London Review Podcasts

Following the Turkish president’s success in the run-off election on Sunday, Izzy Finkel and Tom Stevenson join Tom to discuss whether Erdoğan’s victory was ever in doubt, why the recent devastating earthquakes and economic turmoil seem to have had so little impact on his support, the challenges faced by the opposition, and the growing importance of xenophobia in Turkey’s politics.Find further reading, and listen ad-free, on the LRB website: lrb.me/erdoganpodSign up to the LRB's Close Readings podcast here: lrb.me/closereadingspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rosemary Hill begins a new four-part series looking at what people have thought about Stonehenge over the past few hundred years, and why it’s come to matter so much in the story of Britain. In the first episode she talks to architectural historian Vaughan Hart about how Inigo Jones and John Wood were inspired by Stonehenge in their designs for Covent Garden and Bath, and how those in turn had an enormous influence on the way British towns and cities look today, from squares and circuses to oversized acorns and the idea of architecture itself.Buy Rosemary Hill's book Stonehenge here: lrb.me/stonehengebookVaughan Hart is the author of numerous books on the history of architecture, including Inigo Jones: the Architect of Kings; Christopher Wren: In Search of Eastern Antiquity and Nicholas Hawksmoor: Rebuilding Ancient Wonders.Sign up to the LRB's Close Readings podcast here: lrb.me/closereadingspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rory Scothorne joins Tom to discuss the evolution of Scottish politics over the past century or so, and how best to understand a country that’s shifted from a centre right electoral majority in the 1950s to a Labour stronghold in the 1980s, to being governed by the SNP since 2007. Is Scotland’s left-wing tradition a myth? And with the loss of Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader, and the recent scandals hitting the party, what are the prospects for Scottish independence?Read Rory's piece in the LRB: https://lrb.me/scothornepodSign up for the LRB's Close Readings podcast here: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spotify, a company worth $23 billion, has come out on top of the streaming wars, and yet it’s never made a profit. Daniel Cohen joins Malin to discuss the history of the platform and how it's changed the way music is made and listened to, and the strangeness of streaming culture, rife with ethical dilemmas.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/spotifypodSubscribe to Close Readings: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Accused of ‘the largest con in corporate history’, Indian magnate Gautam Adani has lost half his net worth and the indulgence of financial journalists. As Adani comes under increasing scrutiny, so do his troubling political connections – not least with India's prime minister, Narendra Modi. Pankaj Mishra joins Tom to discuss Adani and Modi’s intertwined careers, and their shared role in shaping an increasingly ethnonationalist, plutocratic India.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/modipodSubscribe to Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two worlds collide in this Close Readings fusion episode in which Mary Wellesley talks to Mark Ford about the medieval in Thomas Hardy and the wider Victorian imagination. They discuss why Hardy liked to present himself as an Arthurian knight, his satirisation of the chivalric ideal in his novel A Pair of Blue Eyes, and the way his training as an architect influenced his devotion to poetic spontaneity and experimentation.Sign up for Close Readings here: https://lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Past Present Future is a new weekly podcast with David Runciman, host of Talking Politics, exploring the history of ideas from politics to philosophy, culture to technology. David talks to historians, novelists, scientists and many others about where the most interesting ideas come from, what they mean, and why they matter.Ideas from the past, questions about the present, shaping the future.Brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books.New episodes every Thursday. Just subscribe to Past Present Future wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his introduction to our twelfth collection of LRB archive pieces, Sisters Come Second, Colm Tóibín writes that most siblings dream of being only children. Malin Hay explores this idea with Colm and Andrew O’Hagan, both younger sons in big families. Their conversation considers the examples of the brothers Mann, Yeats, James and Windsor, and why, as  Czesław Miłosz observed, when there’s a writer in the family, that family is finished.You can buy Sisters Come Second from the LRB Store for just £5.99: lrb.me/siblingsFind further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/siblingspodMusic by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Zoe Kilbourn, Anthony Wilks and Sam Kinchin-Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Miranda Carter joins Tom to talk about the life and historical fiction of Mary Renault, whose popular and ingenious retellings of stories from Ancient Greece have never been out of print. They discuss her eventful life, which took her from Edwardian East London to apartheid South Africa, and her meticulous classical reconstructions.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/maryrenaultpodSubscribe to Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the run up to the local elections, and following his recent piece on the care crisis, James Butler joins Tom to discuss some of the other problems facing the UK, and what the two major parties are promising to do to alleviate (or exacerbate) them.