London Review Bookshop Podcasts

One Lark, One Horse is Michael Hofmann’s first new collection of poetry for almost two decades, and more than justifies the wait; Stephen Romer writes that Hofmann has given us ‘a handle on our own helplessness, our fecklessness and unease’, and George Szirtes more succinctly has described his writing as ‘a poetry of nerves’. He read from the new collection, and talked about it with Declan Ryan, whose pamphlet in the Faber New Poets series was published in 2014.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Spring, the third instalment of her seasonal quartet, Ali Smith continues her unique investigation into our country’s past present and future, uniting Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times and a woman trapped in modern times by means of an extended riff on Shakespeare’s least read and most troubling play Pericles. The second book in the series Winter was described by Stephanie Merritt as ‘luminously beautiful.’ She read from its sequel, and discussed it with author and critic Erica Wagner.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We hosted the shortlisted authors for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2019 in an evening of readings at the London Review Bookshop. Rewarding the most exciting and interesting literature published by small presses in the UK and Ireland, the Republic of Consciousness Prize has previously been awarded to John Keene (Counternarratives, Fitzcarraldo Editions) and Eley Williams (Attrib. and other stories, Influx Press). This year’s shortlist of six is: Daša Drndić for Doppelgänger, (Istros), Will Eaves for Murmur (CB Editions), Wendy Erskine for Sweet Home (Stinging Fly), Anthony Joseph for Kitch (Peepal Tree), Chris McCabe for Dedalus (Henningham Family Press) and Alex Pheby for Lucia (Galley Beggar). Sadly, Daša Drndić died last year, but was represented at the readings by her publisher and translator. See the full shortlist here. The readings were introduced by the prize’s founder, Neil Griffiths. The Republic of Consciousness Prize was set up in 2017, and is given yearly to a book published by a small pres

