The TLS Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The life-writing issue Apr 24, 2019

Show notes

Ruth Scurr on the master biographer Robert A. Caro, whose subjects include Robert Moses, Lyndon B. Johnson and, now, himself; Dmitri Levitin talks us through Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, an eccentric and often inaccurate guide to early thinkers; Why bother with literary criticism? Whither this generation's Lionel Trilling? Michael LaPointe joins us to discuss

Working: Researching, interviewing, writing by Robert A. Caro

American Audacity: In defense of literary daring by William Giraldi

Hater: On the virtues of utter disagreeability by John Semley

Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius, translated by Pamela Mensch

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As we like it Apr 17, 2019

Show notes

There is only one author to whom the TLS devotes an issue every year: William Shakespeare. Michael Caines talks us through the latest theories, research and reviews; Ian McEwan discusses his new novel, Machines Like Me

‘Still a giddy neighbour’ – Shakespeare’s parish in the 1590s, by Geoffrey Marsh, the TLS

The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage: Cultures of interpretation in Renaissance England, edited by Thomas Fulton and Kristen Poole

Believing in Shakespeare: Studies in longing, by Claire McEachern

Religious Conversion in Early Modern English Drama, by Lieke Stelling

What Blest Genius?: The Jubilee that made Shakespeare, by Andrew McConnell Stott

Shakespeare’s Rise to Cultural Prominence: Politics, print and alteration, 1642–1700, by Emma Depledge

Shakespeare: The theatre of our world, by Peter Conrad

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (Cape)

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Ian McEwan – an interview Apr 17, 2019

Show notes

The novelist discusses his new book Machines Like Me with the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig

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Youth injustice system Apr 10, 2019

Show notes

Shauneen Lambe on ephibiphobia, fear of the teenager, and why we get youth justice wrong; Alice Bloch considers new possibilities at the frontiers of sex and robotics; George Berridge explains why now is the time to take out shares in the novelist Max Porter

Why Children Follow Rules: Legal socialization and the development of legitimacy by Tom R. Tyler and Rick Trinkner

James Garbarino

Miller’s Children: Why giving teenage killers a second chance matters for all of us by James Garbarino

Turned On: Science, sex and robots by Kate Devlin

Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, adapted by Enda Walsh (Barbican Theatre, before heading to New York)

Lanny by Max Porter

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Whitechapel and Weimar Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

Anna Picard discusses the problems of subject matter and sensationalism in the new opera Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel; Anna Vaux talks us through the Bauhaus school and its global influence, as well as Lucian Freud's compulsion to create and control

Books

Jack the Ripper:The Women of Whitechapel by Iain Bell, ENO, until April 12

Walter Gropius: Visionary founder of the Bauhaus by Fiona MacCarthy

Josef Albers: Life and work by Charles Darwent

Lucian Freud by Martin Gayford

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A deep history of Europe Mar 28, 2019

Show notes

Richard Fortey takes us on an energetic sprint through 65 million years of Europe's complex biological history; David Robey introduces the life and work of Emilio Salgari, the Italian Rider Haggard; Ella Baron, the TLS's regular cartoonist, discusses her work, including this week's European cover.

Books

Europe: A natural history by Tim Flannery

Emilio Salgari: Una mitologia moderna tra letteratura, politica, società (volumes I and II) by Ann Lawson Lucas

Ella Baron's work will be exhibited at Christie's in London, from April 5 to 10

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Forgotten, not gone Mar 21, 2019

Show notes

Carol Tavris considers new approaches to the old problem of old age (and the newer problem of old old age); as secularism wanes on the global scale, Rupert Shortt considers whether religion does more harm than good

Books

Bolder: Making the most of our longer lives by Carl Honoré

Borrowed Time: The science of how and why we age by Sue Armstrong

Retirement and Its Discontents: Why we won’t stop working, even if we can by Michelle Pannor Silver

Women Rowing North: Navigating life’s currents and flourishing as we age by Mary Pipher

On the Brink of Everything: Grace, gravity and getting old by Parker J. Palmer

This Chair Rocks: A manifesto against ageism by Ashton Applewhite

Does Religion do More Harm than Good? by Rupert Shortt

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Dave Eggers: The violations start with us Mar 14, 2019

Show notes

“What we often forget in the daily drumbeat of abuses by the dominant tech companies is our complicity in these abuses, and in the fundamental and unsettling ways the internet has changed every one of us.”

As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enters its seventieth anniversary, Dave Eggers, in the 2018 PEN H. G. Wells lecture, argues that urgent amendments are needed to mitigate the corrosive effects of technology on the societal and the personal. You can read an edited extract from the lecture on the TLS website.

This is a recording of an event that took place on December 16, 2018, at the Bridge Theatre, London.

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O, the Edward Gorey of it all Mar 14, 2019

Show notes

Phil Baker guides us through the morbid, wistful and yet immensely charming world of the writer and illustrator Edward Gorey; Frances Wilson weighs the pleasures and pains of letter and email writing; Ian Sansom on the struggle to be funny

Books

Born To Be Posthumous: The eccentric life and mysterious genius of Edward Gorey, by Mark Dery

What a Hazard a Letter Is: The strange destiny of the unsent letter, by Caroline Atkins

Written In History: Letters that changed the world, by Simon Sebag Montefiore

In Their Own Words: Volume 2: More letters from history

Wit's End: What wit is, how it works, and why we need it, by James Geary

Messing About In Quotes: A little Oxford dictionary of humorous quotations, compiled by Gyles Brandreth

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A nose is a nose is a nose… Mar 07, 2019

Show notes

David Coward celebrates the 400th anniversary of the birth of Cyrano de Bergerac, whose radical thought has long been obscured by his protuberant nose; Muriel Zagha on Molière, France’s most famous playwright, and a bold new adaptation of Tartuffe; finally, a poem by Stephen Knight: “Rail Replacement Bus Service” (sigh)

Molière’s ‘Tartuffe’, a new version by John Donnelly, at the National Theatre, London

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