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Close Readings — Arts
Close Readings

Close Readings is a multi-series podcast from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to some episodes for free here, and extracts from our ongoing subscriber-only series.

How To Subscribe

In Apple Podcasts, click ‘subscribe’ at the top of this podcast feed to unlock the full episodes.

Or for other podcast apps, sign up here: https://lrb.me/closereadings

RUNNING IN 2026

‘Who’s afraid of realism?’ with James Wood and guests

‘Nature in Crisis’ with Meehan Crist and Peter Godfrey-Smith

‘Narrative Poems’ with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford

‘London Revisited’ with Rosemary Hill and guests

Bonus Series: ‘The Man Behind the Curtain’ with Tom McCarthy and Thomas Jones

ALSO INCLUDED IN THE CLOSE READINGS SUBSCRIPTION:

‘Conversations in Philosophy’ with Jonathan Rée and James Wood

‘Fiction and the Fantastic’ with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis

‘Love and Death’ with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford

‘Novel Approaches’ with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guests

‘Among the Ancients’ with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones

‘Medieval Beginnings’ with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley

‘The Long and Short’ with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

‘Modern-ish Poets: Series 1’ with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

‘Among the Ancients II’ with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones

‘On Satire’ with Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell

‘Human Conditions’ with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards

‘Political Poems’ with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

‘Medieval LOLs’ with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Copyright: © London Review of Books

Latest Episodes:

Conversations in Philosophy: 'My Station and Its Duties' by F.H. Bradley Apr 28, 2025

Show notes

T.S. Eliot claimed that he learned his prose style from reading F.H. Bradley, and the poet wrote his PhD on the English philosopher at Harvard. Bradley’s life was remarkably unremarkable, as he spent his entire career as a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, where his only obligation was not to get married. Yet in over fifty years of slow, meticulous writing he articulated a series of unusual and arresting ideas that attacked Kantian and utilitarian notions of duty and morality. In this episode, Jonathan and James look at Bradley’s polemic against John Stuart Mill, ‘My Station and Its Duties’, and other essays in Ethical Studies, which challenge the idea of morality as a product of calm reasoning arrived at by mature, rational minds. For Bradley, morality is a characteristic of communities, determined by people’s differing needs at various stages in their lives, and the universal need for self-realisation can only be achieved through those communities.

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/applecrcip

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip

Read more in the LRB:

Frank Kermode on Eliot and Bradley:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n17/frank-kermode/feast-of-st-thomas

LRB AUDIOBOOKS

Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novel Approaches: 'Vanity Fair' by William Makepeace Thackeray Apr 21, 2025

Show notes

Thackeray's comic masterpiece, Vanity Fair, is a Victorian novel looking back to Regency England as an object both of satire and nostalgia. Thackeray’s disdain for the Regency is present throughout the book, not least in the proliferation of hapless characters called George, yet he also draws heavily on his childhood experiences to unfold a complex story of fractured families, bad marriages and the tyranny of debt. In this episode, Colin Burrow and Rosemary Hill join Tom to discuss Thackeray’s use of clothes, curry and the rapidly changing topography of London to construct a turbulent society full of peril and opportunity for his heroine, Becky Sharp, and consider why the Battle of Waterloo was such a recurrent preoccupation in literature of the period.

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/applecrna

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna

Read more in the LRB:

John Sutherland on Thackeray: https://lrb.me/nathackeray1

Rosemary Hill on 'Frock Consciousness': https://lrb.me/nathackeray2

Audiobooks from the LRB:

⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksna⁠⁠⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Love and Death: Elegies for Poets by Berryman, Lowell and Bishop Apr 14, 2025

Show notes

The confessional poets of the mid-20th century considered themselves a ‘doomed’ generation, with a cohesive identity and destiny. Their intertwining personal lives were laid bare in their work, and Robert Lowell, John Berryman and Elizabeth Bishop returned repeatedly to the elegy to commemorate old friends and settle old scores.In this episode, Mark and Seamus turn to elegies for poets by poets, tracing the intricate connections between them. Lowell, Berryman and Bishop’s work was offset by a deep commitment to the literary tradition, and Mark and Seamus identify their shared influences and anxieties.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrld

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld

Further reading in the LRB:

Mark Ford: No One Else Can Take a Bath for You

⁠https://lrb.me/ldpoets1⁠

Karl Miller: Some Names for Robert Lowell

⁠https://lrb.me/ldpoets2⁠

Nicholas Everett: Two Americas and a Scotland

⁠https://lrb.me/ldpoets3

Helen Vendler: The Numinous Moose

⁠https://lrb.me/ldpoets4⁠

LRB Audiobooks

Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll Apr 07, 2025

Show notes

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 to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrff

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff

Further reading in the LRB:

Marina Warner: You Must Not Ask

⁠https://lrb.me/ffcarroll1⁠

Dinah Birch: Never Seen A Violet

⁠https://lrb.me/ffcarroll2⁠

Marina Warner: Doubly Damned

⁠https://lrb.me/ffcarroll3⁠

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.

