fuel companies talked about transitioning to cleaner energy. But exploration and exploitation of oil and gas reserves have continued unabated, and in 2024, annual temperatures surpassed the 1.5ºC limit set by the Paris Agreement. In a recent piece, Brett Christophers describes the global shift from active policymaking to acceptance and surrender. He joins Tom to discuss the roles of Europe, the US and China in climate change, why solutions like ‘carbon capture' are futile and where there's room for cautious optimism.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/climateovershootpodSponsored links:Use the code ‘LRB' to get £150 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan Swift's 1726 tale of Houyhnhnms, Yahoos, Lilliputians and Struldbruggs is normally seen as a satire. But what if it's read as fantasy, and all its contradictions, inversions and reversals as an echo of the traditional starting point of Arabic fairytale: ‘It was and it was not'? In this episode Marina and Anna Della discuss Gulliver's Travels as a text in which empiricism and imagination are tightly woven, where fantastical realms are created to give different perspectives on reality and both writer and reader are liberated from having to decide what to think.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrffIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsffFurther reading in the LRB:Terry Eagleton:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n16/terry-eagleton/a-spot-of-firm-governmentClare Bucknell: Oven-Ready Childrenhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n02/clare-bucknell/oven-ready-childrenThomas Keymer: Carry Up your Coffee Boldlyhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n08/thomas-keymer/carry-up-your-coffee-boldlyNext episode: Marco Polo's Il Milione and Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.Anna Della Subin's study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Hometown Bluegrass Show – Featuring Sammy Shelor of Lonesome River BandIn this special episode of The Hometown Bluegrass Show, hosts Tim Batts and Josh Williams sit down with one of the greatest banjo players in bluegrass history—Sammy Shelor of the legendary Lonesome River Band. With a career spanning decades, multiple IBMA awards, and an unmistakable style that has influenced generations of pickers, Sammy shares stories from the road, insights into his playing technique, and the legacy of LRB.From his early influences to his time leading one of the most iconic bands in bluegrass, this episode is packed with music, memories, and plenty of laughs. Don't miss this deep dive into the world of bluegrass banjo with one of the best in the business!

On one level, Mansfield Park is a fairytale transposed to the 19th century: Fanny Price is the archetypal poor relation who, through her virtuousness, wins a wealthy husband. But Jane Austen's 1814 novel is also a shrewd study of speculation, ‘improvement' and the transformative power of money.In the first episode of Novel Approaches, Colin Burrow joins Clare Bucknell and Thomas Jones to discuss Austen's acute reading of property and precarity, and why Fanny's moral cautiousness is a strategic approach to the riskiest speculation of all: marriage.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrnaIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsnaClare Bucknell is a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and hosted the Close Readings series On Satire with Colin Burrow. The Treasuries, her social history of poetry anthologies, was published in 2023.Thomas Jones is a senior editor at the LRB and host of the LRB Podcast. With Emily Wilson, he hosted the Close Readings series Among the Ancients.Next episode: ‘Crotchet Castle' by Thomas Love Peacock.Further reading from the LRB:John Mullan: Noticing and Not Noticinghttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n22/john-mullan/noticing-and-not-noticingColm Toíbìn: The Importance of Auntshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n06/colm-toibin/the-importance-of-auntsW.J.T. Mitchell: In the Wildernesshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n07/w.j.t.-mitchell/in-the-wilderness Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ronald Reagan, as Jackson Lears wrote recently in the LRB, was a ‘telegenic demagogue' whose ‘emotional appeal was built on white people's racism'. His presidency left the United States a far more unequal place at home, with a renewed commitment to deadly imperial adventures abroad. Yet he had a gift for making up stories that ‘made America feel good about itself again'. On the latest episode of the LRB podcast, Lears joins Tom to discuss Reagan's life and self-made legend, from his hardscrabble Midwestern boyhood to the White House by way of Hollywood, and to consider the lasting effects of his presidency.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/reaganpodSponsored link:Sign up for The Syllabus: https://the-syllabus.