London Review Bookshop Podcasts

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Katherine Angel’s Daddy Issues engages with what Lauren Elkin has called ‘that forgotten figure in feminism’s critique of patriarchy: the father’, examining the place of fathers in contemporary culture and asking how the mixture of love and hatred we feel towards our fathers can be turned into a relationship that is generative rather than destructive. If we are to effectively dismantle patriarchy, Angel argues, it is vital that fathers are kept on the hook. Angel was in conversation with Sarah Moss, whose sixth novel Ghost Wall was longlisted for the Women’s Prize 2019.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, suppressed by the Soviet authorities in the 1950s but smuggled out of Russia with the help of Andrey Sakharov in the early 1980s, established Grossman’s reputation as a 20th-century Tolstoy, in particular following Robert Chandler’s magnificent 1985 translation into English. Most readers, however, do not realize that it is only the second half of a two-part work, the first half of which was published in 1952 under the title For a Just Cause. Grossman’s original and preferred title was Stalingrad – a title now restored in Chandler’s new translation. The translator writes of it ‘To me, at least, Stalingrad now seems a greater novel than Life and Fate. It is more varied, more polyphonic, closer to Grossman’s immediate experience of the war … In our translation, we have restored much of the reality edited out from previous editions, reinstating several hundred passages – some of just three or four words, some of several pages – from the typescript. Our hope is that this may allow

New York's 92nd Street Y has been a home to the voices of literature for 80 years, hosting in its famed Reading Series the greatest literary artists of the 20th century and recording for posterity their appearances as part of its vast audio archive. Featuring Colm Tóibín on Elizabeth Bishop and Rachel Cusk on Katherine Anne Porter, the Writers on Recordings series invites contemporary authors to discuss the legendary voices that have meant the most to them. Each conversation features rare archival recordings and is led by Bernard Schwartz, who produces 92Y's Reading Series as director of its Unterberg Poetry Center. Now in its third year, the series is produced in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y and Queen Mary University of London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

New York's 92nd Street Y has been a home to the voices of literature for 80 years, hosting in its famed Reading Series the greatest literary artists of the 20th century and recording for posterity their appearances as part of its vast audio archive. Featuring Colm Tóibín on Elizabeth Bishop and Rachel Cusk on Katherine Anne Porter, the Writers on Recordings series invites contemporary authors to discuss the legendary voices that have meant the most to them. Each conversation features rare archival recordings and is led by Bernard Schwartz, who produces 92Y's Reading Series as director of its Unterberg Poetry Center. Now in its third year, the series is produced in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y and Queen Mary University of London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sheila Rowbotham’s many books, in history, politics, feminist theory and biography, have established her firmly at the forefront of both the women’s movement and of libertarian socialism. Perhaps the most personal of them though is Promise of a Dream, first published by Penguin in 2000 and now available again in a new edition from Verso. Frank, beautifully written, funny and moving, it is a coming of age story that takes us from Leeds to Oxford via the Sorbonne, and a stirring account of awakening political consciousness during the 1960s. Professor Rowbotham read from her work, and was in conversation with Lynne Segal, Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck College and author, most recently, of Radical Happiness and Making Trouble.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In her latest work Guestbook: Ghost Stories (Particular Books) Leanne Shapton, through a series of stories and vignettes, encounters the uncanny. Are our experiences of ghosts and the unworldly mere fantasies of the mind, or are they solid evidence of the supernatural? In a book designed, curated and illustrated by Shapton herself, she provides some, but by no means all of the answers. Toronto-born Shapton rose to literary prominence with her genre-defying Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, published by Bloomsbury in 2009. Her subsequent works, including Was She Pretty?, Swimming Studies and Toys Talking, have continued to baffle those readers and booksellers who like to know exactly which shelf to put a book on. She was in conversation with novelist and critic Adam Thirlwell.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

David Keenan’s For the Good Times (Faber), set in Belfast during The Troubles, pursues four friends battling for an identity in a neighbourhood harangued by violence and religious intensity. The book highlights the complexity of believing in a cause whilst indulging in the spoils of amoral days. Keenan’s second novel is an urgent and experimental follow up to This is Memorial Device (Faber). Keenan was in conversation with artist and musician, Bill Drummond.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In her first book Dressed (Jonathan Cape), Shahidha Bari explores the hidden memories, meanings and ideas which are wrapped up in our clothes; themes of privacy, freedom, love and objectification are treated garment by garment. Bari was in conversation with Marina Warner, whose most recent book is Forms of Enchantment (Thames & Hudson).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Listen back to an evening of readings and discussion from three outstanding poets, Mary Jean Chan, Will Harris and Sarah Howe. ------ Mary Jean Chan's first full length collection Flèche is published by Faber this July. Her debut pamphlet, A Hurry of English, was selected as the 2018 Poetry Book Society Summer Pamphlet Choice. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic, editor of Oxford Poetry and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Oxford Brookes University. Will Harris is the author of the essay Mixed-Race Superman, published in the UK by Peninsula Press and in an expanded edition in the US by Melville House. His debut poetry collection, RENDANG, is forthcoming from Granta in 2020. Sarah Howe is a British poet, academic and editor. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. She is a Lecturer in Poetry at King’s College London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

