London Review Podcasts

James Meek talks to Tom about the events leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from the fall of Yanukovych to the wars in the Donbas and Nagorno-Karabakh, and considers what may happen next. Read more by James Meek here: https://lrb.me/jamesmeekpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laleh Khalili talks to Tom about the mythology of covert military operatives, through romance novels, self-help books and, more recently, the business guru, in the form of retired US army general Stanley McChrystal, who earns millions writing books and advising boards on how to inject warlike thinking into their business plans. Find pieces mentioned in this episode here: https://lrb.me/khalili Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's discussion, with Laleh Khalili, will be out on Thursday. In the meantime, here's Jorie Graham reading her latest poem for the LRB, 'One the Last Day'.  Find more readings of poems and pieces here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/lrb-readings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Geoff Mann talks to James Butler about the economic models developed by William Nordhaus and others, widely used by governments around the world as a tool to tackle climate change. They discuss the moral and practical limitations of Nordhaus’s methods, the danger of relying on their predictions, and whether the use of such models is even an appropriate way of confronting environmental crisis. Read Geoff Mann's piece here: https://lrb.me/mannpod Read two pieces from the next issue early: Laleh Khalili on Stanley McChrystal's business guide: https://lrb.me/khalilipod Paul Theroux on V.S. Naipaul: https://lrb.me/therouxpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy Harding talks to Tom about the long and repressive reign of King Hassan II of Morocco, as described in a new book by Aziz BineBine, who suffered 18 years of brutal detention in Tazmamart, a secret prison. They discuss Hassan’s accession to the throne in 1961, his efforts to suppress Morocco’s radical anti-colonialist elements, the occupation of Western Sahara, and the survival of his dynasty beyond the Cold War era. Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/hardingpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Title music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Colm Tóibín talks to Tom about the life and work of the novelist John McGahern through his recently published correspondence, which includes letters to Tóibín. They discuss his family, his banned work, his style, and his unusually honest opinions of other writers. Read more on McGahern in the LRB: lrb.me/mcgahernpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rivka Galchen talks to Tom about two recent books on the history of vaccine opposition and reluctance, from smallpox to covid, including the role of 'Big Supplement' and the effectiveness of mandates. Find further reading here: https://lrb.me/antivaxpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Les Mommsen and Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the third and final guest episode from a new podcast series, Myself with Others, food writer Claudia Roden talks to Adam Shatz about her early life in Cairo and Paris, her obsession with collecting recipes, how politics informs her understanding of food, and the secret Jewish origins of fish and chips. Subscribe to Myself with Others wherever you're listening to this podcast. Find out more about the series here: https://www.myselfwithothers.com/ Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this second guest episode from a new podcast series, Myself with Others, novelist, memoirist and poet James Lasdun talks to Adam Shatz about his taste for the Middle Ages, the power of Patricia Highsmith, and his memoir about being stalked. Subscribe to Myself With Others wherever you're listening to this podcast. Find out more about the series here: https://www.myselfwithothers.com/ Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first of three guest episodes from a new podcast, Myself with Others, hosted by Adam Shatz, writer and critic Margo Jefferson talks about her childhood in Chicago, her early experiences in radical theatre at Brandeis University, her relationship to the feminist and Black Power movements, her emergence as a writer, and her battles with melancholia. Produced by Richard Sears. Subscribe to Myself with Others wherever you're listening to this podcast. Find out more about the series here: https://www.myselfwithothers.com/ Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alan Bennett reads his diary for 2021, in which he falls over Philip Roth, changes the course of English history, and considers selling his har on eBay. Bennett read the first part of this diary earlier this year, for his Diary from the Pandemic Year. Read it here: https://lrb.me/bennett2021pod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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/omicronpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Les Mommsen and Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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/guatemalapod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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/revolutionpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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/willspod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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/truecrimepod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Music by Kieran Brunt / Produced by Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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/rickspod LRB Audio Discover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Get in touch with the podcasts team: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Music by Kieran Brunt / Episode produced by Eliane Glaser / Series Producer: Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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/thielpod LRB Audio Discover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod Get in touch with the podcasts team: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Music by Kieran Brunt / Episode produced by Eliane Glaser / Series Producer: Anthony Wilks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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/leighfermorpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://lrb.me/travel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.