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the month since Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by a coalition of rebel forces, thousands of political prisoners have been released while many more remain missing, assumed lost to the regime. The most powerful group among the rebels, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has moved to take control of the country while Israel has seized the opportunity to carry out extensive bombing of Syria's military facilities. In this episode, Adam Shatz is joined by Loubna Mrie and Omar Dahi to discuss these events and consider what the end of fifty years of Ba'athist tyranny means for the Syrian people both at home and in exile.Loubna Mrie is a Syrian activist and writer living in the United States.Omar Dahi is a professor of economics at Hampshire College and a research associate at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.Read more in the LRB:Tom Stevenson: Assad's Fallhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n24/tom-stevenson/assad-s-fallLRB AudioDiscover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Thousand and One Nights is an ‘infinite text'; it has no fixed shape or length, no known author, and is transformed with each new translation. In this first episode of Fiction and the Fantastic, Marina Warner and Anna Della Subin explore two particularly mysterious stories taken from Yasmine Seale's new translation of the Nights. ‘The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad' highlights the pleasures of dreaming, the power of language and the imagination's essential role in eroticism. ‘Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land' demonstrates how the fantastic can help us imagine new ways of living.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrffIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsffFurther reading in the LRB:Marina Warner: Travelling Texthttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n24/marina-warner/travelling-textSteven Connor: One's Thousand One Nightinesshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n06/steven-connor/one-s-thousand-one-nightinessesWilliam Gass: A Book at Bedtimehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n21/william-gass/a-book-at-bedtime Marina Warner: ‘The Restless One'https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/june/the-restless-oneNEXT EPISODE: ‘Gulliver's Travels' by Jonathan Swift, out on Monday 10 February.Get the book: https://lrb.me/sealenightsffMarina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.Anna Della Subin's study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘OK, that's that. It's over now,' Björn Ulvaeus thought after Abba broke up in 1982. ‘But,' as Chal Ravens writes in the latest LRB, ‘Björn's zeitgeist detector was, as usual, on the blink.' By the late 1990s, Abba ‘were basically tap water'. In the latest episode of the LRB podcast, Chal joins Thomas Jones to discuss the foursome's rise to global domination from distinctly Swedish origins, and whether the arc of history bends towards disco.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/abbamaniapodSponsored links:Get a copy of the new edition of Pellegrino Artusi's groundbreaking cookbook from Toronto Univer​​​​​​​sity Press: https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9780802086570 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The series begins with Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (1843), an exploration of faith through the story of Abraham and Isaac. Like most of Kierkegaard's published work, Fear and Trembling appeared under a pseudonym, Johannes de Silentio, and its playful relationship to the reader doesn't stop there. Described as a ‘dialectical lyric' on the title page, the book works through a variety of formats in its attempt to understand the nature of faith and the apparently unsolvable paradox that the father of the Abrahamic religions was prepared to murder his own son. James and Jonathan consider whether Kierkegaard thinks we can understand anything, and what Fear and Trembling has in common with the works of Dostoevsky and Kafka.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcipIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscipFurther reading in the LRB:Jonathan Rée: Dancing in the Service of Thought https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard1James Butler: Reading Genesis https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard2Roger Poole: A Walk with Kierkegaard https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard3Terry Eagleton: A Long Way from Galilee https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard4James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self.Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English.NEXT EPISODE: 'The Essence of Christianity' by Ludwig Feuerbach, out on Monday 3 February.LRB AUDIOBOOKSDiscover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:https://lrb.me/audiobookscip Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Clare Bucknell and Thomas Jones introduce their new Close Readings series, Novel Approaches. Joined by a variety of contemporary novelists and critics, they'll be exploring a dozen 19th-century British novels from Mansfield Park to New Grub Street, paying particular (though not exclusive) attention to the themes of money and property.The first episode will come out on Monday 27 January, on Austen's Mansfield Park.Clare Bucknell is a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and hosted the Close Readings series On Satire with Colin Burrow. The Treasuries, her social history of poetry anthologies, was published in 2023.Thomas Jones is a senior editor at the LRB and host of the LRB Podcast. With Emily Wilson, he hosted the Close Readings series Among the Ancients.The full list of texts for