London Review Bookshop Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Pankaj Mishra and Lisa Appignanesi: Run and Hide May 18, 2022

Show notes

After twenty years novelist and essayist Pankaj Mishra makes a triumphant return to fiction. Described by Amit Chaudhuri as ‘his best work yet’ and by Neel Mukherjee as ‘unforgettable’, Run and Hide (Hutchinson Heinemann) explores, through the lives of three friends riding the high tide of India’s boom years, the implications and human costs of the thirst for wealth and power. Mishra, a regular contributor to the LRB, was in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi.

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Ange Mlinko, Don Paterson and Edmund de Waal on Rilke May 11, 2022

Show notes

Central to this modern myth is the ‘savage creative storm’ of 2-23 February 1922, when Rilke wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus and completed the Duino Elegies in less than three weeks. 100 years on from its conclusion, the poet and critic Ange Mlinko discusses Rilke, the cult of Orpheus and intense productivity with Don Paterson, whose versions of the Sonnets to Orpheus were published by Faber (and the LRB) in 2006, and the writer and artist Edmund de Waal, for whom the work of Rilke has been a constant touchstone.

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Fernanda Melchor and Nicole Flattery: Paradais May 04, 2022

Show notes

Fernanda Melchor first came to the attention of the English-speaking world with 'Hurricane Season', a tale of murder in a lawless Mexican village, described by Ben Lerner as ‘Brutal, relentless, beautiful, fugal’. In 'Paradais' she continues her exploration of violence, class and misogyny with a chilling story of two misfit teenagers living in a luxury housing complex, haunted by macabre fantasies of escape. Melchor discusses her work with Nicole Flattery.

Find our upcoming digital and in-person events here: https://lrb.me/lrbevents

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Tom McCarthy and Susan Philipsz on ‘Ulysses’ Apr 27, 2022

Show notes

‘How do you write after Ulysses?’ asked the twice Booker-nominated novelist Tom McCarthy, author of C, Satin Island and most recently The Making of Incarnation, in the LRB in 2014. He reflects on working in Ulysses’s wake – as we all must – with the Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Philipsz, whose past installations have drawn extensively on Joyce’s writing (and interest in music). She also sings live. Chaired by the LRB's Head of Special Projects, Sam Kinchin-Smith.

Presented in partnership with Shakespeare and Company. Photo credits: Nicole Strasser and Franziska Sinn.

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Revivalism: Christopher Hitchens Apr 20, 2022

Show notes

Lisa Appignanesi, Benjamin Burgis, Janan Ganesh and James Wolcott on ‘A Hitch in Time’, chaired by David Runciman

Christopher Hitchens was a star writer wherever he wrote; the London Review of Books, to which he contributed sixty pieces over two decades, was no exception. A Hitch in Time, published in December to mark the tenth anniversary of his death, collected 20 of the best in a selection James Wolcott describes, in his introduction, as ‘restorative, an extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.’ Wolcott discussed what he means – the pre-9/11 ‘Hitch in time’ that the collection recaptures – with Benjamin Burgis, author of Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters, along with the writer and campaigner Lisa Appignanesi, the FT columnist Janan Ganesh, and the LRB’s David Runciman.

Part of our ongoing ‘Revivalism’ series of conversations focussing on literary revivals and heroes of the LRB archive.

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Sheila Heti & Merve Emre: Pure Colour Apr 13, 2022

Show notes

With How Should a Person Be? Sheila Heti merrily and unforgettably extended our notions of what a novel might or ought to contain. In Pure Colour (Harvill Secker), brilliantly described by Kirkus Reviews as ‘that rarest of novels—as alien as a moon rock and every bit as wondrous,’ she continues her extraordinary project of expanding our minds to where they ought to be. Heti was in conversation about that project with Merve Emre, associate professor of English at the University of Oxford.

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Josh Cohen & Deborah Levy: Losers Apr 06, 2022

Show notes

In his long essay Losers (Peninsula) psychoanalyst and critic Josh Cohen examines, with characteristic wit and acuity, what our culture loses by undervaluing what Elizabeth Bishop famously called ‘the art of losing.’ Drawing on a wide range of sources and inspirations from mythology, psychology and literature, including Freud, Winnicott, Beckett, Kafka, Thomas Bernard and Robert Walser, Cohen was in conversation with novelist and essayist Deborah Levy, who has written of Losers ‘With compassion, skill and verve, Josh Cohen eloquently dismantles societal and personal delusions about winning and losing.’

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Speculative Communities: Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Grace Blakely, James Bridle and Will Davies Mar 30, 2022

Show notes

Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Professor of Sociology at University College London, argues in Speculative Communities (Chicago) that speculation is no longer confined to the sphere of finance, but has, through virtual marketplaces, new social media and dating apps, become an integral part of the most intimate realms of our lives. Komporozos-Athanasiou will be in conversation with economist Grace Blakeley, author of Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation, James Bridle, author of New Dark Age, and Will Davies, Reader in Political Economy at Goldsmiths and author of Nervous States.

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Vron Ware and Hazel Carby: Return of a Native Mar 23, 2022

Show notes

Vron Ware’s take on what it means to be English has, thankfully, little time for nostalgic visions of a post-Brexit rural paradise. In Return of a Native (Repeater Books) and with a sly nod to Thomas Hardy, she revisits her home turf in Hampshire to explore what it means to see the world from a small place. Her stories of violence and resistance, growth and destruction encompass deep time, colonial histories and global capitalism. Vron Ware, visiting professor in the Gender Studies department at London School of Economics, was in conversation about her work with Hazel Carby, author of Imperial Intimacies.

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Michael Rosen and Rachel Clarke on the Covid-19 pandemic Mar 16, 2022

Show notes

It’s clear that the Covid pandemic has changed the way we need to think about public health, social justice, the economy and a good deal else besides. Michael Rosen, who became gravely ill with the disease, and whose bibliography is both too long and too impressive to list here, and Rachel Clarke, a journalist who became a doctor and has been heroically working on the frontline, were in conversation about the pandemic.

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