The LRB Podcast

London Review of Books
  • 4.2 (232)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY
The LRB Podcast

The LRB Podcast brings you weekly conversations from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas. Hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, with guest episodes from the LRB's US editor Adam Shatz, Meehan Crist, Rosemary Hill and more. Find the LRB's new Close Readings podcast in on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or search 'LRB Close Readings' wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 3 DAYS AGO

    Endgame in Ukraine

    James Meek talks to Tom about his latest report from Ukraine, where he spent time in Kharkiv and Kupiansk in the east of the country. In Kharkiv, he found a population living in fear not only of the Russian glide bombs falling daily on the city, but also of the increasingly ruthless activity of the Ukrainian military recruitment office, desperate to secure fresh troops to resist Russia's advances. James and Tom discuss the current state of the conflict, what a Trump presidency might mean for US policy and whether Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles could make any difference to the progress of the war. Read James's latest report from Ukraine: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/james-meek/nobody-wants-to-hear-this Sponsored Link: Get 10% off creative writing courses at NCW Academy in 2025 with code LRB10: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/academy/ More audio from the LRB: Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    57 min

  2. 14 NOV

    The Trump Takeover

    Adam Shatz is joined by Jamelle Bouie and Deborah Friedell to pick through the results and implications of Trump’s victory. The US has a booming economy of high wages and nearly full employment, yet economic discontent, particularly around inflation, has been one of the more popular explanations for the election result. As well as considering the importance of inflation, Jamelle and Deborah look at what went wrong with the Harris campaign’s big bet on abortion rights, why Republican-voting women say they feel safer under Trump and why the Democrats’ insistence that democracy was on the ballot failed to resonate with many voters. Read Adam Tooze on the Democrats' defeat in the LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/adam-tooze/the-democrats-defeat Read Deborah Friedell on J.D. Vance https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/deborah-friedell/short-cuts Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    53 min

  3. 6 NOV

    The Mendel Inheritance

    When Gregor Mendel published the results of his experiments on pea plants in 1866 he initiated a fierce debate about the nature of heredity and genetic determinism that continues today. The battle lines were drawn in England in the late 19th century by William Bateson, who believed in fixed genetic inheritance, and W.F.R. Weldon, who argued that Mendel’s experiments revealed far more variation than Bateson and his supporters acknowledged. In this episode Lorraine Daston joins Tom to chart the development of these arguments, described in a new book by Gregory Radick, through scientific and cultural discourse over the past 150 years, and consider why the history of science has a tendency to track such controversies in antagonistic terms, often to the detriment of the science itself. Read Lorraine's piece: https://lrb.me/dastonpod Sponsored links: Use the code ’LRB’ to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb Close Readings Sing up to the LRB's Close Readings podcast: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/crpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    52 min

  4. 30 OCT

    Early Modern Maths

    On budget day, Tom Johnson joins Malin Hay to discuss the revolution in numeracy and use of numbers in Early Modern England, from the black and white squares of the ‘reckoning cloth’ to logarithmic calculating machines, as described in a new book by Jessica Marie Otis. How did the English go from seeing arithmetic as the province of tradespeople and craftsmen to valuing maths as an educational discipline? Tom and Malin consider the importance of the move from Roman to Arabic numerals in this ‘quantitative transformation’ and the uses and abuses of statistics in the period. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/earlymodernmaths Sponsored links: Use the code ’LRB’ to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb To find out about financial support for professional writers visit the Royal Literary Fund here: https://www.rlf.org.uk/ Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    37 min

  5. 23 OCT

    On Binyavanga Wainaina

    In the latest issue of the LRB, Jeremy Harding reviews How to Write about Africa, a posthumous collection of essays and stories by Binyavanga Wainaina, one of postcolonial Africa’s great anglophone satirists. Jeremy joins Tom to talk about Wainaina’s life and work, including the title essay and his ambivalent response to its popularity (‘I went viral,’ he later said, ‘I became spam’); his reporting from South Sudan; the ‘lost chapter’ from his memoir in which he imagines coming out to his parents; and his account of travelling to Senegal to interview the musician Youssou N'Dour, a piece that Harding describes as both ‘beautifully done’ and ‘extremely funny’. Find further reading and external links on the episode page: https://lrb.me/wainainapod Sponsored links: Use the code ’LRB’ to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk See Hansel and Gretel at the Royal Opera House: https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/hansel-and-gretel-details Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    44 min

  6. 18 OCT

    A New War in Lebanon

    In his third conversation looking at the crisis in the Middle East, Adam talks to Mohamad Bazzi about Israel’s expansion of its war into Lebanon and the recent assassinations of Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah. They discuss the factors behind Israel’s unprecedented aggression and why, as in Gaza, it’s able to operate without restraint, not least from the Biden administration. Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and a professor of journalism at New York University. Read Adam Shatz on the death of Nasrallah in the latest LRB. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/adam-shatz/after-nasrallah Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    48 min

  7. 17 OCT

    The End of Hamas?

