The LRB Podcast

By The London Review of Books

What's The LRB Podcast about?

LRB-published writers read their own work, introduced by the editors of the London Review of Books. Recent podcasts have included Gillian Anderson reading Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Ingratitude’, Alan Bennett reading from his diary, Tariq Ali on his visit to North Korea and Jeremy Harding on migration. There’ll be something new every fortnight.

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Everyone misplaces my keys

07.07.2020

Amia Srinivasan talks to Thomas Jones about the long search for a third person singular, gender-neutral pronoun, and the resurgence of the pronoun debate in recent years. Read Amia Srinivasan's piece on pronouns in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/srinivasanpronouns Subscribe to ...

The LRB Podcast episodes:

07.07.2020 Everyone misplaces my keys Amia Srinivasan talks to Thomas Jones about the long search for a third person singular, gender-neutral pronoun, and the resurgence of the pronoun debate in recent years. Read Amia Srinivasan's piece on pronouns in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/srinivasanpronouns Subscribe to ...
06.30.2020 How do you change things? Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor talks to Adam Shatz about the intellectual and historical background to the Black Lives Matter movement, and why she’s optimistic that the current protests might bring change. Find further reading and a full transcript of this episode on ...
06.23.2020 Katherine Rundell: Consider the Swift Katherine Rundell reads her study of the common swift, which flies about two million kilometres in its lifetime. You can find all Katherine Rundell's pieces on animals for the LRB here: https://lrb.me/rundellpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per ...
06.16.2020 Gaby Wood: How to Draw an Albatross Gaby Wood reads her diary from the latest issue of the LRB, in which she tries to draw an albatross using a camera lucida. Read the diary and much more in a latest issue: https://lrb.me/latestlrb Subscribe to the LRB from ...
06.09.2020 ‘No, I’m not getting married!’ Susan Pedersen talks to Joanna Biggs about Shelagh Delaney and her landmark 1958 play, A Taste of Honey. Read Susan Pedersen on Shelagh Delaney in the LRB: https://lrb.me/delaneypod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b The first ...
06.02.2020 Maigret Returns John Lanchester talks to Thomas Jones about Georges Simenon, whose output was so prodigious that even he didn’t know how many books he wrote. Find links to related articles and a full transcript on the podcast episode page: https://lrb.me/maigretreturnspod Subscribe ...
05.26.2020 Reopening the NHS Sonia Gandhi and Rupert Beale, scientists at the Francis Crick Institute, talk to Thomas Jones about the ways Covid-19 can affect the nervous system, the steps required to reopen the NHS after lockdown, the state of testing, and reasons for ...
05.19.2020 Semi-Recumbent in Bournemouth Andrew O’Hagan talks to Thomas Jones about the friendship between Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James, and the time they spent together in Bournemouth. Find a full transcript of this episode and links to related articles here: http://lrb.me/ohaganrlspod Subscribe to ...
05.12.2020 The Theory Truce Michael Wood talks to Adam Shatz about critical theory, its origins, developments and various diversions, and where it stands today. The conversation marks the publication of the eighth volume in the LRB Collections series, The Meaninglessness of Meaning: Writing about ...
05.05.2020 This Bad Business Colm Tóibín talks to Thomas Jones about the breakdown of Elizabeth Hardwick’s marriage to Robert Lowell, and its literary consequences. Find the pieces mentioned in this episode here: lrb.me/toibinhardwickpod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b See ...
04.28.2020 The Idea of the Island Mary Wellesley talks to Joanna Biggs about islands, blessed and not so blessed, from Homer to the Fyre Festival. Read more by Mary Wellesley in the LRB: On Blessed Isles On anchorites On Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Subscribe ...
04.21.2020 Beauvoir and Me Joanna Biggs talks to Thomas Jones about the life of Simone de Beauvoir. Further reading on Beauvoir in the LRB: Joanna Biggs: https://lrb.me/biggsdebeauvoirpod Michael Rogin: https://lrb.me/rogindebeauvoirpod Toril Moi: https://lrb.me/torilmoipod Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b See ...
04.14.2020 On the Ward Lana Spawls talks to Thomas Jones about working on a paediatric ward during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the ways hospitals have changed in response to the virus. Read Lana's latest piece in the LRB: Lana Spawls: How to set up ...
04.06.2020 In the Lab Rupert Beale talks again to Thomas Jones about his work at the Francis Crick Institute, where he’s helping to set up a testing lab for Covid-19. He talks about the challenges of creating a scalable process, explains why a successful ...
