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Helen Simpson reads her story “Lub Dub Lub Dub Lub Dub,” from the September 7, 2026, issue of the magazine. A winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’s E. M. Forster Award, Simpson is the author of seven short-story collections, including “Four Bare Legs in a Bed,” which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1990, and “Cockfosters,” which was published in 2025. 

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The New York writer and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Colson Whitehead, speaks to Take Four Books about his latest novel, Cool Machine, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its connections to three other books. In three interlinking stories, Cool Machine - the final instalment in Colson's Harlem Trilogy - showcases the grit and grandeur of 1980s New York through its underground wheeler-dealer protagonist, Ray Carney, who runs a furniture business on 125th Street with a lucrative side hustle.

For his three influences Colson chose: Junky by William Burroughs (1953); One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967); and The Hunter by Richard Stark (1962). Richard Stark was the pen name of Donald Edwin Westlake.

This episode was recorded at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Producer: Dominic Howell

David talks to philosopher and author Nikhil Krishnan about the life and times of a little known but highly influential twentieth-century philosopher: J. L. Austin, who believed that the deepest truths lay in understanding how ordinary language worked. Why was Austin so opposed to the ideas of A. J. Ayer? How were his experiences in planning D-Day in 1944 an extension of his approach to philosophy? What made people so frightened of him? And how did such a conventional man have such an unconventional influence on thinkers from California to Cambridge?

You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus upcoming events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next time in The Lives of the Philosophers: Jean-Paul Sartre

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Italo Calvino’s novella Invisible Cities is a hypnagogic reimagining of Marco Polo’s time in the court of Kublai Khan. Polo describes 55 impossible places – cities made of plumbing, free-floating, overwhelmed by rubbish, buried underground – that reveal something true about every city.

In this free episode from their Close Readings series ‘Fiction and the Fantastic’, Marina Warner and Anna Della Subin read Invisible Cities alongside the Travels of Marco Polo, and explore how both blur the lines between reality and fantasy, storyteller and audience. They discuss the connections between Calvino’s love of fairytales and his anti-fascist politics, and why he saw the fantastic as a mode of truth-telling.

Listen to the full series of ‘Fiction and the Fantastic’, and all our other Close Readings series, with a Close Readings subscription.

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Ann Patchett’s newest book “Whistler” is a love story born from grief. In this TED Talks Daily Book Club interview, Patchett tells host Elise Hu about her writing process for the novel, where she finds inspiration and her unlikely second life as a bookstore owner. (This conversation was part of an exclusive TED Membership event. TED Membership is the best way to support and engage with the big ideas you love from TED. To learn more, visit ted.com/membership.)

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Today we talk about Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five. How war stories can distort the reality of war, how trauma can fracture our experience of time and identity, and why Billy Pilgrim becomes attracted to the strange philosophy of the Tralfamadorians. Hope you love it. :)

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Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works of speculative fiction curated by best-selling author N.K. Jemisin.  In John Scalzi’s “When the Yogurt Took Over” a popular breakfast staple decides it’s good for everyone.  The reader in Jin Ha.  Chatbots and A.I. can be helpful—but sometimes too helpful--as we hear in Alexandra Chang’s “Me and My Algo,” read by Catherine Cohen.  And Jemisin herself reworks a classic by Ursula K. Le Guin in “The Ones Who Stay and Fight,” read by Teagle F. Bougere.  Some of Jemisin’s on stage comments are included in this show

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This is a catch-up version of James O'Brien's Mystery Hour. To join the game, call 0345 60 60 973, Thursdays at 12pm.

Author Sebastian Faulks talks to John Wilson about his influences and formative cultural experiences. Faulks won huge acclaim for his First World War novel Birdsong, which – along with The Girl At the Lion D’or and Charlotte Gray – forms part of a trilogy of historical novels set in France. Since it was first published in 1993 Birdsong has gone on to sell more than three million copies worldwide and is taught in schools and universities on both English and History syllabuses. His other novels include Human Traces, On Green Dolphin Street, Engleby and, most recently, Farewell To Eden. A team captain on the Radio 4 literary quiz show The Write Stuff for over a decade, Sebastian Faulks was made a CBE for services to literature in 2002.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

The beloved country superstar died Tuesday at age 80. Parton spoke with Terry Gross in 2001 about growing up in rural poverty with 11 siblings, leaving for Nashville to become a star, and coming up with her signature look. "I've always believed that a part of my magic, if there was any, was the fact that I look so artificial — but I am so totally real," she said. 

Also, jazz critic Martin Johnson reviews jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant’s new album, With Every Breath I Take, which he calls her most daring yet. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and curated playlists of archive interviews. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

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