London Review Bookshop Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Blake Morrison & Cathy Rentzenbrink: Two Sisters May 03, 2023

Show notes

30 years after he reinvented the family memoir with And When Did You Last See Your Father? poet, critic and novelist Blake Morrison returns to the subject of his family in Two Sisters (The Borough Press) which reflects on the recent deaths of his two sisters as well as on the often fraught relationships of siblings in history and literature. Morrison was in conversation with Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Everyone is Still Alive (Phoenix).

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Sophie Mackintosh & Rebecca Watson: Cursed Bread Apr 26, 2023

Show notes

Based on the true story of an unsolved mystery, Sophie Mackintosh’s new novel, Cursed Bread (Hamish Hamilton), centres on a small village community upturned by the arrival of a glamourous couple. Jo Hamya calls the book‘sensuous and haunted, like Madame Bovary reworked as a ghost story’. Mackintosh was in conversation with Rebecca Watson, author of Little Scratch (Faber).

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Brian Dillon & Jennifer Higgie: Affinities Apr 19, 2023

Show notes

In Affinities, a series of linked essays, Brian Dillon investigates what it might mean for a thing to be like something else, and what it might mean for things to be connected even when they are nothing like one another. Currently Professor of Creative Writing at Queen Mary, University of London, Dillon’s writing is always surprising, and revelatory. Expect both revelations and surprises.

Dillon was joined in conversation by the writer Jennifer Higgie, whose latest book is The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World.

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Clare Bucknell & Rosemary Hill: The Treasuries Apr 12, 2023

Show notes

Fellow of All Souls, Oxford and regular LRB contributor Clare Bucknell argues in The Treasuries: Poetry Anthologies and the Making of British Culture (Head of Zeus) that the selective way in which poetry has been presented over the past three centuries tells a fascinating story about the democratisation of literature, class, gender, politics and nationalism. She talks about it with another regular LRB contributor, social and architectural historian Rosemary Hill.

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Tom Crewe & Paul Mendez: The New Life Apr 05, 2023

Show notes

In one of the most eagerly anticipated debuts of 2023, LRB editor Tom Crewe presents a fictionalised account of the lives and loves of John Addington Symonds and Henry Havelock Ellis. The New Life charts their collaboration on a revolutionary work that set out to transform our understanding of sexual ethics. Tom Crewe was in conversation with Paul Mendez, author of another ground-breaking debut Rainbow Milk.

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Michael Bracewell & Gwendoline Riley: Unfinished Business Mar 29, 2023

Show notes

Novelist and essayist Michael Bracewell reads from and talks about his latest novel Unfinished Business. An apparently ordinary, suburban office life, with its regular troubles of work, ambition, disappointment, marriage, age and bereavement becomes sharpened as pleasure is mistaken for happiness.

Bracewell is in conversation with Gwendoline Riley, author of First Love and My Phantoms.

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Colin Grant & Michael Rosen: I'm Black So You Don't Have to Be Mar 22, 2023

Show notes

In I’m Black So You Don’t Have to Be (Cape) Colin Grant, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, director of WritersMosaic and author of Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation, A Smell of Burning: A Memoir of Epilepsy and Bageye at the Wheel, evokes the experience of growing up in Britain as the child of Jamaican parents. In the words of Bernardine Evaristo ‘Colin Grant writes about the characters in his family with the mischievous, dramatic flair of a natural storyteller. This is a compelling and charming read.’ Grant was in conversation with author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster and activist Michael Rosen.

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Perry Anderson and John Lanchester: Powell v. Proust Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

In Different Speeds, Same Furies, Perry Anderson measures the achievement of Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time against Proust’s more celebrated In Search of Lost Time – and finds Powell to be superior in certain key respects. Anderson discusses why a comparison between two writers at once so similar and dissimilar sheds new light on their greatest work, and literary construction more generally. He was joined by novelist and LRB contributing editor John Lanchester, for whom both writers have been lifelong touchstones.

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Ha-Joon Chang & Daniel Chandler: Edible Economics Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

Ha-Joon Chang is one of the world’s leading thinkers on development economics. In Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World, Chang combines his passion for numbers with his passion for food (in particular, chocolate) to explain how the politics and economics of food production work with, for, and against us.

Chang was joined by economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler, whose first book, Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like?, will be published in April 2023.

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Attend our last Winter Lecture this Friday in person or online: lrb.me/winterlectures

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Juan Gabriel Vásquez & Shahidha Bari: Retrospective Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

In Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s latest book a film director is attending a retrospective of his work in Barcelona. Plagued by personal tragedy, Sergio Cabrera begins to recall the events that have marked him and his family, from the Spanish Civil War to the Chinese Cultural Revolution to the guerrilla wars in Latin America.

Vásquez is in conversation with writer and broadcaster Shahidha Bari.

Buy tickets to our forthcoming events, including livestreams, here: https://lrb.me/events

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