LRB AUDIOBOOKS

Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksff⁠

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conversations in Philosophy: 'Autobiography' by John Stuart Mill Mar 31, 2025

Show notes

Mill’s 'Autobiography' was considered too shocking to publish while he was alive. Behind his musings on many of the philosophical and political preoccupations of his time lie the confessions of a deeply repressed man who knows that he’s deeply repressed, coming to terms with the uncompromising educational experiment his father subjected him to as a child – described by Isaiah Berlin as ‘an appalling success’. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss Mill’s startlingly honest account of this experience and the breakdown that ensued in his 20s, and the boldness of his life and thought from his views on socialism and the rights of women to his unwavering devotion to his wife, Harriet Taylor, the co-author of 'On Liberty' and other works.

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/applecrcip

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip

Further reading in the LRB:

Sissela Bok on Mill's 'Autobiography':

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n06/sissela-bok/his-father-s-children

Alasdair MacIntyre: Mill's Forgotten Victory

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n20/alasdair-macintyre/john-stuart-mill-s-forgotten-victory

Panbkaj Mishra: Bland Fanatics

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n23/pankaj-mishra/bland-fanatics

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novel Approaches: ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë Mar 24, 2025

Show notes

When Wuthering Heights was published in December 1847, many readers didn’t know what to make of it: one reviewer called it ‘a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors’. In this episode of ‘Novel Approaches’, Patricia Lockwood and David Trotter join Thomas Jones to explore Emily Brontë’s ‘completely amoral’ novel. As well as questions of Heathcliff’s mysterious origins and ‘obscene’ wealth, of Cathy’s ghost, bad weather, gnarled trees, even gnarlier characters and savage dogs, they discuss the book’s intricate structure, Brontë’s inventive use of language and the extraordinary hold that her story continues to exert over the imaginations of readers and non-readers alike.

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/applecrna

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna

Read more in the LRB:

David Trotter: Heathcliff Redounding https://lrb.me/nabronte1

John Bayley: Kitchen Devil https://lrb.me/nabronte2

Alice Spawls: If It Weren’t for Charlotte https://lrb.me/nabronte3

Patricia Lockwood: What a Bear Wants https://lrb.me/nabronte4

Buy this book from the London Review Bookshop: ⁠https://lrb.me/crbooklist⁠

Audiobooks from the LRB:

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksna⁠⁠

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Love and Death: ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray Mar 17, 2025

Show notes

Situated on the cusp of the Romantic era, Thomas Gray’s work is a mixture of impersonal Augustan abstraction and intense subjectivity. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and continues to exert its influence on contemporary poetry. Mark and Seamus explore three of Gray’s elegiac poems and their peculiar emotional power. They discuss Gray’s ambiguous sexuality, his procrastination and class anxieties, and where his humour shines through – as in his elegy for Horace Walpole’s cat.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrld

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld

Further reading in the LRB:

John Mullan: Unpranked Lyre

⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldgray1⁠

Tony Harrison: ‘V.’

⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldgray2⁠

Read the texts online:

⁠⁠⁠https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/sorw⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/elcc⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/odfc⁠⁠⁠

LRB Audiobooks

Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld⁠

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino Mar 10, 2025

Show notes

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.

Get 50% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings with the code 'SUMMER50' at checkout when you sign up here:

https://lrb.me/travel26pod

Further reading in the LRB:

Salman Rushdie: Calvino

⁠https://lrb.me/ffcalvino1⁠

James Butler: Infinite Artichoke⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠https://lrb.me/ffcalvino2⁠

Jonathan Coe: Calvinoism

⁠https://lrb.me/ffcalvino3⁠

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.

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conversations in Philosophy: 'Circles' and other essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson Mar 03, 2025

Show notes

Circular reasoning is normally condemned by philosophers, but in his 1841 essay ‘Circles’, Emerson proposes that not getting anywhere is precisely what we need to do to find out where we already are. In this episode, Jonathan and James consider Emerson’s use of the circle to demonstrate an idealistic philosophy rooted in the natural world, in which individuals are bounded by self-created horizons, and the extent to which this fits with Transcendentalist notions of progress and independence. They also discuss what his other essays, including ‘Self-Reliance’, ‘Art’ and ‘Nature’, have to say about the importance of thinking one’s own thoughts, and why Emerson had such a powerful influence on writers as varied as Nietzsche, Saul Bellow and Louisa May Alcott.

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/applecrcip

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip

Read 'Circles' here:

https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-first-series/circles/

Read more in the LRB:

Tony Tanner on the life of Emerson:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n10/tony-tanner/arctic-habits

Colin Burrow on the American canon:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n22/colin-burrow/the-magic-bloomschtick

LRB AUDIOBOOKS

Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:

⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novel Approaches: 'Crotchet Castle' by Thomas Love Peacock Feb 24, 2025

Show notes

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 Thamesbefore 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 episode Clare 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.

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/applecrna

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna

Read more in the LRB:

Thomas Keymer on Peacock

https://lrb.me/napeacock1

Paul Foot: The not-so-great Reform Act

https://lrb.me/napeacock2

Audiobooks from the LRB:

https://lrb.me/audiobooksna

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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