the series:Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane AustenCrotchet Castle (1831) by Thomas Love PeacockWuthering Heights (1847) by Emily BrontëVanity Fair (1847) by William Makepeace ThackerayNorth and South (1854) by Elizabeth GaskellAurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett BrowningAnthony Trollope (TBD)Mill on the Floss (1860) by George EliotOur Mutual Friend (1864) by Charles DickensWashington Square (1880)/Portrait of a Lady (1881) by Henry JamesKidnapped (1886) by Robert Louis StevensonThe Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) by Thomas HardyNew Grub Street (1891) by George Gissing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marina Warner is joined by Anna Della Subin to introduce Fiction and the Fantastic, a new Close Readings series running through 2025. Marina describes the scope of the series, in which she will also be joined by Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis. Together, Anna Della and Marina discuss the ways the fiction of wonder and astonishment can challenge social conventions and open up new ways of living.The first episode will come out on Monday 13 January, on The Thousand and One Nights.Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.Anna Della Subin's study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014.The first four texts:The Thousand and One Nights (Yasmine Seale's translation)Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's TravelsThe Travels of Marco Polo (no particular translation) and Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (William Weaver translation)Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neal Ascherson has worked as a journalist for more than six decades, reporting from Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, its successor states and elsewhere. He has also written more than a hundred pieces for the London Review of Books, from its seventh issue (in February 1980) to its most recent. In this episode of the LRB podcast, Ascherson talks to Thomas Jones about his recent piece on the journalist Claud Cockburn and about his own life and career, from his time as propaganda secretary for the Uganda National Congress to the moment he witnessed preparations for the kidnapping of Mikhail Gorbachev in Crimea but ‘missed the scoop of a lifetime'.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/aschersonpodListen to Neal Ascherson deliver the 2012 LRB Winter Lecture: https://lrb.me/aschersonwlSubscribe to Close Readings for 2025: https://lrb.me/audioOr give your loved ones a Close Readings subscription: https://lrb.me/audiogifts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Davies joins Tom to assess the efforts of the new Labour government in tackling the UK's many economic challenges. They consider whether Rachel Reeves's first budget, with its substantial tax rises, can do anything more than arrest the decline of the public finances, and what Keir Starmer hopes to achieve with his public overtures to the likes of Google and BlackRock. Will their technocratic style of government be able to survive the pressures of populist politics, or is their long-term thinking simply too long-term to bring election-winning improvements to people's everyday lives?Read William Davies's piece: https://lrb.me/davies4622podMore audio from the LRB:Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Meek talks to Tom about his latest report from Ukraine, where he spent time in Kharkiv and Kupiansk in the east of the country. In Kharkiv, he found a population living in fear not only of the Russian glide bombs falling daily on the city, but also of the increasingly ruthless activity of the Ukrainian military recruitment office, desperate to secure fresh troops to resist Russia's advances. James and Tom discuss the current state of the conflict, what a Trump presidency might mean for US policy and whether Ukraine's use of long-range missiles could make any difference to the progress of the war.Read James's latest report from Ukraine:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/james-meek/nobody-wants-to-hear-thisSponsored Link:Get 10% off creative writing courses at NCW Academy in 2025 with code LRB10:https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/academy/More audio from the LRB:Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her first novel The Last Sane Woman (Verso) poet Hannah Regel investigates the pains and pleasures of artistic practice carried out against the odds. While researching in a small archive dedicated to women's art young graduate Nicola Long happens upon one half of a correspondence, conducted half a century before, written by a recently graduated ceramicist to a friend. As Nicola reads on she becomes obsessed with the parallels between her own life and that of the woman she encounters in the letters.Regel was joined in conversation by LRB contributor and art critic Emily LaBarge.Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspodGet the book: https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/the-last-sane-woman-hannah-regel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever wondered what happened to Little River Band's Glenn Shorrock? Do you know which songs Glenn wrote for the band? Or how the original LRB lost their name? Listen in here to find out answers to these and a whole lot of other questions about Australia's most famous band as Glenn Shorrock joins us for an intimate chat. English born Glenn Shorrock is one of the most iconic and influential singer-songwriters to emerge from Australia's rich music scene. Best known as the founding lead vocalist of Little River Band, Glenn's career spans over six decades, marked by global chart success, critically acclaimed albums, and unforgettable live performances. His deep, resonant voice and exceptional songwriting have defined the soundtracks of generations, contributing timeless classics that have shaped the landscape of classic rock and pop. Glenn's family moved to Adelaide in the 50s, where his love for music blossomed. By the early 60s, he co-founded The Twilights, a rock band that became one of Australia's most popular groups. The Twilights achieved national fame then in 69, Glenn co-founded Axiom, often regarded as one of Australia's first ‘supergroups.' Alongside music legend Brian Cadd, Axiom crafted sophisticated, soulful rock with hits like A Little Ray of Sunshine and Arkansas Grass. The band's blend of folk, rock, and pop elements set a new standard for Australian music, earning both critical and commercial success. The mid-70s saw Glenn co-found Little River Band . Combining lush harmonies and rock-driven melodies, LRB became the first Australian band to achieve sustained international success. As the lead vocalist, Glenn was the unmistakable voice behind all of their global hits, including “Reminiscing,” “Help Is on Its Way,” “Lonesome Loser,” “Cool Change,” and “Lady.” Little River Band enjoyed unprecedented success in the US with their sophisticated sound earning them 13 American Top 40 hits between 75 and 83. Shorrock's voice became synonymous with the band's transcontinental appeal. In 82, after some infighting amongst band members, Glenn went solo and has enjoyed considerable success ever since. Throughout the 80s and beyond, Shorrock released a series of solo works, dabbled in musical theatre and collaborated with several of his musical mates. Glenn was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame as part of Little River Band in 2004. Today at 80, Glenn Shorrock still inspires generations of musicians and songwriters and his songs which are often infused with themes of nostalgia, love, and self-reflection, continue to resonate with listeners around the world. Glenn remains a vibrant force in the music scene. He still performs live, delighting fans with renditions of his classic hits while introducing new music that highlights his ever-evolving artistry. His autobiography, Now, Where Was I?, offers an intimate glimpse into his storied life and career, showcasing the ups and downs of a truly remarkable musical journey. Shorrock's longevity in the industry is a testament to his talent, passion, and connection to his fans. His voice remains as captivating as ever, and his influence on rock, pop, and the Australian music legacy is enduring. #glennshorrock #littleriverband #australianrockhistory #1970srockmusic I truly hope you enjoy this episode with Glenn. Getting to know him a little better has been a highlight of mine. If there's someone you'd like to hear interviewed, please reach out to me by sending me a message through the website A Breath of Fresh Air

Adam Shatz is joined by Jamelle Bouie and Deborah Friedell to pick through the results and implications of Trump's victory. The US has a booming economy of high wages and nearly full employment, yet economic discontent, particularly around inflation, has been one of the more popular explanations for the election result. As well as considering the importance of inflation, Jamelle and Deborah look at what went wrong with the Harris campaign's big bet on abortion rights, why Republican-voting women say they feel safer under Trump and why the Democrats' insistence that democracy was on the ballot failed to resonate with many voters.Read Adam Tooze on the Democrats' defeat in the LRB:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/adam-tooze/the-democrats-defeatRead Deborah Friedell on J.D. Vancehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/deborah-friedell/short-cutsDiscover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On budget day, Tom Johnson joins Malin Hay to discuss the revolution in numeracy and use of numbers in Early Modern England, from the black and white squares of the ‘reckoning cloth' to logarithmic calculating machines, as described in a new book by Jessica Marie Otis. How did the English go from seeing arithmetic as the province of tradespeople and craftsmen to valuing maths as an educational discipline? Tom and Malin consider the importance of the move from Roman to Arabic numerals in this ‘quantitative transformation' and the uses and abuses of statistics in the period.