Patricia Lockwood talks to Joanne O’Leary about being possessed by Vladimir Nabokov, reading Lolita as a teenage girl, the diagnostic value of Bend Sinister, and her anxiety about writing after having Covid-19.

Read Patricia Lockwood on Nabokov and more in the LRB: https://lrb.me/lockwoodnabokovpod

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Adam Shatz talks to Mike Davis about some of the underlying and long-term political shifts at play in next week’s US elections. They discuss both traditional and emerging swing voters, the obstacles to majority rule, the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett as the latest move in an ongoing civil war within the Catholic Church in the United States, the critical failure of the left to challenge the philosophy of the Reagan revolution, the death cult at the core of today’s Republican base, the importance of Bernie Sanders’s presidential run and the Black Lives Matter movement, and why, fifteen years ago, Davis predicted an age of pandemics.

Find LRB pieces related to this episode here: https://lrb.me/mikedavispod

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Alex Abramovich talks to Thomas Jones about the history of country from Jimmie Rodgers to Lil Nas X, by way of Dolly Parton (and Eddie Van Halen), and the problems with the labels that get applied to American vernacular music.

Find Alex Abramovich's piece on Ken Burns' series here: https://lrb.me/countrymusicpod

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To mark the publication of the latest LRB Collection of essays, about sport, David Runciman, on loan from Talking Politics, talks to Ben Markovits about Michael Jordan, home advantage, how basketball has tackled racial inequality, the difference between writing about sport in fiction and non-fiction, and why it turns out that players really are sometimes hot and sometimes not.

Pre-order the LRB's collection of sports writing here: https://lrb.me/sport

Find the pieces mentioned in this episode here: https://lrb.me/sportpod

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Emily Wilson talks to Thomas Jones about three new translations of the Oresteia. They discuss what the texts of the tragedies may tell us about the state of democracy in fifth-century Athens, the difficulties of Aeschylus’ language, why Hamilton may be the best modern analogue to Ancient Greek drama, and how Wilson came to do her own translation of the Odyssey.

Find Emily Wilson's piece on Aeschylus and more here: https://lrb.me/emilywilsonpod

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Jenny Turner talks to Joanna Biggs about the history of the Women’s Liberation Movement, the loneliness of feminist work, and the seemingly unavoidable question: How do you think your life compares to your mother’s?

Find Jenny Turner’s piece and other related pieces on the episode page for this podcast: https://lrb.me/jennyturnerpod

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Deborah Friedell talks to Thomas Jones about the origins, and origin myths, of the National Rifle Association, how it spends its money, and why it's wary of winning.

Read Deborah Friedell on the NRA here: https://lrb.me/friedellnrapod

And you can find her other pieces for the LRB here: https://lrb.me/friedellpod

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Katherine Rundell reads her study of the Greenland shark, which can live for 500 years.

You can find all the pieces in Katherine Rundell's series of animal studies on her author page on the LRB website: https://lrb.me/rundellpod

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Rupert Beale talks to Thomas Jones about Covid-19 vaccine candidates, and reasons not to rush them; how worried we should be about reported cases of re-infection; possible reasons for the apparent drop in the infection fatality rate; and the prospects for reopening schools.

Read more by Rupert Beale in the LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/lrb-conversations/covidology

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Patricia Lockwood reads her diary about catching and recovering from Covid-19.

Read more by Patricia Lockwood in the LRB here: https://lrb.me/lockwoodpod

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