London Review Bookshop Podcasts

In Siri Hustvedt’s latest novel The Blazing World (Sceptre) artist Harriet Burden, consumed by fury at the lack of recognition she has received from the New York art establishment, embarks on an experiment: she hides her identity behind three male fronts who exhibit her work as their own, to universal acclaim. ‘All intellectual endeavours’ Burden herself remarks pugnaciously at the novel’s opening ‘fare better in the mind of the crowd when the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work … it can locate a cock and a pair of balls.’ Siri Hustvedt was joined in conversation by the art critic Sarah Thornton, author of Seven Days in the Art World. The pair discussed the book's themes of art, gender bias and subterfuge, lighting upon neuroscience, the nature of celebrity and wine-tasting along the way.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Berger came to the Bookshop to celebrate the life and work of Aimé Césaire on the occasion of Archipelago's reissue of Césaire's long poem Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1936). Born in Martinique in 1913, Césaire was one of the founding voices of the négritude movement in Francophone literature. He considered this work his “break into the forbidden,” at once a cry of rebellion and a celebration of black identity. The English translation by John Berger and Anya Bostock retains the visceral, lyric energy of the French original. John Berger opened the evening with a reading from Return to My Native Land, and was then joined in conversation by the poet and translator David Constantine. The pair discussed Césaire's work, exploring what it means to write in one's mother tongue and the nature of hope. Berger concluded the evening with a reading of Peter Blackman's 'Stalingrad'.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Javier Cercas rose to fame in the English-speaking world with The Soldiers of Salamis which won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2004 and was one of our early bestsellers. He continued his exploration of modern Spanish history with The Anatomy of a Moment, a work of non-fiction that investigated the failed coup of 1981. Now he returns to fiction with Outlaws, a fast-paced and morally complex tale of disaffected youth set in the period just after the end of the Franco dictatorship. Javier was joined in conversation by Paul Preston, Príncipe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish Studies at the LSE and author of The Spanish Holocaust.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Quoting from the letters, diaries, reviews, and essays of novelists and drawing on their biographies, Schmidt’s The Novel – A Biography (Harvard) invites us into the creative dialogues between authors and between books, and suggests how these dialogues have shaped the development of the novel in English. Michael Schmidt spoke with Michael Wood, author and regular contributor to the London Review of Books, in a conversation chaired by novelist Kirsty Gunn. The discussion covered the 13-year process of writing the book, the social function of the novel, an appalling misprint involving Martin Amis and favourite reads old and new.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

'The tutored and passionate eye of the director holds the space, which otherwise would be without boundary, indiscriminate and endless.' Since making her first film at the age of 14, Sally Potter has established herself as one of Britain's leading directors – of dance and theatre as well as of cinema. In her new book, Naked Cinema (Faber),she strips bare the art of directing actors for the camera. Potter has always been noted for her extraordinary rapport with performers, and for her ability to coax extraordinary performances out of them. Here she leads the reader through the film-making process, from casting to screening, always placing the actor at the heart of her account. Concrete examples are provided by a series of revealing interviews with actors she has worked with, including Julie Christie, with whom she worked on her first feature film The Gold Diggers, Annette Bening (Ginger and Rosa) and Jude Law who dragged up for her in Rage. Sally spoke about her book and her career with Gareth Evans, The White

Following the hugely enjoyable launch event last year for [*The Flamethrowers*][1], Rachel Kushner returned to the shop to mark the UK publication (by Vintage) of her first novel [*Telex From Cuba*][2], set among the American expatriate community on the eve of Castro's revolution. Rachel was in conversation with Robert Collins, Deputy Editor of the *Sunday Times* and an early champion of *The Flamethrowers*. The pair explored the history of United Fruit Yellow, how best to throw a hand grenade, and the mysterious character of Rachel K...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In his new book, 'Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism' (Profile), David Harvey unravels the paradoxes at the heart of capitalism – its drive, for example, to accumulate capital beyond the means of investing it; its imperative to use labour-saving technologies that leave consumers bereft of adequate means of consumption; and its compulsion to exploit nature to the point of extinction. Such are the tensions that underpin the persistence of mass unemployment, the downward spirals of Europe and Japan, and China’s and India’s unstable lurches in uncertain directions. Not that these contradictions are all destructive in the short term: they produce the crises through which capitalism has historically reconstituted itself in new guises. But can capitalism survive in the long run by staggering from crisis to crisis? David was in conversation with Owen Jones, author of 'Chavs' (Verso).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

To celebrate the publication of The Bloomsbury Cookbook (Thames & Hudson), we held an exclusive evening at the Bookshop, a stone’s throw away from the kitchens and dining rooms where the Bloomsbury group would converge. Author Jans Ondaatje Rolls was in conversation with artist Cressida Bell on the world of the Bloomsbury group. The talk was accompanied by a menu of recipes and cocktails inspired by the book, courtesy of Terry Glover of the London Review Cake Shop; the evening opened with a cocktail devised by Vanessa Bell, followed by salmon mayonnaise, a good deal of truffle cream and the potent Green Dragon Quaglino....  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 2010 Nick Hunt set out on an epic walk in the footsteps of Patrick Leigh Fermor, across the whole European continent ‘from the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn.’ Relying, like his hero, on the hospitality of strangers and using Patrick Leigh Fermor’s writings as his only guide, Hunt crossed Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, partly to see how much had changed, and how much hadn’t, but mainly in order to have a ‘good old-fashioned adventure.’ His account of his journey Walking the Woods and the Water is published by Nicholas Brealey. Nick Hunt was in conversation with Patrick Leigh Fermor’s friend and biographer Artemis Cooper, who in 2013 worked with Colin Thubron to complete Paddy’s final work The Broken Road.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

