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Paul Yoon joins Deborah Treisman to discuss “Hostel,” by Fiona McFarlane, which was published in The New Yorker in 2024. Yoon was one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” in 2010, and has published five books of fiction, including the novel “Run Me to Earth” and the story collection “The Hive and the Honey,” a winner of the Story Prize. A new novel, “Etna,” will be published in August.

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On Point news analyst Jack Beatty has been listening to what Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy has been saying in town hall style interviews as he promotes his book, “Crisis of the Common Good.”

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A letter from Churchill demonstrates the value of courtesy, even—or perhaps especially—at moments of highest battle.

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In the Studio enters the creative world of award-winning Irish-language poet Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh as she composes a new poem. We follow its journey from first draft to first public reading. Ailbhe writes exclusively in Irish. She is deeply rooted in the language’s literary tradition yet unmistakably modern in outlook and has become one of the most distinctive literary voices of her generation. Working from the early-morning quiet of her kitchen table in Cork, the documentary centres on a new triptych inspired by her nine-year-old daughter’s fascination with Greek mythology. Ailbhe takes Dualtagh Herr behind the scenes of her new work, reflecting on childhood imagination, motherhood, and the creative process.

Will Mackin reads his story “Pig Lab,” from the July 6 & 13, 2026, issue of the magazine. Mackin, a U.S. Navy veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the author of “Bring Out the Dog,” which won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize as the best début short-story collection of 2018.

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In Wordsworth’s 1807 description of ‘golden daffodils’, the breeze animates both the scene and the inner life of the speaker. Like many poets, Wordsworth turned to the weather to mediate between internal and external experiences. In this episode, Sarah and Sandeep look at the ways in which weather has functioned as a poetic tool, and consider three recent poems which describe the intimate and communal effects of atmospheric events: Maureen McLane's ‘Rocks’, with its ‘rain/when I’d just told her it would hold off’; ‘Surface Mapping’ by Jake Skeets, describing the death of 191 horses on Navajo land during a drought; and Ishion Hutchinson's ‘After the Hurricane’, in which the silence after a violent storm becomes a space to assess different forms of aftermath.

Read Maureen McLane's 'Rocks' in the LRB:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n01/maureen-n.-mclane/rocks

Book tickets to a live recording of this series: https://lrb.me/ptwtickets

Get 25% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings with the code ’POETRY25’ at checkout here: https://lrb.me/crpoetry

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How the “neo-classical” tragedies of Racine explore the battle between passion and reason.

When a steamy Netflix show called ‘Cheating’ becomes the much-talked-about megahit of the moment, baby-boomer Kate is alarmed to find it contains secrets from her marriage to architect husband Jack that only she should know. John Lanchester, LRB contributing editor and author of The Debt to Pleasure and Capital, explores popular culture, the dynamics of marriage and intergenerational conflict in his latest novel Look What You Made Me Do (Faber). Lanchester was in conversation with Hattie Crisell, author of In Writing (Granta).

You can buy a copy of Look What You Made Me Do from the London Review Bookshop.

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The former boyband member and teen heartthrob, Harry Styles, is going into the final week of his sold-out residency at Wembley before continuing his world tour.

After winning music competitions while at school in Cheshire, Styles entered television’s biggest talent show, The X Factor, in 2010. While not making it as a solo star he was grouped together with four other contestants to form One Direction and becoming one of the most successful boybands of all time selling over 100 million records worldwide.

One Direction created a modern-day Beatlemania before going on permanent hiatus in 2016. Since then Style’s has released four solo albums and launched a career beyond music seeing him take on film roles, modelling gigs and become known as a fashionista. His celebrity best friend the actor James Corden, who used to ‘babysit’ the teenage Harry when he first started out in London is among the guests who speak to Mark Coles for this week’s Profile.

Production:

Carpool karaoke: The Late Late Show (CBS)

An original short story specially commissioned by BBC Radio 4 from the writer Bernie McGill. Read by Amy Molloy.

The Author.

Writer: Bernie McGill

A BBC Audio Northern Ireland Production for BBC Radio 4.