To mark the publication of Niven Govinden’s This Brutal House (Dialogue Books), we hosted a round table discussion about LGBTQI+ literature and culture, and the contributions it might make to the current, somewhat torrid, political climate. Our participants were Niven Govinden, Amelia Abraham author of Queer Intentions (Picador) and Isabel Waidner, editor of Liberating the Canon: An Anthology of Innovative Literature and author of We Are Made of Diamond Stuff (both Dostoyevsky Wannabe).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An evening of discussion and poetry readings with poets Kayo Chingonyi, Bhanu Kapil, Ilya Kaminsky and New York Times book critic Parul Sehgal. This lively event brings together eminent poets, critics and editors for a public panel discussion on diversity and the current state of poetry reviewing culture in the UK and the US, followed by poetry readings from Kayo Chingonyi and Bhanu Kapil. The panel event featured a transatlantic discussion of race and poetry reviewing with Ilya Kaminsky, Kayo Chingonyi and Parul Sehgal, chaired by Sandeep Parmar and introduced by Sarah Howe. This event also launched the 2019 report on ‘The State of Poetry and Poetry Criticism’ compiled by Dave Coates and supported by Ledbury Emerging Poetry Critics and the University of Liverpool’s Centre for New and International Writing.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nicola Barker discusses T.S. Eliot, with reference to his appearances at New York’s 92nd Street Y, with the 92Y’s Reading Series producer Bernard Schwartz. The 92Y has been a home to the voices of literature for 80 years, hosting in its famed Reading Series the greatest literary artists of the 20th century and recording for posterity their appearances as part of its vast audio archive. The ‘Writers on Recordings’ event series invites contemporary authors to discuss the legendary voices that have meant the most to them. Each conversation features rare archival recordings and is led by Bernard Schwartz, who produces 92Y's Reading Series as director of its Unterberg Poetry Center. The series is produced in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y and Queen Mary University of London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In Full Surrogacy Now (Verso), Sophie Lewis takes on the surrogacy industry – worth over one billion dollars a year in the USA alone, and famously exploitative – with a unique and explosive argument: we need more surrogacy, not less! Lewis argues that the needs and protection of surrogates should be put front and centre, that we should ‘overthrow, in short, the notion of the “family”’. Donna Haraway has described the book as ‘the serious radical cry for full gestational justice I long for.’ Lewis was in conversation with Joanna Biggs, assistant editor at the LRB and author of All Day Long: A Portrait of Britain at Work.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A.L. Kennedy discusses a personal mixtape of early influences (Cummings, Burgess, Pinter, Feiffer), with reference to their appearances at New York’s 92nd Street Y, with the 92Y’s Reading Series producer Bernard Schwartz. The 92Y has been a home to the voices of literature for 80 years, hosting in its famed Reading Series the greatest literary artists of the 20th century and recording for posterity their appearances as part of its vast audio archive. The Writers on Recordings series invites contemporary authors to discuss the legendary voices that have meant the most to them. Each conversation features rare archival recordings and is led by Bernard Schwartz, who produces 92Y's Reading Series as director of its Unterberg Poetry Center. The series is produced in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y and Queen Mary University of London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mark Ford discusses John Ashbery, with reference to his appearances at New York’s 92nd Street Y, with the 92Y’s Reading Series producer Bernard Schwartz. The 92Y has been a home to the voices of literature for 80 years, hosting in its famed Reading Series the greatest literary artists of the 20th century and recording for posterity their appearances as part of its vast audio archive. The Writers on Recordings series invites contemporary authors to discuss the legendary voices that have meant the most to them. Each conversation features rare archival recordings and is led by Bernard Schwartz, who produces 92Y's Reading Series as director of its Unterberg Poetry Center. The series is produced in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y and Queen Mary University of London.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tracy K. Smith is the 22nd Poet Laureate of the USA. Her last collection, Wade in the Water, was nominated for a Forward Prize; her last-but-one, Life on Mars, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Eternity, her Selected Poems, gathers together the best of her four books. Hilton Als has called her ‘a storyteller who loves to explore how the body can respond to a lover, to family, to history.’ Jay Bernard’s eagerly-awaited first collection, Surge, draws a line between the New Cross Fire of 1981 and the fire at Grenfell Tower. Bernard’s pamphlet, The Red and Yellow Nothing, was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. The two poets read from and discussed their new collections.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.