Recall This Book

83* Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz on Zadie Smith

Listen Later

John and Elizabeth look back at Recall This Book’s 2019 conversation with Zadie Smith, so you may want to listen to that again before proceeding. Elizabeth and John try their best to unpack Zadie Smith’s take on sincerity, authenticity and human sacredness; the “golden ticket” dirty secret behind our hypocritical academic meritocracy; surveillance capitalism as the “biggest capital grab of human experience in history;” and her genealogy of the novel. If we had to sum the day up with a few adjectives: funny, provocative, resplendent, chill, generous, cantankerous.

Discussed in this episode:

  • Tony Judt, Postwar
  • Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy
  • Nicholas Lehmann, The Big Test
  • Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge
  • Doris Lessing The Fifth Child
  • Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means
  • Stephen McCauley (with JP on RTB) Barbara Pym and the Comic Novel
  • Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black (and others…)
  • Joseph O’Neill, Netherland
  • J. P. Toussaint, The Bathroom
  • Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader, A Room of One’s Own, “Moments of Being”
  • Philip Roth, The Counterlife, Exit Ghost

    • 

    You can read the transcript here:

    RTB 15x Ferry and Plotz on ZS

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    Recall This BookBy Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7

    4.7

    29 ratings

    More shows like Recall This Book

    View all
    This American Life by This American Life

    This American Life

    91,225 Listeners

    Fresh Air by NPR

    Fresh Air

    38,499 Listeners

    The New Yorker Radio Hour by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The New Yorker Radio Hour

    6,955 Listeners

    The Book Review by The New York Times

    The Book Review

    3,944 Listeners

    On the Media by WNYC Studios

    On the Media

    9,229 Listeners

    Political Gabfest by Slate Podcasts

    Political Gabfest

    8,488 Listeners

    The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

    The Gray Area with Sean Illing

    10,750 Listeners

    New Books in Critical Theory by Marshall Poe

    New Books in Critical Theory

    146 Listeners

    The Dig by Daniel Denvir

    The Dig

    1,583 Listeners

    The Daily by The New York Times

    The Daily

    113,519 Listeners

    The Al Franken Podcast by The Al Franken Podcast

    The Al Franken Podcast

    8,587 Listeners

    The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

    The Ezra Klein Show

    16,554 Listeners

    Ones and Tooze by Foreign Policy

    Ones and Tooze

    370 Listeners

    Past Present Future by David Runciman

    Past Present Future

    347 Listeners

    Critics at Large | The New Yorker by The New Yorker

    Critics at Large | The New Yorker

    666 Listeners