The TLS Podcast

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Dinah Birch, Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool, to consider the work of Angela Thirkell, a kind of (but not really...) Anthony Trollope for the twentieth-century; the writer and audio documentarist Maria Margaronis considers the transformation of London’s Royal Court Theatre into a radical and moving “living newspaper”; plus, a library of the world’s literature that no censor can get to ‘Angela Thirkell: A writer’s life’ by Anne Hall ‘Living Newspaper’, Editions 6 and 7, Royal Court Theatre and royalcourttheatre.com This episode of The TLS podcast is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative. Go to www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more about their creative writing courses. Use code YOURWRITINGSUMMER for £20 off any six-week course. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Ann Hallamore Caesar to mark 100 years since the première of the modernist masterpiece ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’, considering it in the context of Luigi Pirandello’s life and work; Alexander Leissle reviews ‘Promises’, an intoxicating intergenerational collaboration between a jazz saxophonist and an electro producer; plus, a new poem by Andrew Motion, “At Low Tharston”, written in memory of the late Anthony Thwaite.   'Stories for the Years' by Luigi Pirandello, translated by Virginia Jewiss 'The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio' by Luigi Pirandello, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff 'Promises' by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra  This episode of The TLS podcast is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative. Go to www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more about their creative writing courses. Use code YOURWRITINGSUMMER for £20 off any six-week course. A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Patricia Craig, a writer and critic from Northern Ireland, who relates a sad and murky case of accidental killings, which took place during the Irish Civil War of the early 1920s; the TLS’s politics editor Toby Lichtig reviews a handful of recent films – works of documentary and fiction – with political stories, mostly atrocities, at their hearts; plus, a lost Proust manuscript finally sees the light of day.   Can’t Get You Out of My Head, BBC iPlayer The Mauritanian, Amazon Prime The Dissident, Amazon Prime Quo Vadis, Aida?, Curzon Home Cinema Les Soixante-quinze feuillets et autres manuscrits inédits, by Marcel Proust, edited by Nathalie Mauriac Dyer, with a preface by Jean-Yves Tadié (Gallimard)  A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Patricia J. Williams to discuss ‘Giving a Damn: Racism, romance and Gone with the Wind’, Williams’s deeply researched, and deeply felt, essay on the roots and legacy of racial injustice in the United States; Douglas Field considers a novel about a 'human mole' by Richard Wright, the African American writer best known for 'Native Son', which now sees the light of day, eighty years after it was written; plus Sylvia Plath’s domestic embellishments and the greatest novels of the twenty-first century to date (cont.) Giving a Damn: Racism, romance and 'Gone with the Wind' by Patricia J. Williams, published next week by TLS Books  The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford, to discuss the new Arden 3 edition of ‘Measure for Measure’, one of the "problem plays" (word-bothers, en garde); the poet and translator Beverley Bie Brahic marks 200 years since the birth of Charles Baudelaire, whose extraordinary work seems bizarrely neglected; plus, Charlotte Mew, and the dangers of ancient Greek medicine. Measure for Measure, edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Robert N. Watson (Arden Shakespeare) The Invention of Medicine: From Homer to Hippocrates, by Robin Lane Fox This Rare Spirit: A Life of Charlotte Mew, by Julia Copus A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Elaine Showalter, Professor Emerita of English at Princeton University, to discuss Blake Bailey’s keenly anticipated ‘Philip Roth: The biography’; and Alexandra Harris, the author of ‘Weatherland: Artist and writers under English skies’, considers a twenty-first century perspective on Joseph Wright of Derby, an eighteenth-century painter who is perhaps more darkness than light, more magic than science, and who deserves to be ranked among Europe’s greats. Philip Roth: The biography by Blake Bailey Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of darkness by Matthew Craske www.the-tls.co.uk Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig are joined by Mary Norris, a New Yorker and editor at - what else? - the New Yorker magazine, to discuss the changing life of the city and its inhabitants; Yoojin Grace Wuertz talks us through a film garlanded with Oscar nominations, Minari, which casts a new light on the immigrant story and the American Dream; plus, the week's fiction reviews New Yorkers: A city and its people in our time by Craig Taylor  Pretend It's A City: Netflix The Barbizon: The New York hotel that set women free by Paulina Bren Minari: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, etc A special subscription offer for TLS podcast listeners: www.the-tls.co.uk/buy/pod Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the historian Mark Mazower, who presents new approaches to the battle for Greek independence in 1821; Noreen Masud reviews a performance of Stevie Smith’s poems that conveys the unsettling power of her presence; plus, Paul Muldoon marks 400 years since the birth of Andrew Marvell with a new poem, ‘The Glow-Worm to the Mower’.   