London Review Bookshop Podcasts

Sam Contis discusses ‘Dorothea Lange’s Day Sleeper’, the way women photographers are remembered and forgotten and how one artist encounters another in the world and in the archive, with Joanna Biggs, assistant editor at the LRB.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lars Iyer, author of the Spurious trilogy and Wittgenstein Jr. revisits philosophy in his latest novel Nietzsche and the Burbs (Melville House). Set in a modern secondary school, Iyer’s novel follows a group of students through their last few weeks of school, centring on an enigmatic and charismatic recent transferee from private education, nicknamed by his fellow pupils ‘Nietzsche’ both for his brilliance and intimations of oncoming madness. Iyer is currently Reader in Creative Writing at Newcastle University, where he was formerly a long-time lecturer in philosophy.Iyer was in conversation with Jon Day, author of Homing.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In her previous book Strands poet and essayist Jean Sprackland brought lyrically to life the hidden histories of objects found on her local beaches. Now in These Silent Mansions (Jonathan Cape) she brings together a magpie-like collector’s instinct, a historian’s restless curiosity and a poet’s keen sensibility to investigate what graveyards can tell us about both the dead and the living. Revisiting cemeteries in the towns and cities she has over the years called home, she unearths the fascinating, moss-hidden histories of those buried there, and investigates how memory and remembering ties us to the past, the present and the future.Sprackland was in conversation with Chris McCabe, a writer who has travelled extensively through the graveyards of London in books such as Cenotaph South, In the Catacombs and most recently, The East Edge.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Anne Enright’s latest novel Actress (Cape) tells the story of the relationship between Irish theatre legend Katherine O'Dell and her daughter Norah, as told by Norah herself. Early stardom in Hollywood, triumphs and tragedies on the stages of Dublin and London, and a career unravelling into infamy and eventual insanity are vividly evoked in a brilliant novel about mothers, daughters, secrets and the corrosiveness of fame.Anne Enright, author of six previous novels including Booker-winning The Gathering was in conversation with Andrew O’Hagan, editor-at-large for the LRB and author of many works of fiction and non-fiction, most recently The Secret Life: Three True Stories (Faber).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Leïla Slimani was the first Moroccan woman to win France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for her novel Lullaby. Her latest book Sex and Lies (Faber) departs from fiction to explore the lives of and give a voice to the young women of Morocco, struggling to survive and thrive in a deeply conservative, patriarchal culture.Slimani was in conversation about her work with Professor Amia Srinivasan, tutorial fellow in Philosophy at Oxford and contributing editor at the LRB, where she has published articles on, inter alia, sexual politics, sharks and octopuses.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

By day, Julia Ebner works at a counter-extremism think tank, monitoring radical groups from the outside, but two years ago, she began to feel that she was only seeing half the picture. She needed to get inside the groups to truly understand them. So she decided to go undercover in her spare time - late nights, holidays, weekends - adopting five different identities, and joining a dozen extremist groups from across the ideological spectrum including White Supremacists, ISIS, German Neo-Nazis, ‘Trad Wives’ and ‘Jihadi Brides’. The results of her research are presented in Going Dark (Bloomsbury), and give us a terrifying and essential insight into the mindset of extremism and the motives and strategies of its adherents.She was in conversation with Daniel Trilling, author of Bloody Nasty People and Lights in the Distance.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Like Beethoven, the poet Ruth Padel first came to love and understand music through playing the viola. Her great grandfather, a concert pianist, studied music in Leipzig with Beethoven’s friend and contemporary. Her latest collection Beethoven Variations (Chatto) is simultaneously a biography in verse of the great composer and a passionate and highly personal account of how one creative genius can feed, and feed on, another.She was joined in an evening of readings and conversation about Beethoven, poetry and music by poets Raymond Antrobus and Anthony Anaxagorou, both of whom are currently engaged in creative projects working on and from the life and work of Beethoven.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Will Harris reads from his debut collection RENDANG, alongside poet and editor Rachael Allen.Find out about upcoming events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/bookshopeventspod  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The writer Samantha Harvey has won wide acclaim and a devoted following for her novels, most recently The Western Wind, set in mediavel Somerset. In her latest book The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping (Cape) she turns to philosophical memoir, with an account of a bout of insomnia that afflicted her from out of the blue, and led her to re-examine many of her assumptions about life, about writing, and about the human mind.She was in conversation about her work with novelist Tessa Hadley, who has described The Shapeless Unease as ‘gritty with particulars, concrete and substantial even when it is most philosophical and far-reaching … What a beautiful book.’Find out about upcoming events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/bookshopeventspod  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the period between the wars nearby Mecklenburgh Square was home to many artists, writers and radicals. In a stunning work of rediscovery Francesca Wade focuses on five remarkable women who lived there: the modernist poet and visionary H.D; crime writer and translator of Dante Dorothy L. Sayers; classicist Jane Harrison; economic historian Eileen Power; and writer and publisher Virginia Woolf. Co-editor of the White Review, Francesca Wade’s articles have appeared in the LRB, TLS, Financial Times, Prospect and New Statesman. Square Haunting is her first full-length book and is published by Faber.She was in conversation with Alexandra Harris, whose books include Romantic Moderns and Weatherland.Find out about upcoming events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/bookshopeventspod  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alexander Zevin's Liberalism at Large (Verso) is the first critical biography of the Economist newspaper, which, since 1843, has been the most tireless – and internationally influential – champion of the liberal cause anywhere in the world. But what exactly is liberalism, and how has its message evolved?Zevin presents a history of liberalism on the move, confronting the challenges that classical doctrine left unresolved – the rise of democracy, the expansion of empire, the ascendancy of finance – holding a mirror to the politics and personalities that helped shape a liberal world order now under increasing strain. Zevin was in conversation with Tariq Ali.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Observer called Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy ‘a landmark in twenty-first century English literature, the culmination of an artist’s unshakeable efforts to forge her own path’. The essays in her latest book Coventry explore other writers who forged their own path – among them Natalia Ginzburg, Olivia Manning and D.H. Lawrence – and wider themes political, personal and ethical. The discussion focussed on the themes that she has explored in her impressive body of work to date: the thinking and philosophy that have driven her to these positions, how her thinking is evolving and the new challenges that she is exploring. Cusk was in conversation with Chris Power, author of Mothers (Faber and Faber). Rachel Cusk is the author of the trilogy Outline, Transit, Kudos; the memoirs A Life’s Work, The Last Supper and Aftermath; and several other novels: Saving Agnes (winner of the Whitbread Award), The Temporary, The Country Life (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), The Lucky Ones, In the Fold, *Arlington Park* an

