The screen legend and salad dressing philanthropist Paul Newman recorded hundreds of personal interviews before destroying the tapes. The surviving transcripts, worked into a recent memoir and documentary series, reveal a more complex Newman than his on-screen laconicism would suggest. Bee Wilson speaks to Malin Hay about Newman’s mystique – his passivity, his domesticity and his irresistible blue eyes.

Find Bee's article and further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/paulnewmanpod

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In the second episode of a four-part series on climate chaos and reproductive justice, Meehan Crist speaks to Banu Subramaniam, the evolutionary biologist and feminist science scholar. They discuss the global persistence of Malthusian thinking, why the focus of policymakers on population often means focusing on the bodies of poor and marginalised women, and how historical anxiety about ‘invasive’ plant species has mirrored the formation of national borders and attitudes towards human migrants.

Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/banusubramaniam

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Long before Margaret Thatcher told her cabinet that The Constitution of Liberty was “what we believe”, neoliberal poster boy Friedrich Hayek had been denounced by his mentor as a socialist. Following his review of a new biography, Jonathan Rée speaks to Tom about Hayek’s celebrity and infamy, and the ways close reading reveals surprising nuance in his work.

Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/hayekree

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In the first episode of a four-part series exploring the intersection of climate chaos and reproductive justice, Meehan Crist talks to activist and feminist scholar Loretta J. Ross. Ross discusses how she's worked to prevent sexual violence by talking to perpetrators, the problems with today’s call out culture, why the Clinton administration’s healthcare plan prompted the development of the reproductive justice movement in the 1990s, and how to challenge arguments that link fertility with environmental crisis.

Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/lorettaross

Learn more about SisterSong on their website: https://sistersong.net

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In 1939, Dorothy Thompson was on the cover of Time, the ‘First Lady of American journalism’ and a major celebrity. By 1945, she’d been widely dismissed as a crank.

Deborah Friedell joins Tom to discuss Thompson’s enormous influence in interwar America, and her idiosyncratic mix of prescience and short-sightedness.

Find further reading on the podcast page: https://lrb.me/dorothythompson

LRB Audio

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Laleh Khalili, a former management consultant, talks to Tom about how firms such as McKinsey, Accenture and Bain go about their business, the consequences of their relentless quest for ‘efficiency’, and the role these ‘class war mercenaries’ have played in supporting various governments all over the world. 

Find further reading on the podcast page: https://lrb.me/mckinseypod

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Michael Wood talks to Malin Hay about the recent list from Sight and Sound of the ‘greatest films of all time’ (in which he voted), and what considerations could, or should, go into compiling such a chart. They also discuss Wood’s most recent review for the LRB, of Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, and whether there is such a thing as a Christmas movie.

Find more from Michael Wood in the LRB on the episode page: https://lrb.me/greatestfilmpod

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Alan Bennett reads his 2022 diary (with some extra bits), in which he buys his dad a violin, goes to Venice with a goat, and tries to make the queen laugh.

Listen without ads, and find more from Alan Bennett, on the LRB website: https://lrb.me/2022diarypod

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Thomas B. Edsall, a columnist for the New York Times, talks to Adam Shatz about the landscape of US politics following the recent elections. They consider some of the historic causes for the apparent polarisation of today’s electorate, and look ahead to the vote in 2024. Will Biden be a credible candidate for re-election? And what would a Trump or DeSantis (or even a Youngkin) candidacy mean for both the Republican and Democratic parties?

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Listen to a sample from the first episode of our twelve-part Close Readings series, Among the Ancients, with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones, which we'll be re-running from January next year. With a new episode each month, Among the Ancients will consider some of the greatest works of Ancient Greek and Roman literature, from Homer to Horace. In this sample Emily and Tom discuss the Iliad.

Sign up to all our Close Readings series here: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

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