The TLS Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Myth-busting, awkwardness, pure Marvellousness Mar 25, 2021

Show notes

Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the historian Mark Mazower, who presents new approaches to the battle for Greek independence in 1821; Noreen Masud reviews a performance of Stevie Smith’s poems that conveys the unsettling power of her presence; plus, Paul Muldoon marks 400 years since the birth of Andrew Marvell with a new poem, ‘The Glow-Worm to the Mower’.

Stevie Smith: Black March – Dead Poets Live, filmed at the Wanamaker Playhouse, available on Globe Player until April 5th

Please visit the TLS website to read Mark Mazower’s essay (including bibliography) and to find Paul Muldoon’s poem, as well as those by Angela Leighton and Will Harris.

www.the-tls.co.uk

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Vivian Gornick’s Time Mar 18, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the critic and novelist Claire Lowdon to consider Vivian Gornick, an American writer of essays – on literature, politics, the self – that demonstrate a rare “ability to stand back and look at the world in which she finds herself, and then set it down calmly on paper”; the TLS’s poetry editor Camille Ralphs explores the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and some of the literature that inspired it; plus, libraries under threat (again), Unica Zürn gets her time in the sun, and the three greatest novels of the twenty-first century...so far.

Taking a Long Look: Essays on culture, literature, and feminism in our time by Vivian Gornick

Appendix N: The eldritch roots of Dungeons and Dragons, edited by Peter Bebergal

www.the-tls.co.uk

Producer: Ben Mitchell

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Avoidance and absurdity Mar 11, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Ann Pettifor, the economist and author of ‘The Case for the Green New Deal’, to discuss some inconvenient but incontrovertible truths left out of Bill Gates’s vision of the fight against climate change; Anna Aslanyan on a freewheeling account of the unpredictable life of the twentieth-century German writer Hasso Grabner; plus, re-reading Philip Larkin.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates

Journey through a Tragicomic Century: The Absurd Life of Hasso Grabner, by Francis Nenik, translated by Katy Derbyshire

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Ishiguro’s AI and Grendel’s Mother Mar 04, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Edmund Gordon to review 'Klara and the Sun', Kazuo Ishiguro’s surprisingly hopeful new novel about an Artificial Friend; the world’s first poem about Superman (perhaps) was written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1942 but not published until now, in this week’s TLS – we discuss; and the medievalist Hetta Howes reviews two new translations of 'Beowulf', taking us back to the rich and troubling ambiguities of the original.

Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro

“The Man of To-morrow’s Lament”, a poem by Vladimir Nabokov, with commentary by Andrei Babikov

Beowulf: A new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

Beowulf: In blank verse by Richard Hamer

www.the-tls.co.uk

Producer: Ben Mitchell

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Nostalgia, Outsiders and "Rubber Tramps" Feb 25, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Joyce Carol Oates to talk about the minimalist beauty in the photographs of Walker Evans, and his austere approach to his art. Colin Grant discusses the new film Nomadland, a blend of fact and fiction about US citizens who take to the road when they realize they cannot afford to grow old...and we look through a science fiction dictionary and check up on the latest writing by robots.

Walker Evans: Starting from scratch by Svetlana Alpers

Nomadland, on Hulu - UK release April 2021

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Weapons, Grouse and Red Herrings Feb 18, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Alan Rusbridger, former editor of the Guardian, to discuss the rise of Bellingcat, an investigative body, started in one man’s bedroom in 2014, now able to get to the bottom of even the murkiest global events; Dante, Dante, Dante…. and Anne Weber’s epic of Annette Beaumanoir; and who was Keats’s mysterious Mrs Jones? The biographer Jonathan Bate shares a theory.

We Are Bellingcat: An intelligence agency for the people by Eliot Higgins

Dante by John Took

Annette, Ein Heldinnen Epos / Epic Annette by Anne Weber

‘Cherchez la femme’ – Keats and Mrs Jones, by Jonathan Bate in the TLS

www.the-tls.co.uk

Producer: Ben Mitchell

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Tentatively Pressing Feb 11, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Cal Revely-Calder, who finds that, in Samuel Beckett Studies, jargon and certainty too often crowd out impressions of the work and the importance of ‘knowing what you don’t know’; Alice Wadsworth brings snippets of interest from this week’s TLS, including ‘women who wouldn’t wait’ and Borges in Inverness; and Ruth Scurr on the history of the secretive, ritual-loving Freemasons.

Beckett’s Political Imagination by Emilie Morin

Samuel Beckett and the Visual Arts by Conor Carville

The Craft: How the Freemasons made the modern world, by John Dickie

Producer: Ben Mitchell

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The Barbara Comyns revival Feb 04, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Avril Horner, author of a biography of Barbara Comyns whose quirky, menace-laced novels, long championed by Graham Greene, are finding their way back to us; a new poem by John Kinsella, 'Villanelle of Star-Picket-Hopping Red-Capped Robin'; and En Liang Khong describes the powerful pull – particularly difficult to resist during lockdown – of the fantasy urban landscapes portrayed in video games and anime

Several novels by Barbara Comyns, including: 'Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead', 'Mr Fox', 'Sisters by a River', 'The House of Dolls' and 'The Vet's Daughter'

'The legend and the crazy novelist: Graham Greene’s role in Barbara Comyns’s writing career' by Avril Horner

Virtual Cities: An atlas and exploration of video game cities, by Konstantinos Dimopoulos

Anime Architecture: Imagined worlds and endless megacities, by Stefan Riekeles

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BONUS: David Baddiel - Jews Don't Count Jan 29, 2021

Show notes

The writer and comedian David Baddiel has written a book called 'Jews Don't Count', which explores the insidious, pervasive, exclusionary nature of ‘progressive’ antisemitism. Here, he talks to Toby Lichtig about how and why one of the most persecuted minorities in history continues to be overlooked

'Jews Don't Count' by David Baddiel

Producer: Ben Mitchell

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Borges - Encounters and "Encounters" Jan 28, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by David Gallagher to discuss two new books about Jorge Luis Borges – one a collection of essays and remembrances by the great Latin American writer Mario Vargas Llosa, the other a more curious offering by the American writer and critic Jay Parini; David Baddiel on the insidious, pervasive, exclusionary nature of ‘progressive’ antisemitism; Alice Wadsworth and Lucy Dallas on food podcasts and the French comedy-drama Call My Agent!

Medio siglo con Borges, by Mario Vargas Llosa (published in Spain by Alfaguara)

Borges and Me: An encounter, by Jay Parini

Jews Don't Count by David Baddiel

'The Sporkful' and 'Off Menu' available on podcast platforms

Call My Agent!, Netflix

Producer: Ben Mitchell

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