Tessa Hadley's new novel Late in the Day (Jonathan Cape) addresses loss, friendship and lives unmoored. Hilary Mantel says, ‘The lives of two close-knit couples are irrevocably changed by an untimely death in the latest novel from Tessa Hadley, the acclaimed novelist and short story master who ‘recruits admirers with every book’.' Hadley was in conversation with Alex Clark of the Guardian.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Dreams of Leaving and Remaining (Verso), novelist, journalist, essayist and contributing editor to the LRB James Meek anatomises the fractured body of our nation as it approaches one of the most momentous junctures in its post-war history. In a series of frontline reports and interviews from every corner of the island, he talks to remainers, leavers, undecideds and don’t-cares. He was in conversation about his discoveries with Chris Bickerton, Reader in Modern European Politics at the University of Cambridge.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chloe Aridjis’s third novel Sea Monsters (Chatto), set in Mexico in the late 1980s, describes the elopement of Mexico City schoolgirl with a boy she barely knows, in search of freedom, independence and rather more oddly, a troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs who have recently escaped from a Soviet travelling circus. Aridjis was at the shop to read from and talk about her new book, described by Garth Greenwell as ‘mesmerizing, revelatory … a profound and poetic tool for navigating our shared world.’ Aridjis was in conversation with Juliet Jacques.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Édouard Louis, one of France’s most acclaimed young writers, shot to international fame with his first novel, the semi-autobiographical End of Eddy. His latest book Who Killed My Father (Harvill Secker) revisits many of the same locations and subjects — poverty, homophobia and social exclusion — in non-fictional essay form, and is a powerful polemic exploring the bonds, often persistent even when apparently sundered, between parent and child. He discussed his work with Kerry Hudson, a novelist and journalist whose own work, notably in her first novel Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma and in her forthcoming non-fiction work Lowborn, also investigates with wit and candour the outer and inner lives of the often neglected working class.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fiona Benson’s Vertigo & Ghost (Jonathan Cape), the follow-up to her award-winning 2014 debut Bright Travellers, is one of the most hotly-anticipated poetry collections of 2019. Its harrowing central sequence is a retelling of Greek myth, depicting Zeus as a serial rapist; other poems, including the Forward-shortlisted ‘Ruins’, engage with depression, female sexuality and early motherhood. Fiona was in conversation with Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under (Jonathan Cape), shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Things fall apart when empires crumble. Rediscovery of past glories is attempted again and again, until eventually those living in what was once the heart of the empire become reconciled with their fate. Many of the British are not yet reconciled. A major cause of Brexit was a stoked-up fear of immigrants, but Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire (Biteback Publishing) argues that at its heart the rhetoric of Brexit was the playing out of older school curricula that had been dominated by empire. Brexit was led by people, almost all men, who mostly had fond memories of something that never was as great as they believed it to be. Co-authors Danny Dorling and Sally Tomlinson were in conversation. The conversation was chaired by writer and researcher Maya Goodfellow.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First published by Irish independent Tramp Press, Emilie Pine’s Notes to Self became a phenomenal word-of-mouth bestseller. Now picked up on this side of the water by Hamish Hamilton, Pine’s debut collection of autobiographical essays is a poignant, radically honest and fiercely intelligent account of the pains and joys of living as a woman in the 21st Century. She was in conversation with Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Lanchester’s new novel, The Wall, is a Kafkaesque nightmare whose richly-imagined world is very different from our own and yet all too familiar. Like 2012’s Capital (recently made into a TV series starring Toby Jones), Lanchester speaks to our contemporary preoccupations with an unnerving exactness. Keith Miller, reviewing Capital, noted that, ‘like Balzac, Lanchester has the brains to relate the particular to the general; the ruthlessness to make bad things happen to good people; the steadiness of hand to draw unpalatable conclusions’. Lanchester was in conversation with Daniel Soar, editor at the LRB.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After the disintegration of the most significant relationship of his life, the demons Luke Turner has been battling since childhood are quick to return - depression and guilt surrounding his identity as a bisexual man, experiences of sexual abuse, and the religious upbringing that was the cause of so much confusion. It is among the trees of London's Epping Forest where he seeks refuge. But once a place of comfort, it now seems full of unexpected, elusive threats that trigger twisted reactions. Turner was in conversation with Olivia Laing (*Crudo*; *The Lonely City*).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Simon Garfield – 'The schoolteacher who made the time fly, a one-man Blue Peter team for intelligent adults, a great British explainer’, according to the Observer – is never less, and usually much more, than entertaining. He was at the shop to talk about his latest book In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate The World, published by Canongate, and was in conversation with Andy Miller, presenter of Backlisted podcast and author of The Year of Reading Dangerously.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Man Booker International-shortlisted novelist Mathias Enard, 'the most brazenly lapel-grabbing French author since Michel Houellebecq', returns with Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants (tr. Charlotte Mandell), his fourth novel to appear in English after Zone, Street of Thieves and Compass. In 1506, Michelangelo – a young but already renowned sculptor – is invited by the sultan of Constantinople to design a bridge over the Golden Horn. Michelangelo, after some hesitation, flees Rome and an irritated Pope Julius II – whose commission he leaves unfinished – and arrives in Constantinople. Constructed from real historical fragments, Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants is a thrilling novella about why stories are told, why bridges are built, and how seemingly unmatched pieces, seen from the opposite sides of civilization, can mirror one another. Enard was in conversation with Elif Shafak.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After the death of her partner of thirty-two years, Lisa Appignanesi was thrust into a state striated by rage and superstition in which sanity felt elusive. In Everyday Madness (4th Estate) Appignanesi explores her own and society’s experience of grieving, the effects of loss and the potent, mythical space it occupies in our lives. Appignanesi was in conversation with Lara Feigel, author of Free Woman (Bloomsbury).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Peak Inequality: Britain’s Ticking Time Bomb Danny Dorling presents the evidence that in 2018 the growth in UK income inequality may have finally peaked. Inequality began growing in the 1970s and the damaging repercussions may continue long after the peak is passed. There will be speculation and a little futurology. Danny was in conversation with Faiza Shaheen, director of the think tank CLASS and former Head of Inequality and Sustainable Development at Save the Children UK. Faiza recently explained that the rich, like viruses, also develop resistance, in their case to redistributive taxes. They use their wealth and power to carve out tax loopholes and lower tax rates. Their fortunes balloon. Inequality grows. In which case why should inequality peak now?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Does the West’s obsession with Vladimir Putin prevent it from genuinely understanding Russia? In Russia Without Putin (Verso), LRB contributor and Russophile Tony Wood argues that the core features of Putinism—a predatory, authoritarian elite presiding over a vastly unequal society—are integral to the system set in place after the fall of Communism, a legacy of Yeltsinism rather than a resurgence of Soviet authoritarianism. Tony Wood was in conversation with James Meek, LRB Contributing Editor and author of Private Island (Verso).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

‘Like Björk and FKA Twigs, Norwegian artist Jenny Hval presents a version of female sexuality in which carnal impulses, anxieties and the female/male perspective are often knotted together.’ The Guardian As a musician and artist, Jenny Hval is renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery, and in her debut novel, Paradise Rot (Verso) she presents a hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire, where the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh. ‘As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician,’ says Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick, ‘Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder.’ Hval was in conversation with Laura Snapes, deputy music editor at the Guardian.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What is it about the particularities of painting that has allowed artists to explore, in a variety of ways and with a sometimes surprising degree of freedom, the vexed relations between the mundane and the celestial? In his latest book Heaven on Earth (Thames and Hudson) art historian T.J. Clark draws on examples from Giotto to Picasso to provide an exciting new history of the depiction of the divine. Professor Clark will be in conversation with LRB contributing editor Jeremy Harding.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Living With Buildings (Profile), Iain Sinclair embarks on a series of expeditions – through London, Marseille, Mexico and the Outer Hebrides. He explores the relationship between sickness and structure, and between art, architecture, social planning and health, taking plenty of detours along the way. Walking is Sinclair's defensive magic against illness and, as he moves, he observes his surroundings: stacked tower blocks and behemoth estates; halogen-lit glasshouse offices and humming hospitals; the blackened hull of a Spitalfields church and the floating mass of Le Corbusier's radiant city. Sinclair was in conversation with Patrick Wright, Professor of Literature and Visual & Material Culture, Kings College London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.