Stevie Smith: Black March – Dead Poets Live, filmed at the Wanamaker Playhouse, available on Globe Player until April 5th Please visit the TLS website to read Mark Mazower’s essay (including bibliography) and to find Paul Muldoon’s poem, as well as those by Angela Leighton and Will Harris. www.the-tls.co.uk  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the critic and novelist Claire Lowdon to consider Vivian Gornick, an American writer of essays – on literature, politics, the self – that demonstrate a rare “ability to stand back and look at the world in which she finds herself, and then set it down calmly on paper”; the TLS’s poetry editor Camille Ralphs explores the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and some of the literature that inspired it; plus, libraries under threat (again), Unica Zürn gets her time in the sun, and the three greatest novels of the twenty-first century...so far. Taking a Long Look: Essays on culture, literature, and feminism in our time by Vivian Gornick Appendix N: The eldritch roots of Dungeons and Dragons, edited by Peter Bebergal www.the-tls.co.uk Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Ann Pettifor, the economist and author of ‘The Case for the Green New Deal’, to discuss some inconvenient but incontrovertible truths left out of Bill Gates’s vision of the fight against climate change; Anna Aslanyan on a freewheeling account of the unpredictable life of the twentieth-century German writer Hasso Grabner; plus, re-reading Philip Larkin. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates Journey through a Tragicomic Century: The Absurd Life of Hasso Grabner, by Francis Nenik, translated by Katy Derbyshire www.the-tls.co.uk  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Edmund Gordon to review 'Klara and the Sun', Kazuo Ishiguro’s surprisingly hopeful new novel about an Artificial Friend; the world’s first poem about Superman (perhaps) was written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1942 but not published until now, in this week’s TLS – we discuss; and the medievalist Hetta Howes reviews two new translations of 'Beowulf', taking us back to the rich and troubling ambiguities of the original. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro “The Man of To-morrow’s Lament”, a poem by Vladimir Nabokov, with commentary by Andrei Babikov Beowulf: A new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley Beowulf: In blank verse by Richard Hamer  www.the-tls.co.uk Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Joyce Carol Oates to talk about the minimalist beauty in the photographs of Walker Evans, and his austere approach to his art. Colin Grant discusses the new film Nomadland, a blend of fact and fiction about US citizens who take to the road when they realize they cannot afford to grow old...and we look through a science fiction dictionary and check up on the latest writing by robots. Walker Evans: Starting from scratch by Svetlana Alpers Nomadland, on Hulu - UK release April 2021 www.the-tls.co.uk  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Alan Rusbridger, former editor of the Guardian, to discuss the rise of Bellingcat, an investigative body, started in one man’s bedroom in 2014, now able to get to the bottom of even the murkiest global events; Dante, Dante, Dante…. and Anne Weber’s epic of Annette Beaumanoir; and who was Keats’s mysterious Mrs Jones? The biographer Jonathan Bate shares a theory. We Are Bellingcat: An intelligence agency for the people by Eliot Higgins Dante by John Took Annette, Ein Heldinnen Epos / Epic Annette by Anne Weber ‘Cherchez la femme’ – Keats and Mrs Jones, by Jonathan Bate in the TLS www.the-tls.co.uk Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Cal Revely-Calder, who finds that, in Samuel Beckett Studies, jargon and certainty too often crowd out impressions of the work and the importance of ‘knowing what you don’t know’; Alice Wadsworth brings snippets of interest from this week’s TLS, including ‘women who wouldn’t wait’ and Borges in Inverness; and Ruth Scurr on the history of the secretive, ritual-loving Freemasons. Beckett’s Political Imagination by Emilie Morin Samuel Beckett and the Visual Arts by Conor Carville The Craft: How the Freemasons made the modern world, by John Dickie Producer: Ben Mitchell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Avril Horner, author of a biography of Barbara Comyns whose quirky, menace-laced novels, long championed by Graham Greene, are finding their way back to us; a new poem by John Kinsella, 'Villanelle of Star-Picket-Hopping Red-Capped Robin'; and En Liang Khong describes the powerful pull – particularly difficult to resist during lockdown – of the fantasy urban landscapes portrayed in video games and anime Several novels by Barbara Comyns, including: 'Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead', 'Mr Fox', 'Sisters by a River', 'The House of Dolls' and 'The Vet's Daughter' 'The legend and the crazy novelist: Graham Greene’s role in Barbara Comyns’s writing career' by Avril Horner Virtual Cities: An atlas and exploration of video game cities, by Konstantinos Dimopoulos Anime Architecture: Imagined worlds and endless megacities, by Stefan Riekeles  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.