03.30.2020 Four Hundred Years of Quarantine Erin Maglaque talks to Thomas Jones about the lockdown imposed by the city of Florence in January 1631 in response to a plague outbreak, the similarities with our current situation, and the differences. Maglaque wrote about the plague in Florence ...
03.23.2020 Close Readings: The Hopkins Haecceity In the first episode in a new series of Close Readings, our ‘revolutionary . . . ★★★★★’ (The Times) podcast that considers the life and work of Anglophone poets from the (increasingly) long 20th century, through pieces written about them ...
03.13.2020 Wash Your Hands, Again Following his piece for the LRB about Covid-19, Rupert Beale talks to Thomas Jones about what the novel coronavirus is, how well countries are dealing with it, and what hopes there are for stopping the contagion. Read Rupert's piece here: ...
03.11.2020 Richard Lloyd Parry: Akihito and the Sorrows of Japan Akihito, who abdicated in April, was a paradoxical figure: a hereditary monarch, the son of the wartime emperor, Hirohito, strictly barred from political utterance, who even so stood out against the historical revisionism of the nationalist right. Richard Lloyd Parry ...
02.26.2020 Meehan Crist: Is it OK to have children? Given what we know about the future of the planet, is having children a matter of consumer choice, of political conviction, or something an authority will eventually decide for us? Meehan Crist explores the debate about the ethics of childbearing ...
02.12.2020 Colin Burrow: Fiction and the Age of Lies The line between making a fiction and telling a lie has been blurry at least since Homer, and liars – from Odysseus and Iago to Austen’s Wickham and beyond – have often played central parts within fictions. This lecture will ...
12.23.2019 Alan Bennett’s Diary for 2019 Alan Bennett reads his Diary for 2019, with a few little extra bits. Read the Diary here: https://lrb.me/bennett2019pod And more by Alan Bennett in the LRB: https://lrb.me/bennettpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out ...
11.07.2019 The LRB at 40: Jeremy Harding, Adam Shatz and Nikita Lalwani In the last of a series of events marking the LRB's 40th anniversary, Jeremy Harding and Adam Shatz talk to Nikita Lalwani about their work for the paper, with a focus on North Africa and the Middle East. Due to ...
11.05.2019 The LRB at 40: Nell Dunn, Tessa Hadley and Joanna Biggs on women in fiction As part of a series of events marking the LRB's 40th anniversary, Nell Dunn and Tessa Hadley talk to Joanna Biggs, one of the LRB's editors, about fictional representations of women’s everyday lives. Read more in the LRB from: Tessa ...
10.31.2019 The LRB at 40: Rosemary Hill and Iain Sinclair on London As part of our series of events marking the 40th anniversary of the LRB, longtime contributors Rosemary Hill and Iain Sinclair talked to the LRB’s digital editor, Sam Kinchin-Smith, about London, through the lens of pieces they've written for the ...
10.25.2019 The LRB at 40: Katrina Forrester and William Davies on the crisis of liberalism As part of our series of events marking the LRB's 40th anniversary, Katrina Forrester and William Davies discuss political crisis, and in particular the crisis of liberalism, through the lens of pieces they've written for the paper. Read more by ...
10.11.2019 The LRB at 40: Mary-Kay Wilmers, Alan Bennett, Andrew O'Hagan, John Lanchester and Sheng Yun To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the London Review of Books, and mark the publication of The London Review of Books: An Incomplete History, the LRB’s editor, Mary-Kay Wilmers, along with Alan Bennett, Andrew O’Hagan, John Lanchester and Sheng Yun, ...
09.23.2019 Bee Wilson: Mmmm, chicken nuggets Bee Wilson on eating out in late Victorian London. Read more by Bee Wilson in the LRB: https://lrb.me/beewilsonpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
08.29.2019 James Wood: These Etonians James Wood recalls his time at the college, with David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and others. Read more by James Wood in the LRB: https://lrb.me/jameswoodpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
08.20.2019 Close Reading: Lowell Studies In the concluding episode of their acclaimed series, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford confront Robert Lowell: the Boston Brahmin for whom poetry trumped every other consideration, and whose Cold War ‘confessionalism’ came to exemplify a generation of Americans’ collective trauma; ...
08.02.2019 Andrew O'Hagan: The Lagerfeld Fandango Andrew O'Hagan goes to the fashion designer's memorial at the Grand Palais in Paris. Read more by Andrew O'Hagan in the LRB: https://lrb.me/ohaganpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
06.12.2019 Mary Wellesley: 'This place is pryson' Mary Wellesley looks inside the cell of a medieval anchorite, and considers why so many women shut themselves away to devote themselves to prayer and contemplation, and what their lives were like. Read Mary Wellesley in the LRB: lrb.me/wellesleypod Sign ...