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/earlymodernmathsSponsored links:Use the code 'LRB' to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrbTo find out about financial support for professional writers visit the Royal Literary Fund here: https://www.rlf.org.uk/Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.ukDiscover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the latest issue of the LRB, Jeremy Harding reviews How to Write about Africa, a posthumous collection of essays and stories by Binyavanga Wainaina, one of postcolonial Africa's great anglophone satirists. Jeremy joins Tom to talk about Wainaina's life and work, including the title essay and his ambivalent response to its popularity (‘I went viral,' he later said, ‘I became spam'); his reporting from South Sudan; the ‘lost chapter' from his memoir in which he imagines coming out to his parents; and his account of travelling to Senegal to interview the musician Youssou N'Dour, a piece that Harding describes as both ‘beautifully done' and ‘extremely funny'.Find further reading and external links on the episode page: https://lrb.me/wainainapodSponsored links:Use the code 'LRB' to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrbFind out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.ukSee Hansel and Gretel at the Royal Opera House: https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/hansel-and-gretel-details Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his third conversation looking at the crisis in the Middle East, Adam talks to Mohamad Bazzi about Israel's expansion of its war into Lebanon and the recent assassinations of Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah. They discuss the factors behind Israel's unprecedented aggression and why, as in Gaza, it's able to operate without restraint, not least from the Biden administration.Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and a professor of journalism at New York University.Read Adam Shatz on the death of Nasrallah in the latest LRB.https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/adam-shatz/after-nasrallah Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mary and Irina resume their discussion of Boccaccio's Decameron, focusing on three stories of female agency, deception and desire. Alibech, an aspiring hermitess, is tricked into indulging her powerful sexual urges; Petronella combines business and pleasure at the expense of her husband and lover; while Lydia demonstrates her devotion by killing hawks and pulling teeth. As Mary and Irina discuss, these stories exemplify the ambiguous depiction of women in the Decameron, where the world is powered by rapacious female lusts, sex has no consequences and conventional morality is suspended.Read more on the Decameron in the LRB: https://lrb.me/decameronpodNon-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series including Mary and Irina's twelve-part series Medieval Beginnings, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignupGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second of three conversations about the crisis in the Middle East, recorded shortly before the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was reported, Yezid Sayigh talks to Adam Shatz about why he sees Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October as an inflection point both for the Palestinian movement and global history. Sayigh believes that the attacks reflected an erosion of Palestinian leadership, as well as a moral and strategic crisis. Only a new vision of Palestinian liberation, rooted in progressive ideals rather than in the ethno-religious project of Hamas, he argues, can lead to genuine Palestinian freedom and sovereignty.Yezid Sayigh is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.Read Adam Shatz on the death of Nasrallah in the latest LRB:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/adam-shatz/after-nasrallah Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘The department store is dying,' Rosemary Hill wrote recently in the LRB, reviewing an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris on the origins of the grands magasins. She joins Tom to talk about their 19th and 20th-century heyday as cathedrals of consumerism as well as places where women could spend time away from home, and away from men, safely and respectably. She also recalls the Christmas she worked in the toy department at Selfridges, demonstrating wind-up bath toys.Sponsored links:Use the code 'LRB' to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrbFind out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.ukSee Maddaddam at the Royal Opera House: https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/maddaddam-details Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anne Serre's latest novel to appear in English, brilliantly translated from the French by Mark Hutchinson, was written in the aftermath of the death of the author's younger sister, and recounts the tortured relationship between an unnamed narrator and his close childhood friend Fanny, a young woman suffering from profound psychological distress. Hailed in Le Point as a 'masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and elegance', A Leopard-Skin Hat (Lolli Editions) is a bewildering rollercoaster of hope and despair, calling into question the form of the novel itself.Serre, Bordeaux-born author of 14 previous novels, was joined in conversation about her work with novelist and LRB contributor Lucie Elven.Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry established that the fire on 14 June 2017, which killed 72 people, was the ‘culmination of decades of failure'. Every death was avoidable, and every death was the result of choices made by corporations, individuals and elected officials. James Butler, who writes about the report and its findings in the current issue of the LRB, joins Tom to discuss the causes and consequences of the fire and whether those responsible will be brought to justice.Read James's piece: https://lrb.me/butlergrenfellSponsored links:Use the code 'LRB' to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrbTo find out about financial support for professional writers visit the Royal Literary Fund here: https://www.rlf.org.uk/Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the preface to the Decameron Boccaccio describes Florentine society laid waste by bubonic plague in the mid-14th century. But before he gets to that he has a confession for the reader: he has been hurt by love, a love ‘more fervent than any other love', and intends his work as a guide to life and love for young women in particular. In the first of two episodes on Boccaccio's hundred novelle of sex, dishonesty and foolishness, Mary and Irina consider why both the preface and first story – about the disreputable merchant Cepparello – start with a confession, before looking at the later tale of the gardener Masetto and his noble efforts tending to the needs of every nun in a convent in Lamporecchio.Subscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignupRead more on Boccaccio the LRB: https://lrb.me/decameronpodGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is a chapter from Complicated Women by Bee Wilson, a new LRB audiobook, based on pieces first published in the London Review of Books. Wilson explores the lives of ten figures, from Lola Montez to Vivienne Westwood, who challenged the limitations imposed on women in dramatically different ways. In this free chapter, she describes the ways that Edith Piaf's life and art embodied the needs of her public, and how she became a symbol of postwar French resilience.Podcast listeners can get 20% off using the code POD20 at checkout.Buy the audiobook here and listen in your preferred podcast app: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, a chapter from a new LRB audiobook, Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre by Jonathan Rée. This collection of ten biographical pieces, read by Rée, describes the lives of some of most influential thinkers of the past four hundred years and the radical and sometimes bizarre ideas that emerged from them. The audiobook also includes an introductory conversation between Rée and Thomas Jones, host of the LRB Podcast. In this free chapter, Rée looks at the life of Jean-Paul Sartre up to the publication of his first major philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, in 1943.Podcast listeners can get 20% off using the code POD20 at checkout.Buy the audiobook here and listen in your preferred podcast app: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What do Jane Austen, Simone de Beauvoir and Herodotus have in common? They all appear in three of this year's Close Readings series, in which a pair of LRB contributors explore an area of literature through a selection of key works. This week, we're revisiting some of the highlights from subscriber-only episodes: Clare Bucknell and Colin Burrow on Emma, Judith Butler and Adam Shatz on The Second Sex, and Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones on Herodotus' Histories.To listen to these episodes in full, subscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Md5fd5In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The character of Gawain, one of King Arthur's leading knights, recurs throughout medieval literature, but the way he's presented underwent a curious development during the period, moving closer and closer to an impossible and perhaps comical ideal of chivalric perfection. In 'Sir Gawain and the Greene Knight', his most well-known incarnation, Gawain faces a series of peculiar tests and apparently fails them all. 'Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle', a later poem, takes many elements from 'The Greene Knight' and exaggerates them to the extreme: the cups the knights drink from are so large they're impossible to drink from, and Gawain faces an even more peculiar sequence of tests, but meets them all perfectly. Irina and Mary discuss the degree to which this exaggeration can be taken as a satire on chivalric expectations, and whether by this point the character of Gawain should be considered more monastic than knightly.Read the text here:https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/hahn-sir-gawain-sir-gawain-and-the-carle-of-carlisleRead some Arthurian background in the LRB here:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n24/tom-shippey/so-much-smokeSubscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts by clicking 'subscribe' at the top of this feed;In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignupGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David talks to Mark Ford and Seamus Perry, hosts of the LRB's Close Readings poetry podcast, about what makes a great political poem. Can great poetry be ideological? How much does context matter? And is it possible to tell political truths in verse? From Yeats's ‘Easter 1916' to Owen's ‘Strange Meeting' to Auden's ‘Spain 1937': a conversation about political conviction and poetic ambiguity.To find out more about Close Readings and how to subscribe, just visit the LRB's website https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readingsSign up now to PPF+ to get ad-free listening and all our bonus episodes – including bonuses on the Great Political Fictions www.ppfideas.comNext time: Lea Ypi on Ibsen's The Wild Duck Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.