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

Discover audiobooks, Close Readings and more from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiolrbpod

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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

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

Get in touch! Email us at [email protected]

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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

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

Get in touch! Email us at [email protected]

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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

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

Get in touch! Email us at [email protected]

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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?

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b

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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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Roald Dahl's key skill, as Colin Burrow puts it, 'was his ability to repress nastiness while keeping it visible'. 

Following his review of a new biography, Burrow talks to Tom Jones about Dahl’s limitations, his successes, and his 'marvellous medicine' approach to fiction.

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

Sign up to our Close Readings subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

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Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley return with a new twelve-part Close Readings series, Medieval Beginnings, exploring the strange and wonderful literary landscape of the Middle Ages. Starting in January 2023, the series will consider well-known works such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as well as many lesser-known texts, from across the European continent, that have all helped to lay the foundations of English literature. Listen to a sample here from their first episode, on Beowulf.

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Jane Stanford, the co-founder of Stanford University, was murdered with strychnine in 1905. Her killer was never discovered – until now (perhaps). James Lasdun talks to Malin Hay about a new book by Richard White that investigates the story and looks into the extraordinary history of the Stanford family.

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

Sign up to our Close Readings podcast subscription: https://lrb.me/closereadingspod

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Seamus Perry and Mark Ford return with a new twelve-part Close Readings series, The Long and Short, taking a fresh look at 19th and 20th-century literature through the lens of short stories and long poems. Starting in January 2023, the series will look at twelve writers, from Tennyson and Henry James to Elizabeth Bowen and Alice Oswald, with a new episode appearing each month. This sample is from the first episode, on Tennyson’s ‘Maud’.

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