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/sorrystateSubscribe to Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Francis Gooding joins Tom to discuss Pirate Enlightenment, David Graeber’s posthumously published study of 17th- and 18th-century piracy. Golden Age pirates maintained surprisingly egalitarian working practices, Graeber argues, and legendary pirate republics may have been run on similar grounds. Tom and Francis talk about Graeber’s Madagascar-centred research, sift through myth and fact, and ask: was piracy a bullshit job?Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/pirateenlightenmentSubscribe to Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the future of TikTok increasingly uncertain in the US and other countries, Malin Hay talks to Tom about the app’s powerful reading-focused corner, BookTok: what it is, how it works, and the tropes which dominate its favourite genre, romance fiction. They also look at some recent emails from listeners.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/booktokpodSign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspodGet in touch with the podcasts team: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Expanding on her recent Winter Lecture, Clair Wills talks to Tom about the stories people tell about abortions – stories conditioned by tradition, coerced by the courts, compelled by politics and shared in solidarity. They discuss some of the radical reframings and reimaginings of abortion in art, literature and private life.Find further reading, including the lecture, on the episode page: lrb.me/clairwillspodWatch the lecture on YouTube: lrb.me/abortionplotSubscribe to Close Readings: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the final episode of this series on climate chaos and reproductive justice, Meehan Crist speaks to the feminist scholar Jade Sasser. Jade discusses how advocates for population control harness the language of social justice, her students’ highly personal responses to climate change, and the ways scholarship on climate anxiety has neglected questions of race.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/jadesasserpodRead the lecture that inspired this series: lrb.me/meehancristlectureSubscribe to Close Readings: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Davies talks to Tom about his recent LRB Winter Lecture, looking at why reactions – facial expressions, gestures or emojis – have become the main currency of the digital public sphere. Ubiquitous surveillance and smartphones have made the spontaneous reaction a thing to be cultivated, collected and stored. How did we come to endow reaction with such significance, and what might an escape from the reaction economy look like?Watch the lecture here: https://youtu.be/bNCYo_mEzfQSign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspodGet in touch with the podcasts team: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the third episode of a four-part series exploring the intersection of climate chaos and reproductive justice, Meehan Crist speaks to historian Alison Bashford. Alison discusses the history of efforts to control population size, how population is thought about in the Anthropocene, and how suspending critique of the past can give valuable insight into the present.Find the full conversation and further reading at the episode page: lrb.me/bashfordpodAttend our Winter Lectures in person or online: lrb.me/winterlecturesSubscribe to Close Readings: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The screen legend and salad dressing philanthropist Paul Newman recorded hundreds of personal interviews before destroying the tapes. The surviving transcripts, worked into a recent memoir and documentary series, reveal a more complex Newman than his on-screen laconicism would suggest. Bee Wilson speaks to Malin Hay about Newman’s mystique – his passivity, his domesticity and his irresistible blue eyes.Find Bee's article and further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/paulnewmanpodFollow our new Close Readings podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search 'LRB Close Readings'.Get in touch with the podcasts team: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second episode of a four-part series on climate chaos and reproductive justice, Meehan Crist speaks to Banu Subramaniam, the evolutionary biologist and feminist science scholar. They discuss the global persistence of Malthusian thinking, why the focus of policymakers on population often means focusing on the bodies of poor and marginalised women, and how historical anxiety about ‘invasive’ plant species has mirrored the formation of national borders and attitudes towards human migrants.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/banusubramaniamAttend one of our Winter Lectures in person or online: lrb.me/winterlecturesFollow our new Close Readings podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search 'LRB Close Readings'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Long before Margaret Thatcher told her cabinet that The Constitution of Liberty was “what we believe”, neoliberal poster boy Friedrich Hayek had been denounced by his mentor as a socialist. Following his review of a new biography, Jonathan Rée speaks to Tom about Hayek’s celebrity and infamy, and the ways close reading reveals surprising nuance in his work.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/hayekreeSubscribe to Close Readings: lrb.me/closereadingsGet in touch with the podcasts team: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first episode of a four-part series exploring the intersection of climate chaos and reproductive justice, Meehan Crist talks to activist and feminist scholar Loretta J. Ross. Ross discusses how she's worked to prevent sexual violence by talking to perpetrators, the problems with today’s call out culture, why the Clinton administration’s healthcare plan prompted the development of the reproductive justice movement in the 1990s, and how to challenge arguments that link fertility with environmental crisis.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/lorettarossLearn more about SisterSong on their website: https://sistersong.netGet in touch with the podcasts team: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.