The TLS Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Delicate Matters Jan 21, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Clifford Thompson to discuss One Night in Miami, a film by Regina King, which sees Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Cassius Clay gather for heated debate; from exclusivity and luxury in imperial China to cheap ubiquity in modern day Europe, Norma Clarke considers the rise and fall of porcelain; plus, a new poem by Anne Carson, “Sure, I Was Loved”

One Night in Miami, dir. Regina King

The City of Blue and White: Chinese porcelain and the early modern world by Anne Gerritsen

Porcelain: A history from the heart of Europe by Suzanne L . Marchand

“Sure, I Was Loved” by Anne Carson, in this week’s TLS

Producer: Ben Mitchell

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Epiphanies and Kidneys Jan 14, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the TLS's Classics editor Mary Beard, who, via an old exam paper, emphasizes the importance of teaching Classics in context (Q1: "Dryads, Hyads, Naiads, Oreads, Pleiads … Does 'Classical influence' in modern poetry always come down to snobbery and elitism?”); Zachary Leader reports on the latest offerings from the Joyce Industry; and Jane O'Grady considers how the Enlightenment undid itself.

James Joyce and the Matter Of Paris, by Catherine Flynn

James Joyce and the Jesuits, by Michael Mayo

Panepiphanal World: James Joyce’s epiphanies, by Sangam Macduff

The Enlightenment: The pursuit of happiness 1680–1790, by Ritchie Robertson

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This is Pakistan Jan 07, 2021

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the Karachi-based journalist Sanam Maher to discuss cliché and originality in foreign correspondents' writing on Pakistan; a whistle-stop tour through (some) of the books of 2021; Lucy Scholes reviews a clutch of novels in the British Library's Women Writers series, dedicated to once-popular writers

The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a divided nation, by Declan Walsh

O, the Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn Smith

The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair

Chatterton Square by E. H. Young

Father by Elizabeth Von Arnim

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Jacques Tati’s Serious Gags Dec 17, 2020

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the critic Muriel Zagha to marvel at a five-volume, “definitive” study of the iconic French filmmaker Jacques Tati, every aspect of whose apparently chaotic cinematic universe was controlled to the nth degree; Calum Mechie considers some new approaches to the life and legacy of George Orwell; and – “Can we take it? Can Dickens take it?” – ’tis the season for adaptations of A Christmas Carol…

The Definitive Jacques Tati, edited by Alison Castle

On Nineteen Eighty-Four: A biography by D. J. Taylor

Orwell: A man of our time by Richard Bradford

Becoming George Orwell: Life and letters, legend and legacy, by John Rodden

Eileen: The making of George Orwell, by Sylvia Topp

Subscribe to The TLS at https://www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/

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Stalin, little and large Dec 10, 2020

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Toby Lichtig are joined by Stephen Lovell, Professor of Modern History at King’s College London, to discuss two important biographies of Joseph Stalin, covering the opposite ends of the dictator’s life; the debate around the official Home Office history of Britain, a document full of omissions and riddled with errors, rolls on; and can a book make you a better person? Can even the high modernists be mined for lessons in life? Joanna Scutts considers the relationship between 'serious' literature and self-help.

Stalin: Passage to revolution by Ronald Grigor Suny

Late Stalinism: The aesthetics of politics by Evgeny Dobrenko, translated by Jesse M. Savage

The Self-Help Compulsion: Searching for advice in modern literature, by Beth Blum

Reading for Life by Philip Davis

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Beethoven at 250 Dec 03, 2020

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Paul Griffiths, the author most recently of the novel Mr Beethoven, to discuss the heroic oeuvre of the great composer, 250 years after his birth; Joseph Farrell takes us through the life and work of Gianni Rodari, a kind of Italian George Orwell transplanted to Neverland.

Selected books:

Beethoven's Conversation Books, translated and edited by Theodore Albrecht

Beethoven's Lives by Lewis Lockwood

Beethoven: A Life by Jan Caeyers

Beethoven: A life in nine pieces, by Laura Tunbridge

– read the full piece here

Telephone Tales, by Gianni Rodari, translated by Antony Shugaar

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BONUS: 2020 Booker Prize Winner - Douglas Stuart Nov 27, 2020

Show notes

In this special bonus episode, the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig talks to Douglas Stuart about his 2020 Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain

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Neither Victims nor Perpetrators Nov 26, 2020

Show notes

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Colin Grant, the author of Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush generation, to discuss Small Axe, a series of films by Steve McQueen that centres on Black British life between the 1960s and 80s; and the author and musician Wesley Stace tells the story of the “real” James Bond, a celebrated ornithologist whose "dull" name was poached by Ian Fleming.

Plus, the TLS's Fiction editor Toby Lichtig talks to Douglas Stuart, the winner of this year’s Booker Prize for fiction

Small Axe, BBC One, BBC iPlayer

Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart

The Real James Bond: A true story of identity theft, avian intrigue and Ian Fleming, by Jim Wright

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Gagged with Ashes Nov 19, 2020

Show notes

Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Mark Glanville to mark the centenary of the birth of Paul Celan, probably the most important post-war German-language poet, by revisiting the early poems in light of his later transformation; and Margaret Drabble considers the literature of urban walking, via the fiction of G. K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells and other metropolitan ramblers.

Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The collected earlier poetry: A bilingual edition, translated by Pierre Joris

Microliths They Are, Little Stones: Posthumous prose, translated by Pierre Joris

Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan, by Jean Daive, translated by Rosmarie Waldrop

The Walker: On finding and losing yourself in the modern city, by Matthew Beaumont

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Books of the Year 2020 Nov 12, 2020

Show notes

Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by two TLS editors, David Horspool and Toby Lichtig, to discuss books that have sustained and stimulated over the past twelve months, as selected by sixty-five writers from around the world; and we discuss the controversy surrounding a long-awaited statue of – or "for" – Mary Wollstonecraft.

Read the TLS's Books of the Year feature here [https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/books-of-the-year-2020/]

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