London Review Bookshop Podcasts

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.

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.

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.

Gillian Darley and David McKie’s study of Nairn - Ian Nairn: Words in Place – published by Five Leaves, reintroduces to a new generation an architectural critic whose work has influenced writers and critics such as J.G. Ballard, Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Jonathan Meades, who once described Nairn as ‘a great poet of the metropolis’. Gillian Darley and David McKie discussed Ian Nairn’s life and work, and Owen Hatherley, author of A New Kind of Bleak and A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain chaired this discussion.

Polish poet, novelist, painter and translator Jacek Dehnel appeared at the shop in conversation with his translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones.Antonia Lloyd-Jones is a full-time translator of Polish literature and this evening was the occasion of her being presented with the Found in Translation Award for the second time (given by the Polish Book Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute London and the Polish Cultural Institute New York). Jacek talked with Antonia about how his writing reflects and interacts with literary and art historical tradition, as well as Polish culture, history and politics. This event was supported by the Polish Cultural Institute London.

With Safe Area Gorazde, Palestine, and Footnotes in Gaza, graphic novelist Joe Sacco introduced to his chosen genre a politically charged seriousness that changed it for ever. In his latest work he turns to the past with a harrowing depiction of war in the trenches. To mark the publication of The Great War (Jonathan Cape), Joe Sacco appeared at the shop with David Boyd Haycock, whose group biography of five First World War artists A Crisis of Brilliance was published in 2009. Their conversation provided a compelling exploration of art, journalism and violence.

Philosopher Simon Critchley took on Shakespeare's Hamlet, and our abiding preoccupation with it, via a series of classic interpretations, notably those of Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Hegel, Freud, Lacan and Nietzsche. The discussion was chaired by Dr Shahidha Bari of Queen Mary, University of London.

In a rare UK performance Canadian poet Anne Carson read from her recent verse novel Red Doc>, a sequel to her 1998 Autobiography of Red.

The inaugural discussion of a new series to commemorate Frank Kermode's highly influential work saw Jacqueline Rose and Michael Wood, among others, ranging freely and informally across his contributions to criticism in numerous fields, from apocalyptic theory to contemporary fiction.

What would happen if a story were successively translated by a series of novelists, each one working only from the version immediately prior to their own – the aim being to preserve that story’s style? Adam Thirlwell's Multiples set out to explore this idea. To celebrate its UK publication, several writers from the anthology - Tash Aw, A.S. Byatt, Joe Dunthorne, Adam Foulds, Ma Jian and Francesco Pacifico - joined Adam Thirlwell at the Bookshop to talk about the project.

"Kushner isn’t only a novelist. She is also a regular contributor of sharp criticism to such free-thinking American publications as Artforum, and however good her stories and sparkling her prose, she has other aims in her novel too. Its subject is inequality – economic, social, sexual – but the art world, with its attendant performances, is always there to complicate it." Naomi Fry (LRB 18 July 2013) Rachel Kushner came to the bookshop to talk about her new book, 'The Flamethrowers'. Set in the art world of the 1970s, the novel explores themes of gender, terrorism and authenticity. She spoke in conversation with Nina Power, senior lecturer in philosophy at Roehampton University and the author of 'One-Dimensional Woman'.

Author Joshua Cohen came to the shop celebrate the publication of Attention! a (short) history' (Notting Hill). He was joined by writer and critic Brian Dillon for a dicussion of the cultural history of the concept of attention: an evening of conversation which ranged across centuries and subjects, from Saint Augustine to amphetamines. 

Distinguished critic and translator Edith Grossman was in conversation with Daniel Hahn of the British Centre for Literary Translation.

China Miéville read from his work, and discussed some of the issues raised by it with Ben Eastham, co-founder and editor of The White Review.

Sheila Heti was in conversation about writing, life and the future of fiction with the critic and experimental novelist Adam Thirlwell.