    In the second of three conversations about the crisis in the Middle East, recorded shortly before the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was reported, Yezid Sayigh talks to Adam Shatz about why he sees Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October as an inflection point both for the Palestinian movement and global history. Sayigh believes that the attacks reflected an erosion of Palestinian leadership, as well as a moral and strategic crisis. Only a new vision of Palestinian liberation, rooted in progressive ideals rather than in the ethno-religious project of Hamas, he argues, can lead to genuine Palestinian freedom and sovereignty. Yezid Sayigh is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Read Adam Shatz on the death of Nasrallah in the latest LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/adam-shatz/after-nasrallah Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    37 min

  8. 16 OCT

    Inside Israel

    In the first of three episodes on the crisis in the Middle East, Adam Shatz is joined by Mairav Zonszein and Amjad Iraqi to discuss the experiences of Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel. While the Netanyahu government is opposed by many Israeli Jews, and increasing numbers have left the country, support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon remains high because few can imagine an alternative. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, who have long suffered restrictions on their democratic rights, the escalating crisis has intensified that discrimination, while stirring a deep sense of fear regarding their future. Mairav and Amjad talk to Adam about the tensions in Israeli society, not least between the government and military, and why Netanyahu has shown so little interest in the lives of the hostages still held by Hamas. Mairav Zonszein is a journalist and Senior Israel Analyst with Crisis Group. Amjad Iraqi is an editor at +972 Magazine and an associate fellow with Chatham House's MENA programme. Read Adam Shatz on the death of Nasrallah: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/adam-shatz/after-nasrallah Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 1m
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Shows with Subscription Benefits

  • Close Readings is a new multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to some episodes for free here, and extracts from our ongoing subscriber-only series. How To Subscribe In Apple Podcasts, click 'subscribe' at the top of this podcast feed to unlock the full episodes. Or for other podcast apps, sign up here: https://lrb.me/closereadings Running in 2024: On Satire with Clare Bucknell and Colin Burrow Human Conditions with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards Among the Ancients II with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones Political Poems with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford Medieval LOLs with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley Four new series starting in January 2025: CONVERSATIONS IN PHILOSOPHY with Jonathan Rée and James Wood FICTION AND THE FANTASTIC with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin and other guests LOVE AND DEATH with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford NOVEL APPROACHES with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guests Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 4.6 (29)
    • BOOKS

  • Clare Bucknell and Colin Burrow attempt, over twelve episodes, to chart a stable course through some of the most unruly, vulgar, incoherent, savage and outright hilarious works in all of English literature. What is satire, what is it for, and why do we seem to like it so much? Clare Bucknell and Colin Burrow are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford. Episodes will appear once a month throughout 2024, on the 4th of each month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 5.0 (2)
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  • Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of both the 'Odyssey' and the 'Iliad', joins Thomas Jones, an editor at the London Review of Books, for a tour through some of the greatest works of Ancient Greek and Roman literature, from Homer to Horace.  Among the Ancients is part of the Close Readings podcasts collection from the London Review of Books. To listen to the full series, and all our other Close Readings series (including a second series of Among the Ancients), subsribe: Directly in Apple Podcast, at the top of this feed or here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 5.0 (1)
    • BOOKS

  • Adam Shatz talks separately to three guests – Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards – about some of the most revolutionary thought of the 20th century. Judith, Pankaj and Brent will each discuss four texts over four episodes, as they uncover the inner life of the 20th century through works that have sought to find freedom in different ways and remake the world around them. They explore, among other things, the development of arguments against racism and colonialism, the experience of artistic expression in oppressive conditions and how language has been used in politically substantive ways. Authors covered: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, V. S. Naipaul, Ashis Nandy, Doris Lessing, Nadezhda Mandelstam, W. E. B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, Amiri Baraka and Audre Lorde. Episodes will appear once a month throughout 2024, on the 10th of each month. Human Conditions is part of the Close Readings podcasts collection from the London Review of Books. To listen to the full episodes, subscribe to Close Readings: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 4.7 (3)
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  • Close Readings is a new multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through selections of key works. A new episode will appear every month from each of our Close Readings series running this year. This feed is identical to the 'free' version of Close Readings, which contains free extracts for non-subscribers. Subscribers can listen to all the full episodes in both feeds: https://podcasts.apple.com/ug/podcast/close-readings/id1669485143 RUNNING IN 2024: ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell HUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards AMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones MEDIEVAL LOLs with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley POLITICAL POEMS with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry Four new series starting in January 2025: CONVERSATIONS IN PHILOSOPHY with Jonathan Rée and James Wood FICTION AND THE FANTASTIC with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin and other guests LOVE AND DEATH with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford NOVEL APPROACHES with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guests Also part of the Close Readings subscription, our past full series: MEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley AMONG THE ANCIENTS with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones THE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry MODERN-ISH POETS SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry (originally featured on the LRB Podcast) Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

    • 4.8 (26)
    • BOOKS

  • Emily Wilson, celebrated classicist and translator of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, is back to take on another twelve vital works of Greek and Roman literature with the LRB’s Thomas Jones, loosely themed around truth and lies – from from Aesop’s Fables to Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Episodes will appear once a month throughout 2024. Among the Ancients is part of the Close Readings podcasts collection from the London Review of Books. To listen to all the series in full, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts at the top of this podcast For Spotify and other podcast apps here: https://lrb.supportingcast.fm/close-readings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 0.0 (0)
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The LRB Podcast brings you weekly conversations from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas. Hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, with guest episodes from the LRB's US editor Adam Shatz, Meehan Crist, Rosemary Hill and more. Find the LRB's new Close Readings podcast in on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or search 'LRB Close Readings' wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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