05.30.2019 Close Reading: Heaney Overheard Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the work of Seamus Heaney. You can find a reading list for this podcast, featuring poems and pieces by Heaney and essays about his work from the LRB archive, here: https://lrb.me/heaneypod Sign up to ...
04.17.2019 Colm Tóibín: ‘It’s curable,’ he said ‘Instead of shaking all over, I read the newspapers. I listened to the radio. I had my lunch.’ Colm Tóibín reads his account of being treated for cancer. Read more by Colm Tóibín in the LRB archive: https://lrb.me/toibinpod Sign up ...
03.06.2019 The State of... The London Review of Books has a new podcast, called ‘The State of...’. Hosted by LRB editors Joanna Biggs and Tom Crewe, it aims to take the temperature of our contemporary culture. Find it now in Apple Podcasts, Spotify and ...
03.05.2019 Close Reading: Plathologies Mark Ford, Seamus Perry and Joanna Biggs consider the balance of biography and mythology in Plath’s work, situating her as a transatlantic, expressionist poet of the Cold War. You can find a reading list of pieces mentioned in this episode ...
01.03.2019 Alan Bennett: Diary for 2018 Alan Bennett puts on a new play and finds himself on someone’s arm, in his 2018 diary. Read more by Alan Bennett in the LRB: https://lrb.me/bennettpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
12.21.2018 Close Reading: Uneven Stevens Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at that great poet of winter and snow, Wallace Stevens, and the pieces about him in the LRB archive: his anecdote-proof life, the capitalist economy of his imagination, and his all-American poetry of precise ...
10.02.2018 Close Reading: Housmania Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of Worcestershire lad and old-type natural fouled-up guy, A.E. Housman, through a lens of the pieces written about him in the LRB archive. You can find a reading list of ...
10.02.2018 Housmania Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of Worcestershire lad and old-type natural fouled-up guy, A.E. Housman, through a lens of the pieces written about him in the LRB archive.
08.16.2018 Close Reading: The Idea of Stevie Seamus Perry and Mark Ford consider the life and work of Stevie Smith, ‘an eccentric poet with a tenacious reputation,’ through a lens of the pieces written about her in the LRB archive. You can find a reading list of ...
06.26.2018 Close Reading: Hardy’s neutral tones Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the poetry of Thomas Hardy in the latest in their series of discussions on 20th century poets. You can find a reading list of pieces mentioned in this episode here: https://lrb.me/hardypod Sign up to ...
03.27.2018 Rosemary Hill: The Dress in Your Head Rosemary Hill explores frock consciousness in life and literature in her LRB Winter Lecture, delivered at the British Museum. Read more by Rosemary Hill in the LRB: https://lrb.me/hillpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and ...
03.14.2018 Linda Colley: The Problem with Winning Linda Colley argues that the prospect of Brexit makes history more important than ever in her LRB Winter Lecture, delivered at the British Museum. Read more by Linda Colley in the LRB: https://lrb.me/colleypod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast ...
02.28.2018 Anne Enright: The Genesis of Blame Anne Enright delivers her Winter Lecture on the corruptions of the Adam and Eve story in her LRB Winter Lecture, delivered at the British Museum. Read more by Anne Enright in the LRB: https://lrb.me/enrightpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: ...
02.06.2018 John Lanchester: 'Coffin Liquor', a story Toby Jones reads John Lanchester’s ghost story. Read more from John Lanchester in the LRB: https://lrb.me/lanchesterpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
01.04.2018 Alan Bennett: Diary for 2017 Alan Bennett finds his métier at last in 2017. Read more by Alan Bennett in the LRB: https://lrb.me/bennettpod Sign up to the LRB newsletter: https://lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
12.21.2017 The Defectors: Richard Lloyd Parry talks to Krys Lee In the latest instalment of the LRB podcast, recorded in Seoul, Richard Lloyd Parry talks to the Korean-American novelist Krys Lee about Christianity, plastic surgery and mutual incomprehension in the Korean borderlands. Read more by Richard Lloyd Parry in the ...
12.06.2017 Jane Campbell: ‘Cat-Brushing’, a story Jane Campbell reads a story about dispossession in paradise. Sign up to the LRB newsletter: lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
11.14.2017 Close Reading: Arch Bishop Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of Elizabeth Bishop, through the lens of the pieces written about her in the LRB archive. You can find a reading list of pieces mentioned in this episode here: https://lrb.me/bishoppod ...
11.02.2017 Lucy Prebble: Harvey Weinstein Lucy Prebble describes meeting Harvey Weinstein. Sign up to the LRB newsletter: lrb.me/acast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Older episodes

