London Review Bookshop Podcasts

In her latest book, Astra Taylor – ‘a rare public intellectual, utterly committed to asking humanity’s most profound questions yet entirely devoid of pretensions’ (Naomi Klein) – argues that democracy is not just in crisis, but that real democracy, inclusive and egalitarian, has never existed. Democracy May Not Exist but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone (Verso) aims to re-examine what we mean by democracy, what we want from it, and understand why it is so hard to realise. Taylor was in conversation with David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs and Professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Diane Williams’s short (most of them very short) stories have been captivating literary audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for the last three decades. Ben Marcus, in his introduction to The Collected Stories, has described them as ‘fictions of perfect strangeness’, adding that they ‘prize enigma and the uncanny above all else.’ Williams read from her work, and was in conversation with Lara Pawson, formerly the BBC’s correspondent in Angola and author of This is the Place to Be (CB Editions).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Celia Paul, born in India in 1959 and now resident in Bloomsbury is widely regarded as one of the most important artists working in Britain today. Following a passionate affair with painter Lucian Freud and figuring in several of his canvases she emerged as an immensely talented painter, initially focussing on intimate depictions of family life before more recently turning to the broader scale of landscape and sea-scape. Her memoir Self-Portrait (Jonathan Cape) is an invaluable first-hand account of the trials and rewards of making great art, and has been described by Esther Freud as ‘An insight into the white-knuckle determination needed to make great art, and why it is so few women painters reach the heights. An astoundingly honest book, moving and engrossing – full of truths.’ Paul was in conversation about her work with curator and art writer Catherine Lampert.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Something strange has happened to truth in the past few years. Politicians, marketeers, Twitterists and others seem to have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if what they say is true as long as some people believe it (and even that doesn’t seem to matter all that much sometimes). In his latest book This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality (Faber) intrepid investigative reporter Peter Pomerantsev travels the world, from China to Russia to Syria to the Balkans and to Brexit Britain in an often surprising investigation of why we can no longer believe what we say, or say what we believe. Peter Pomerantsev was in conversation with Guardian columnist Marina Hyde and Carl Miller, author of The Death of the Gods.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the first emancipated generation of black women in the USA were obliged, sometimes enabled and often hindered in creating new ways of living after the abolition of slavery. In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments (Profile), Professor Saidiya Hartman tells the inspiring and surprising stories of these pioneers, whose discoveries about how to be in the world have been followed and emulated by people, black, white, gay, straight, cis, trans and other, ever since. Hartman was in conversation about her work with writer and activist Lola Olufemi.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jorge Galán’s extraordinary non-fiction novel Noviembre, now published in an English translation by Jason Wilson as November, recounts the horrifying murder of six Jesuit priests and two women during the Salvadorian civil war in 1989, dealing both with its aftermath and the complex political situation from which the atrocity arose. Its original publication in Spanish led to death threats against the author which forced Galán to flee his native country. Galán was in conversation with journalist Mark Dowd who has written widely and produced several documentaries on the relationship between religion and human rights. The interpreter was Cecilia Lipovseck from [Multilateral London][2]. This event is made possible by the generous support of Instituto Cervantes and Elisabeth Hayek.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In her latest book ‘Surfacing’ (Sort of Books), poet and essayist Kathleen Jamie explores what emerges: from the earth, from memory and from the mind. Her travels take her from Arctic Alaska to the sand dunes and machair of Scotland in a quest to discover what archaeology might tell us about the past, the present and the future. Her writing throughout is marked, as always, by an acute attention to the natural world. She was in conversation about her work with Philip Hoare, author of ‘Leviathan’ and ‘Risingtidefallingstar’.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jeremy Harding and Adam Shatz discussed shared preoccupations including decolonisation and orientalism, Israel-Palestine, 20th-century music, and France, in conversation with the novelist Nikita Lalwani. This was the last in a series of events celebrating the LRB's 40th anniversary.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nell Dunn and Tessa Hadley discuss fictional representations of women’s everyday lives with the LRB’s Joanna Biggs, as part of a series of events celebration the LRB's 40th anniversary.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On Wednesday 16 October, William Davies and Katrina Forrester discussed shared preoccupations including the subjects of their recent books, Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World and In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy. This was part of a series of events celebrating the LRB's 40th anniversary.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rosemary Hill and Iain Sinclair talk to the LRB's digital editor, Sam Kinchin-Smith, about their shared preoccupations with London, as written about in the London Review of Books. This was the first in a series of events celebrating the LRB's 40th anniversary.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Against Memoir (And Other Stories), Michelle Tea takes us through the hard times and wild creativity of queer life in America. Via a series of essays, addresses and fragments she reclaims Valerie Solanas as an absurdist, remembers the lives and deaths of the lesbian motorcycle gang HAGS and introduces us to activists at a trans protest camp. Tea was in conversation with writer Juliet Jacques.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Denise Riley’s devastating long poem ‘A Part Song’, written in response to the death of her son, was first published in the LRB in 2012 and later became the kernel of her acclaimed collection Say Something Back (Picador). The poem’s prose counterpart Time Lived, Without Its Flow was initially published in a small edition by Capsule Press but has now been made more readily available in a new edition, also from Picador. Riley was in conversation about her essay with the writer Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny and with the poet Emily Berry, author of Dear Boy and Stranger, Baby.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Music critic Ian Penman is back with a pioneering book of essays alluding to a lost moment in musical history ‘when cultures collided and a cross-generational and “cross-colour” awareness was born’. It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track (Fitzcarraldo) focuses on black artists, including James Brown, Charlie Parker and Prince, who were at the forefront of innovation and the white artists that followed, adapting their sounds for the mainstream. Described by Iain Sinclair as ‘a laureate for marginal places’ Penman began his career in 1970s at the NME and has since gone on to write for publications such as Sight & Sound, Uncut and the London Review of Books. Penman was in conversation with writer and editor Jennifer Hodgson.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nell Zink, born in Virginia in 1964 and now resident in Germany, is one of the most remarkable novelists of her, and indeed any generation. Her exuberant creations, always inflected with political, social and ecological concern, have won worldwide acclaim for their recklessness, their inventiveness and their sheer stylistic brilliance. She read from the latest of them, Doxology (4th Estate), a tale that begins with the iconic tragedy of 11 September 2001 and spins out from it into America’s past and potential futures, she discussed it with Alex Clark of the Guardian.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In twelve inimitable, eccentric, hilarious, disturbing and powerful novels, Nicola Barker has established herself as one of the most inventive and powerful voices in contemporary British fiction. To mark the publication of the thirteenth, I Am Sovereign (William Heinemann), Barker was in conversation about experiment, fiction, contemporaneity and a great deal else besides with the novelist and short story writer Ali Smith.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

