London Review Podcasts

John Lanchester and Rupert Beale talk to Tom about the spread of the latest variant, where we might stand in the story of Covid, and the failures of the state in coping with the pandemic.Find their pieces on the episode page: https://lrb.me/omicronpodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20bMusic by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Les Mommsen and Anthony Wilks See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rachel Nolan talks to Tom about the overthrow of President Árbenz in Guatemala in 1954, its importance as a model for CIA-backed regime change across Latin America, and a new novel about it by Mario Vargas Llosa.Find Rachel Nolan's piece and others here: https://lrb.me/guatemalapodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20bMusic by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Enzo Traverso talks to Adam Shatz about his new book on the history of revolutionary passions, images and ideas, from Haiti’s emancipatory slave rebellion in 1791 to Stalin’s top-down authoritarianism. Are revolutions, as Marx suggested, the ‘locomotives of history’, or, as Walter Benjamin saw it, the emergency brake? And what can modern political movements learn from their revolutionary forebears?Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/revolutionpodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20bMusic by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Clair Wills talks to Tom about Netherne psychiatric hospital, where her mother and grandparents worked, and which became a national centre for art therapy. Wills asks how asylums such as Netherne – ‘total institutions’ as Erving Goffman described them – became normalised, and considers the role of art in revealing people’s experiences of them. They also discuss Wills’s related piece about the scandal of the Irish Mother and Baby Homes, published in the LRB in May.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/willspodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20bMusic by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tom talks to Charles Nicholl about the craze in the 1590s for plays representing real-life murder on the London stage, from the first known example, Arden of Faversham, to the genre's influence on Hamlet, Macbeth and, perhaps, the death of Christopher Marlowe.Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/truecrimepodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20bMusic by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rosemary Hill talks to Tom about the painter John Craxton: why he wasn’t a romantic, why he wasn’t interested in being famous, and his relationship with Lucian Freud, who very much was. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tom talks to Colin Burrow about a new book by Christopher Ricks, regarded by some as the greatest living literary critic. They also look back at his previous studies of, among others, Milton, T.S. Eliot and Bob Dylan, and consider the rewards and limitations of the Ricks critical method, characterised by close verbal analysis.Find related articles on episode page: https://lrb.me/rickspodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20bMusic by Kieran Brunt / Episode produced by Eliane Glaser / Series Producer: Anthony Wilks See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

David Runciman talks to Thomas Jones about Silicon Valley’s best known investor-provocateur, his prescience, his mistakes, and why, despite his ultra-libertarian ideology, he owes so much to the state.Listen without ads, and find further reading, on our website: https://lrb.me/thielpodFind details of our forthcoming podcast series, Close Readings: Encounters with Medieval Women, here: lrb.me/medievalSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20bMusic by Kieran Brunt / Episode produced by Eliane Glaser / Series Producer: Anthony Wilks See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dominic West reads Patrick Leigh Fermor's piece about the olive harvest on the Mani peninsula, written in the 1950s but first published in 2021 in the LRB.Read it here: https://lrb.me/leighfermorpodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://lrb.me/travel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Daniel Soar talks to Thomas Jones about the sixth taste, variously translated as ‘mouthfulness’, ‘thickness’ and ‘lingeringness’, apparently discovered by the Japanese company Ajinomoto, and its origins in the twisty and opaque story of MSG in North America.Read Daniel Soar's piece here: https://lrb.me/kokumipodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lydia Davis reads her essay on Arles, recorded for the Trilling Lecture at Columbia University in 2019.Read the piece here: https://lrb.me/lydiadavisarlespodSubscribe to the LRB and get a 79% discount: https://lrb.me/travel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Colm Tóibín reads his diary from November 2020, about visiting Venice during the pandemic.Read the piece here: https://lrb.me/aloneinvenicepodSubscribe to the LRB and save 79% on the cover price: https://lrb.me/travel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the first of four summer readings visiting different places in Europe, Rosemary Hill explores the history of London's West End.Read the piece here: https://lrb.me/hillwestendpodSubscribe to the LRB and save 79% off the cover price: https://lrb.me/travel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

David Trotter talks to Joanne O’Leary about the novels and stories of Elizabeth Bowen, from her weird families and idiosyncrasies of style, to her mastery of atmospherics and prescient use of technology to shape her characters.Find David's piece and more on Elizabeth Bowen in the LRB: https://lrb.me/bowenpodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stephen Frears talks to Andrew O’Hagan about making movies in America, to mark the publication of a new collection of LRB essays on Hollywood. He describes being protected by Scorsese, learning from Billy Wilder, and why films often had budgets of $39 million.Buy the collection here: lrb.me/hollywoodFind more on the episode page: https://lrb.me/frearspodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Lanchester talks to Thomas Jones about ‘visible’ cheating in sport, that is, the kind which is against the rules but within the ethos of the game, from diving in football to bodyline bowling in cricket.Read John's piece in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/lanchestersportpodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pooja Bhatia talks to Thomas Jones about the assassination of President Moïse in Haiti, the recent history of US involvement in the country, and the difference between elections and democracy.Find Pooja Bhatia's writing on Haiti in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/seizeduppodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James Meek talks to Thomas Jones about the connected fates of two wind tower factories, one in Scotland, the other in Vietnam, and asks why the determination to achieve a green future isn’t matched by a determination to ensure fair wages and good conditions for the workers who will make it possible.Meek also describes the challenges of reporting on the story remotely during the pandemic. You can find his piece and watch some of the video shot by his researcher, Chi Mai, of the CS Wind factory in Phu My, on the episode page: https://lrb.me/twoutopiaspodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Toril Moi talks to Joanna Biggs about the French philosopher Simone Weil, whose short and uncompromising life became a workshop for her revolutionary ideas about labour, human suffering and the power of paying attention.Read Toril Moi on Simone Weil in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/weilpodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Deborah Friedell talks to Thomas Jones about the Rosenbergs, from their early years on the Lower East Side of New York to their executions for conspiracy to commit espionage in 1953, and the significance of their trial in American public life, not least as a platform for Donald Trump’s future lawyer, Roy Cohn.Read Deborah's piece on the Rosenbergs and more here: https://lrb.me/rosenbergspodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.