London Review Bookshop Podcasts

Margo Jefferson talks to Colin Grant about her latest book, Constructing a Nervous System. It’s a memoir unlike any other, taking as its focus each ‘influence, love and passion’ which have gone to shape Jefferson as a person: her family, musicians, dancers, athletes and artists, and one which, in Maggie Nelson’s words, ‘takes vital risks, tosses away rungs of the ladder as it climbs’. Vivian Gornick describes it as ‘one of the most imaginative – and therefore moving – memoirs I have ever read’.Find our upcoming events, online and in-person, here: lrb.me/upcomingevents See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kate Folk's debut collection of short stories, Out There, combines science fiction, horror and psychological realism to explore the Kafkaesque precarities of social media and late capitalism: a house viscerally consumes its tenants, a curtain of void envelops the world, an army of AI chatbots is unleashed on the dating apps of San Francisco. Folk read from the book and was in conversation with Sharon Horgan, creator and star of the much-loved Channel 4 series Pulling and Catastrophe, who is working with Folk on adapting the collection's title story for television. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Written in 1954 but unpublished until after her death, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Inseparables is an intimate portrait, based on life, of female friendship on the cusp of womanhood. Its translator into English Lauren Elkin writes in her introductory note ‘“So is it any good?” people have asked me when I’ve told them I’m translating a ‘lost’ novel by Simone de Beauvoir … And I am relieved to say: yes. It is more than good. It is poignant, chilling and eviscerating.’Elkin, author of Flâneuse and No. 91/92: Notes on a Parisian Commute was in conversation with novelist and essayist Deborah Levy who has contributed an introduction to the UK edition. The event was chaired by Alice McCrum, programs manager at the American Library in Paris. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Back in March 2018 Iranian-born Kaveh Akbar launched his debut collection Calling a Wolf a Wolf with us at the bookshop. He joined us again in digital form, for his second, Pilgrim Bell (Chatto), a rich and moving collection which explores issues of ambivalence around ethnicity, national identity and religious belief. He read a selection from his work, and discussed it with Seán Hewitt, fellow poet and author of Tongues of Fire and forthcoming memoir All Down Darkness Wide (Cape). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Julian Barnes’s latest novel Elizabeth Finch, his first since The Only Story in 2018, is very much a novel of ideas. As a student sorts through the notebooks of his former teacher, the inspirational Elizabeth Finch, her ideas unlock for him the philosophies of the past and illuminate the present, underpinned by the story and ideas of Julian the Apostate, the late Roman Emperor who abandoned Christianity in favour of a neo-Platonic Paganism. Barnes was in conversation with Chris Power, author of A Lonely Man (Faber). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From debut author Nick Blackburn, a therapist specialising in LGBTQ+ issues, comes The Reactor, a powerful new addition to the literature of grief and recovery. Following the death of his father Blackburn examines the nature of destruction, both natural and human-made, drawing on a repertoire of film, music and pop-culture. Olivia Laing has described The Reactor as ‘Beautiful, strange and completely compelling’ and Helen Macdonald praises it as ‘One of the finest accounts of the mysterious workings of grief I have ever read.’ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Niven Govinden’s sixth novel Diary of a Film (Dialogue) follows an unnamed director through the streets of an Italian town as he muses on cinema, queer love and the creative process; on its hardback publication, during first lockdown, the Financial Times described it as ‘a wise and skilfully controlled novel, which can be read in an afternoon, but which radiates in the mind for much longer.’ To celebrate the novel’s release in paperback, Govinden talks to Gareth Evans, the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s Moving Image curator.Find our upcoming events, online and in-person, here: lrb.me/upcomingevents See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On 29 November 2019 Usman Khan murdered Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt at Fishmongers’ Hall in London. Recently released from prison after serving a sentence for terrorism-related offences, Khan was attending an event to mark the anniversary of a writing course he had attended while in prison. Novelist Preti Taneja had been one of his tutors.In Aftermath (And Other Stories), described by Nikesh Shukla as ‘a masterclass work of literary brilliance’, Taneja has created from the horrific events of that day a searing lament, interrogating the language of terror, trauma and grief, a powerful indictment of the prison system and an equally powerful plea for its abolition. Shewas in conversation with Lola Olufemi, author of Feminism, Interrupted and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Although born 20 years after Gwen John’s death, Celia Paul has always felt a strong affinity with the older artist. In Letters to Gwen John (Cape), described by Julia Blackburn as ‘A miraculous, door-opening book’, Paul has created in words and images an imaginary correspondence, and a spell-binding portrait of two women artists creating work against the grain, and entirely on their own terms. Paul talks about the book with the polymathic Olivia Laing, whose latest book is Everybody (Picador).Find out about our upcoming event, online and in person: lrb.me/lrbevents See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In her latest book Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century (Oxford) Helen Thompson argues that while the earthquake that was the Covid-19 pandemic profoundly shocked the world order, the fault lines along which it operated had been building for decades. Her story begins with the energy crises of the 1970s, takes in the financial crash of 2008 before leading us to our current state of unease, disorder and instability. Thompson is in conversation with Ann Pettifor, economist and author of The Production of Money and The Case for the Green New Deal.Find our upcoming events, online and in-person, here: lrb.me/upcomingevents See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After twenty years novelist and essayist Pankaj Mishra makes a triumphant return to fiction. Described by Amit Chaudhuri as ‘his best work yet’ and by Neel Mukherjee as ‘unforgettable’, Run and Hide (Hutchinson Heinemann) explores, through the lives of three friends riding the high tide of India’s boom years, the implications and human costs of the thirst for wealth and power. Mishra, a regular contributor to the LRB, was in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Central to this modern myth is the ‘savage creative storm’ of 2-23 February 1922, when Rilke wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus and completed the Duino Elegies in less than three weeks. 100 years on from its conclusion, the poet and critic Ange Mlinko discusses Rilke, the cult of Orpheus and intense productivity with Don Paterson, whose versions of the Sonnets to Orpheus were published by Faber (and the LRB) in 2006, and the writer and artist Edmund de Waal, for whom the work of Rilke has been a constant touchstone.Find our upcoming digital and in-person events here: https://lrb.me/lrbevents See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fernanda Melchor first came to the attention of the English-speaking world with 'Hurricane Season', a tale of murder in a lawless Mexican village, described by Ben Lerner as ‘Brutal, relentless, beautiful, fugal’. In 'Paradais' she continues her exploration of violence, class and misogyny with a chilling story of two misfit teenagers living in a luxury housing complex, haunted by macabre fantasies of escape. Melchor discusses her work with Nicole Flattery. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