One of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, Susan Sontag’s writing – on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism, Fascism, Freudianism, Communism and Americanism – forms an indispensable guide to our modern world. Benjamin Moser’s Sontag: Her Life is the first biography based on exclusive access to her restricted archive, providing fascinating insights into both the public myth and private life of an endlessly complex individual. Moser was at the shop to discuss Sontag’s life and legacy with Lara Feigel, author of Free Woman: Life, Liberation and Doris Lessing.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Long regarded as one of the world’s leading pianists, Stephen Hough is also a fine and perceptive writer, whose first novel was published last year. Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More (Faber) brings together around 200 of his short essays, many of which began as notes made ‘during that dead time on the road’ that is the lot of the international performer – at airports, on planes and in hotel rooms. In these ‘jottings’, Hough ranges widely over all aspects of music and musical life, as well as people and places, art and literature, religion and ethics. Hough was in conversation with James Jolly, Editor-in-Chief of Gramophone magazine.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In her latest book, Astra Taylor – ‘a rare public intellectual, utterly committed to asking humanity’s most profound questions yet entirely devoid of pretensions’ (Naomi Klein) – argues that democracy is not just in crisis, but that real democracy, inclusive and egalitarian, has never existed. Democracy May Not Exist but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone (Verso) aims to re-examine what we mean by democracy, what we want from it, and understand why it is so hard to realise. Taylor was in conversation with David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs and Professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Diane Williams’s short (most of them very short) stories have been captivating literary audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for the last three decades. Ben Marcus, in his introduction to The Collected Stories, has described them as ‘fictions of perfect strangeness’, adding that they ‘prize enigma and the uncanny above all else.’ Williams read from her work, and was in conversation with Lara Pawson, formerly the BBC’s correspondent in Angola and author of This is the Place to Be (CB Editions).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Celia Paul, born in India in 1959 and now resident in Bloomsbury is widely regarded as one of the most important artists working in Britain today. Following a passionate affair with painter Lucian Freud and figuring in several of his canvases she emerged as an immensely talented painter, initially focussing on intimate depictions of family life before more recently turning to the broader scale of landscape and sea-scape. Her memoir Self-Portrait (Jonathan Cape) is an invaluable first-hand account of the trials and rewards of making great art, and has been described by Esther Freud as ‘An insight into the white-knuckle determination needed to make great art, and why it is so few women painters reach the heights. An astoundingly honest book, moving and engrossing – full of truths.’ Paul was in conversation about her work with curator and art writer Catherine Lampert.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Something strange has happened to truth in the past few years. Politicians, marketeers, Twitterists and others seem to have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if what they say is true as long as some people believe it (and even that doesn’t seem to matter all that much sometimes). In his latest book This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality (Faber) intrepid investigative reporter Peter Pomerantsev travels the world, from China to Russia to Syria to the Balkans and to Brexit Britain in an often surprising investigation of why we can no longer believe what we say, or say what we believe. Peter Pomerantsev was in conversation with Guardian columnist Marina Hyde and Carl Miller, author of The Death of the Gods.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the first emancipated generation of black women in the USA were obliged, sometimes enabled and often hindered in creating new ways of living after the abolition of slavery. In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments (Profile), Professor Saidiya Hartman tells the inspiring and surprising stories of these pioneers, whose discoveries about how to be in the world have been followed and emulated by people, black, white, gay, straight, cis, trans and other, ever since. Hartman was in conversation about her work with writer and activist Lola Olufemi.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jorge Galán’s extraordinary non-fiction novel Noviembre, now published in an English translation by Jason Wilson as November, recounts the horrifying murder of six Jesuit priests and two women during the Salvadorian civil war in 1989, dealing both with its aftermath and the complex political situation from which the atrocity arose. Its original publication in Spanish led to death threats against the author which forced Galán to flee his native country. Galán was in conversation with journalist Mark Dowd who has written widely and produced several documentaries on the relationship between religion and human rights. The interpreter was Cecilia Lipovseck from [Multilateral London][2]. This event is made possible by the generous support of Instituto Cervantes and Elisabeth Hayek.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.