The LRB Podcast

What's The LRB Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The LRB Podcast episodes:

Everyone misplaces my keys

How do you change things?

Katherine Rundell: Consider the Swift

Gaby Wood: How to Draw an Albatross

‘No, I’m not getting married!’

Maigret Returns

Reopening the NHS

Semi-Recumbent in Bournemouth

The Theory Truce

This Bad Business

The Idea of the Island

Beauvoir and Me

On the Ward

In the Lab

Four Hundred Years of Quarantine

Close Readings: The Hopkins Haecceity

Wash Your Hands, Again

Richard Lloyd Parry: Akihito and the Sorrows of Japan

Meehan Crist: Is it OK to have children?

Colin Burrow: Fiction and the Age of Lies

Alan Bennett’s Diary for 2019

The LRB at 40: Jeremy Harding, Adam Shatz and Nikita Lalwani

The LRB at 40: Nell Dunn, Tessa Hadley and Joanna Biggs on women in fiction

The LRB at 40: Rosemary Hill and Iain Sinclair on London

The LRB at 40: Katrina Forrester and William Davies on the crisis of liberalism

The LRB at 40: Mary-Kay Wilmers, Alan Bennett, Andrew O'Hagan, John Lanchester and Sheng Yun

Bee Wilson: Mmmm, chicken nuggets

James Wood: These Etonians

Close Reading: Lowell Studies

Andrew O'Hagan: The Lagerfeld Fandango

Mary Wellesley: 'This place is pryson'

Close Reading: Heaney Overheard

Colm Tóibín: ‘It’s curable,’ he said

The State of...

Close Reading: Plathologies

Alan Bennett: Diary for 2018

Close Reading: Uneven Stevens

Close Reading: Housmania

Housmania

Close Reading: The Idea of Stevie

Close Reading: Hardy’s neutral tones

Rosemary Hill: The Dress in Your Head

Linda Colley: The Problem with Winning

Anne Enright: The Genesis of Blame

John Lanchester: 'Coffin Liquor', a story

Alan Bennett: Diary for 2017

The Defectors: Richard Lloyd Parry talks to Krys Lee

Jane Campbell: ‘Cat-Brushing’, a story

Close Reading: Arch Bishop

Lucy Prebble: Harvey Weinstein

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