‘How do you write after Ulysses?’ asked the twice Booker-nominated novelist Tom McCarthy, author of C, Satin Island and most recently The Making of Incarnation, in the LRB in 2014. He reflects on working in Ulysses’s wake – as we all must – with the Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Philipsz, whose past installations have drawn extensively on Joyce’s writing (and interest in music). She also sings live. Chaired by the LRB's Head of Special Projects, Sam Kinchin-Smith.Presented in partnership with Shakespeare and Company. Photo credits: Nicole Strasser and Franziska Sinn. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lisa Appignanesi, Benjamin Burgis, Janan Ganesh and James Wolcott on ‘A Hitch in Time’, chaired by David RuncimanChristopher Hitchens was a star writer wherever he wrote; the London Review of Books, to which he contributed sixty pieces over two decades, was no exception. A Hitch in Time, published in December to mark the tenth anniversary of his death, collected 20 of the best in a selection James Wolcott describes, in his introduction, as ‘restorative, an extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.’ Wolcott discussed what he means – the pre-9/11 ‘Hitch in time’ that the collection recaptures – with Benjamin Burgis, author of Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters, along with the writer and campaigner Lisa Appignanesi, the FT columnist Janan Ganesh, and the LRB’s David Runciman.Part of our ongoing ‘Revivalism’ series of conversations focussing on literar

With How Should a Person Be? Sheila Heti merrily and unforgettably extended our notions of what a novel might or ought to contain. In Pure Colour (Harvill Secker), brilliantly described by Kirkus Reviews as ‘that rarest of novels—as alien as a moon rock and every bit as wondrous,’ she continues her extraordinary project of expanding our minds to where they ought to be. Heti was in conversation about that project with Merve Emre, associate professor of English at the University of Oxford. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In his long essay Losers (Peninsula) psychoanalyst and critic Josh Cohen examines, with characteristic wit and acuity, what our culture loses by undervaluing what Elizabeth Bishop famously called ‘the art of losing.’ Drawing on a wide range of sources and inspirations from mythology, psychology and literature, including Freud, Winnicott, Beckett, Kafka, Thomas Bernard and Robert Walser, Cohen was in conversation with novelist and essayist Deborah Levy, who has written of Losers ‘With compassion, skill and verve, Josh Cohen eloquently dismantles societal and personal delusions about winning and losing.’ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Professor of Sociology at University College London, argues in Speculative Communities (Chicago) that speculation is no longer confined to the sphere of finance, but has, through virtual marketplaces, new social media and dating apps, become an integral part of the most intimate realms of our lives. Komporozos-Athanasiou will be in conversation with economist Grace Blakeley, author of Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation, James Bridle, author of New Dark Age, and Will Davies, Reader in Political Economy at Goldsmiths and author of Nervous States. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Vron Ware’s take on what it means to be English has, thankfully, little time for nostalgic visions of a post-Brexit rural paradise. In Return of a Native (Repeater Books) and with a sly nod to Thomas Hardy, she revisits her home turf in Hampshire to explore what it means to see the world from a small place. Her stories of violence and resistance, growth and destruction encompass deep time, colonial histories and global capitalism. Vron Ware, visiting professor in the Gender Studies department at London School of Economics, was in conversation about her work with Hazel Carby, author of Imperial Intimacies. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It’s clear that the Covid pandemic has changed the way we need to think about public health, social justice, the economy and a good deal else besides. Michael Rosen, who became gravely ill with the disease, and whose bibliography is both too long and too impressive to list here, and Rachel Clarke, a journalist who became a doctor and has been heroically working on the frontline, were in conversation about the pandemic. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.