‘A writer is only as interesting as what she pays attention to.’ Deborah Levy is the author of many plays, novels, short stories and essay collections. Inventive, experimental and compulsively readable, her work has won many awards, accolades and prizes. Her latest novel The Man Who Saw Everything (Hamish Hamilton) plays with time and memory in a gripping exploration of the weight of history and the disastrous consequences of trying to ignore it. ‘There’s no one touching the brilliance of Deborah Levy’s prose today’ writes Lee Rourke. Levy was in conversation with Shahidha Bari, academic, critic and author of Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes (Jonathan Cape).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

At the New School in New York, where Simon Critchley teaches, ‘Critchley on Tragedy’ is one of the most consistently oversubscribed courses. Now, in Tragedy, the Greeks and Us (Profile) he explains, in often surprising ways, why Greek Tragedies remain so compellingly relevant to modern times, in the way they confront us with things about ourselves we don’t want to believe, but are nevertheless true. Critchley was in conversation with Shahidha Bari, Senior Lecturer in Romanticism at Queen Mary, University of London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Romy Hall, the protagonist of Rachel Kushner’s latest novel *[The Mars Room][1]* (Cape), is beginning two consecutive life sentences plus six months at a women’s correctional facility. Cut off from everything she knows and loves – The Mars Room, a San Francisco strip club where she once earned a living, her seven-year-old son Jackson now in the care of her estranged mother – Romy begins a terrifying new life, detailed with humour and precision by Kushner. George Saunders writes ‘Kushner is a young master. I honestly don't know how she is able to know so much and convey all of this in such a completely entertaining and mesmerizing way.’ She read from her latest novel, and was in conversation about it with the novelist and critic Adam Thirlwell. [1]: /on-our-shelves/book/9781910702673/mars-room  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.