May-Lan Tan and Will Eaves joined us at the Bookshop for the launch of their respective books, Things to Make and Break (since shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award) and The Absent Therapist (since shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize), both published by CB Editions. The authors treated us to a selection of passages from their work, featuring night-schools, spanking clubs and ex-girlfriends.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Since their last appearance at the LRB Bookshop, the poets of New Poetries V have been busy: five debut collections (and one forthcoming), prestigious awards, general excitement. Reunited at last, Tara Bergin, OIi Hazzard, Helen Tookey, Rory Waterman, Julith Jedamus and Lucy Tunstall read from their new volumes, in an evening that marked out the territory for the next generation of British poetry.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Adam Foulds’s latest novel, In The Wolf’s Mouth (Jonathan Cape), expands on the themes of violence, conflict and the distortions of history that have characterised his work since 2007’s The Broken Word. Set in Sicily as the Second World War moves into its endgame, the novel is a vivid study of the moral compromises and historical elisions forced on us by war and its aftermath. Adam was in conversation with Andrew Motion, the former poet laureate, whose most recent book is Silver: Return to Treasure Island (Vintage). Daniel Marc Janes reviewed this event for Litro Magazine: 'Though Foulds treats questions of humans’ capacity for violence[...] it would be wrong, Motion suggests, to overlook the quiet optimism of works such as The Broken Word and In the Wolf’s Mouth. These works are concerned not just with violence but with reconstruction.'  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s memoir A Sense of Direction is an account of three pilgrimages – the Camino de Santiago, a tour of Buddhist temples on the island of Shikoku, and a journey to the tomb of a Hasidic Rabbi in the Ukraine – undertaken in the wake of a family crisis. Gideon was at the shop to talk about pilgrimage, writing and reconciliation with Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? and Christian Lorentzen, senior editor at the London Review of Books.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author Derek Jarman died on 19 February 1994. To mark the 20th anniversary of his death, we hosted an evening of readings and discussion. Our focus was a very little-known but crucial part of Jarman’s work, his poetry, and in particular the volume 'A Finger in the Fishes Mouth', unavailable for over 40 years and now reprinted in facsimile by the estimable Test Centre. Derek's partner Keith Collins and his biographer Tony Peake were joined by Ali Smith and Sophie Mayer to consider the poetic in Derek's oeuvre and to read from the collection. In the spirit of collaboration for which Derek was renowned, the reading was also offered to the audience, so that the whole collection was heard on this most poignant of anniversaries. The evening was hosted by Gareth Evans.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

To mark the paperback publication of Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author Philip 'Leviathan' Hoare’s acclaimed new book The Sea Inside, we held an evening exploring the wondrous world of whales. One of our best non-fiction writers and a fine broadcaster, Hoare wrote and presented the BBC Arena film The Hunt for Moby-Dick and directed three films for BBC’s ‘Whale Night’. He was also co-curator, with Angela Cockayne, of the Moby-Dick Big Read . Artist film-maker Jessica Sarah Rinland focuses on whales in both long and short works. She presented a screening of her film A Boiled Skeleton, depicting the journey of a bottlenose whale, caught in 1860 and currently stored in the basement of UCL’s Grant Museum. Ex-whaler John Burton read live from the newspaper article that covered the whale’s journey. The evening was hosted by Gareth Evans.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

'The past is a mosaic; we make it out of present materials.' Jonathan Lethem’s latest book Dissident Gardens (Cape) tells, in a ‘torrent of potent voices, searing ironies, popculture allusions, and tragicomic complexities’ the story of three generations of a radical New York family, at the same time painting a vivid portrait of the American Century. Jonathan Lethem was in conversation with Benjamin Markovits, author of A Quiet Adjustment and named by Granta as one of their Best Young British Novelists of 2013.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Will Self was at the shop to discuss the work of Guy Debord, and in particular The Society of the Spectacle, a 1967 work which offered an eerily accurate prediction of our mediated, image-saturated times. Self's introduction to the new Notting Hill edition beathes fresh life into the original 1970 translation. He writes: 'Never before has Debord’s work seemed quite as relevant as it does now, in the permanent present that he so accurately foretold. Open it, read it, be amazed ...’ Self was joined in discussion by film-maker Patrick Keiller, whose recent book The View from the Train explores the cities and landscapes of modern Britain. The event was chaired by Matthew Beaumont, Senior Lecturer at UCL and editor of Restless Cities.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In a year that might well see the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom, one of our foremost historians of national identity provides an analysis of the various Acts of Union that have until now more or less held the country together. In her latest book Acts of Union, Acts of Disunion (Profile), published to coincide with a 15-part Radio 4 series, she draws on art, architecture and literature as well as political history to ask what Britishness has meant in the past, what it means now, and what it might mean in the future.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In his second collaboration with landscape photographer Jason Orton, Ken Worpole – ‘for many years one of the shrewdest and sharpest observers of the English social landscape’ ('The Independent') – examines the shifting perspective of England’s landscape aesthetic in the latter half of the 20th century, away from the rural interior towards the more disrupted landscapes of East Anglia and the Thames estuary. Listen to Ken Worpole in conversation about 'The New English Landscape' (Field Station) and its implications for landscape architecture, topography and psychogeography with author Rachel Lichtenstein and chaired by Gareth Evans.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In American Smoke (Hamish Hamilton), the third part of a loose trilogy of topographical ruminations that began with Hackney: That Rose-red Empire and Ghost Milk, Iain Sinclair follows the traces of the writers of the American Beat generation – Kerouac, Burroughs, Charles Olson, Gary Snyder, Malcolm Lowry and more – in a journey that takes in the Old West, Mexico, volcanoes, murder, and a good deal else besides. He was at the shop to talk about the book with writer, editor and curator Gareth Evans.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.