The TLS Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Morals and mysteries Oct 31, 2019

Show notes

Michael Caines reports on an unprecedented gathering of work by William Hogarth, “replete with a bitter exuberance, folly finely observed and sin satirized”; “Sometimes a dark and stormy night calls for nothing more innovative than a classic chilling tale.” Joanna Scutts considers three new compendiums of the spooky and the macabre; Les Green makes a case for changing the UK's constitution (writing it down in one place being a good start...)

Hogarth: Place and progress, at the Sir John Soane’s Museum, until January 5, 2020

A Quaint and Curious Volume: Tales and poems of the gothic

Women’s Weird: Strange stories by women, 1890–1940, edited by Melissa Edmundson

Promethean Horrors: Classic tales of mad science, edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes

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Magazine love Oct 23, 2019

Show notes

Having asked a selection of writers to nominate their favourite magazines/journals, for a symposium in this week’s TLS, we pick through the results; as Granta turns forty, Alex Clark dives into the magazine’s archives, recently given to the British Library, and emerges clutching gems and old boots (including meeting minutes and evidence of fantasy commissioning); finally, the novelist and translator Lydia Davis talks us through her Thoreau-inspired approach to gardening

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Bernardine Evaristo – winner of the 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction Oct 17, 2019

Show notes

Bernardine Evaristo speaks to the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig about her novel 'Girl, Woman, Other'

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David Greig – revisiting 'Solaris' Oct 17, 2019

Show notes

Having been staged in Edinburgh and Melbourne, David Greig's adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 'Solaris' is now at the Hammersmith Lyric Theatre in London. The TLS's Arts editor Lucy Dallas asks him about returning to this strange story of contact, consciousness and how to avoid using "fremulators" on stage

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Prize controversies Oct 16, 2019

Show notes

As the Nobel in Literature and the Booker Prize break the rules, split opinion, and (probably) boost sales of a few books, a bunch of TLS editors share their thoughts on the whole endeavour of prize-giving (Michael: "you may as well throw a stone..."); Alexander van Tulleken considers 'War Doctor: Surgery on the front line', David Nott's tales from the operating tables, and floors, of war-torn places; as his stage adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 'Solaris' comes to London, David Greig, the artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, talks to the TLS's arts editor Lucy Dallas

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How to grow a human Oct 09, 2019

Show notes

In this bonus edition of the podcast, William Collins have taken over the feed to play a new episode of their podcast, Ideas Matter. In this exclusive extract, science writer Phillip Ball talks to his editor Myles Archibald about the ideas explore in his book, How To Grow A Human.

To subscribe to Ideas Matter and discover more authors by William Collins, click here.

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Patronizing writers of colour Oct 09, 2019

Show notes

As #PublishingSoWhite continues to shame publishers into diversifying their lists, Colin Grant discusses some of the anxieties and complexities beneath the surface; Andrew Motion on why he keeps returning to William Wordsworth; Kate Miller reads a new poem, "Turned-down"

Wordsworth’s Fun by Matthew Bevis

The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and their year of marvels by Adam Nicolson

Wordsworth’s Poetry: 1815–1845 by Tim Fulford

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Scavenger of eternal truths Oct 02, 2019

Show notes

Was the 1960s a good decade for Norman Mailer? Thomas Meaney reconsiders the work; Henry Hitchings on Auberon Waugh, anarcho-snob and master of the "vituperative arts"; Toby Lichtig on the vitality of documentary filmmaking

‘Collected Essays of the 1960s’ and ‘Four Books of the 1960s’ by Norman Mailer

A Scribbler in Soho: A celebration of Auberon Waugh, edited by Naim Attallah

Waugh on Wine, by Auberon Waugh

Say What Happened: A story of documentaries, by Nick Fraser

Open City Documentary Festival – opencitylondon.com

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Unsettled by Sontag Sep 25, 2019

Show notes

Elaine Showalter on the “avid, ardent, driven, generous, narcissistic, Olympian, obtuse, maddening, sometimes loveable but not very likeable” Susan Sontag; Patrice Higonnet goes in search of the real Robespierre; A. N. Wilson cuts through class, aristocracy, family and fantasy in Downton Abbey

Sontag: Her life, by Benjamin Moser

Robespierre: L’homme qui nous divise le plus, by Marcel Gauchet

Downton Abbey (Various cinemas)

Almanach de Gotha 2019, two volumes, edited by John James

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The recipe for superstardom Sep 18, 2019

Show notes

"When future historians study these troubled times, they will marvel at the relentless rise of sea levels, strongman politics and Kardashians." So says Irina Dumitrescu, who joins us to discuss the phenomenon of celebrity, from Sarah Bernhardt to the Kardashian-Jenners; Rafia Zakaria on the murder of the Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch, aka "How I'm looking?" girl; Lamorna Ash on 'Bait', a new film about a timeless clash between them and us, set in a small Cornish fishing village

The Drama of Celebrity by Sharon Marcus

Kardashian Kulture: How celebrities changed life in the 21st century by Ellis Cashmore

Tweenhood: Femininity and celebrity in tween popular culture by Melanie Kennedy

A Woman Like Her: The short life of Qandeel Baloch by Sanam Maher

Bait by Mark Jenkin, in various cinemas

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