The TLS Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Apples and oranges in space Jan 02, 2020

Show notes

Sam Graydon grapples with quantum physics and the subatomic world; Elaine Showalter considers the 'startlingly racy, contradictory, emblematic' E. Nesbit, the 'first modern writer for children'; Which out-of-print books should be back in circulation and why? Roz Dineen presents the results of a TLS symposium

Books

Six Impossible Things: The ‘quanta of solace’ and the mysteries of the subatomic world, by John Gribbin

Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The search for what lies beyond the quantum, by Lee Smolin

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit: Author of ‘The Railway Children’, by Eleanor Fitzsimons

The Extraordinary Life of E. Nesbit: Author of ‘Five Children and It’ and ‘The Railway Children’, by Elisabeth Galvin

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The decade that was Dec 19, 2019

Show notes

TLS editors gather to consider some of the decade’s major cultural shifts and events, with specialist insights from Mary Beard on academia, Beejay Silcox on fiction and Zoe Williams on gender

Go to the-tls.co.uk for the full twelve-page retrospective.

For the competition, Barbican membership Terms and Conditions can be found here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/join-support/membership#faqs. The competition closes December 31, 2019. Good luck.

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Haunted by Miss Austen Dec 12, 2019

Show notes

A newly discovered, pseudonymously signed mock-letter to the editor of 'The Lady’s Magazine' in 1823 tells the story of a wannabe writer who is visited by the "gentle spirit of Miss Austen". Not only might the letter offer new information on what Austen might actually have been like, says Devoney Looser, it is also the first piece of Jane Austen-inspired fan fiction; Anna Picard discusses the poet Anne Boyer’s memoir of modern illness and considers the intersections of literature and cancer; Jonathan Lynn shares memories of adventures with his cousin Oliver Sacks

For more on the Jane Austen story, go to www.the-tls.co.uk

'The Undying: Pain, vulnerability, mortality, medicine, art, time, dreams, data, exhaustion, cancer, and care' by Anne Boyer

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The Iron Lady and the judo politician Dec 05, 2019

Show notes

Norma Clarke considers the third and final volume of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher; having spent the past twenty years reporting on Russia, Owen Matthews tries to put his finger on why Vladimir Putin may prove to be one of the most successful political leaders of our era

Books

The Code of Putinism by Brian Taylor

Putin’s World: Russia against the West and with the rest by Angela Stent

The Putin System: An opposing view by Grigory Yavlinsky

Kremlin Winter: Russia and the second coming of Vladimir Putin by Robert Service

The Return of the Russian Leviathan by Sergei Medvedev, translated by Stephen Dalziel

We Need To Talk about Putin: How the West gets him wrong by Mark Galeotti

Dealing with the Russians by Andrew Monaghan

Putin v. the People: The perilous politics of a divided Russia by Samuel A. Greene and Graeme B. Robertson

Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The path from market economy to kleptocracy by Anders Åslund

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Books of the Year, 2019 Nov 28, 2019

Show notes

It's that time again... TLS contributors and editors share recommendations from a year of reading

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Hallie Rubenhold – an interview Nov 28, 2019

Show notes

The author of 'The Five: The untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper', which won the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, speaks to Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi

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Elizabeth Strout – an interview Nov 21, 2019

Show notes

Just over ten years since introducing readers to a frustrated maths teacher called Oliver Kitteridge, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout reprises the character in a new novel, ‘Olive, Again’. Here, Strout talks to the TLS’s Roz Dineen about the craft of writing, why Olive has returned, and ageing on the page

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Two phat ladies Nov 21, 2019

Show notes

“Apart from capitalism itself, is there any cultural and economic manifestation in the world today as ubiquitous, powerful and globalized as football?” John Foot assesses two new studies of the game; just over ten years ago, Elizabeth Strout introduced readers to a frustrated maths teacher called Olive Kitteridge. The novelist speaks to Roz Dineen about bringing Olive back onto the scene; the famously over-the-top cookery show ‘Two Fat Ladies’ last graced our television screens twenty years ago. Anna Girling celebrates the legacy of this unlikely union

‘The Age of Football: The global game in the twenty-first century’ by David Goldblatt

‘Ultra: The underworld of Italian football’ by Tobias Jones

‘Olive, Again’ by Elizabeth Strout

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How to read Nov 14, 2019

Show notes

TLS editors talk about Virginia Woolf's writing for the TLS, as we publish a collection of the reviews she wrote for us over a period of thirty years; on the eve of George Eliot's bicentennial, Rosemary Ashton talks about how she came to conclusions, moral and otherwise, in her novels; Caryn Rose sees Bruce Springsteen's new film and looks over his 'storied fifty-year career'

Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on How to Read by Virginia Woolf

Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen, edited by Jonathan D. Cohen and June Skinner Sawyers

Western Stars by Bruce Springsteen

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Cold War machinations Nov 07, 2019

Show notes

Sarah Lonsdale recounts how writers became enmeshed in national struggles; Jane Yager tells the surprising story of DIY punk in the DDR; we talk to Robert Potts about the pleasures of reading John le Carré ("I was never happier than when I was reading John le Carré")

Cold Warriors: Writers who waged the literary Cold War, by Duncan White

Burning Down the Haus: Punk rock, revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall, by Tim Mohr

Agent Running in the Field by John le Carré

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