The TLS Podcast

Boyd Tonkin visits Complicité’s audacious adaptation of Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead; and Barnaby Phillips on two Victorian explorers at daggers drawn

'Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’, staged by Complicité, based on the novel by Olga Tokarczuk

‘River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile’ by Candice Millard 

Producer: Lucy Dichmont

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Searching for the Good Life

Skye Clery on how to cope with the fear of death and other anxieties

 https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/life-is-short-dean-rickles-life-is-hard-kieran-setiya-book-review-skye-cleary/

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Lamorna Ash joins us to talk about Shy, Max Porter’s tale of teenage angst; and Jonathan Taylor on an illuminating survey of the uses and abuses of storytelling.

’Shy’ by Max Porter

’Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative’ by Peter Brooks

Producer :Lucy Dichmont

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Mother Knows Best

Michele Pridmore-Brown considers recent insights into parenthood from neuroscience, archaeology and social policy

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/mother-brain-chelsea-conaboy-what-makes-a-person-mark-hanson-lucy-green-growing-up-human-brenna-hassett-book-review-michele-pridmore-brown/

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This week, we go in search of the meaning of life, death and the universe, in the capable hands of Nat Segnit and Skye Cleary.

‘The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery’ by Adam Gopnik

‘Life is Short: An Appropriately Brief Guide to Making It More Meaningful’ by Dean Rickles

‘Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way’ by Kieran Setiya

Produced by Lucy Dichmont

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Irina Dumitrescu considers what psoriasis tells us about social outcasts.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/skin-sergio-del-molino-book-review-irina-dumitrescu/

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This week, Margarette Lincoln on the secret life of Daniel Defoe, government agent; and Claire Lowdon transports herself back to the teenage turmoil of Martin Amis’s debut novel, fifty years on. 

‘The Cambridge Edition of the Correspondence of Daniel Defoe’ edited by Nicholas Seager

‘The Rachel Papers’ by Martin Amis

Produced by Charlotte Pardy

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This week, Helen Bynum enjoins us to consider the secret lives of plants; and Jacqueline Banerjee on love and marriage in the world of George Eliot.

‘Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence’ by Paco Calvo with Natalie Lawrence

‘The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life’ by Clare Carlisle

Produced by Charlotte Pardy

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Geoffrey Wheatcroft considers how the First World War triggered a wave of xenophobia and a Red Scare.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/american-midnight-adam-hochschild-book-review-geoffrey-wheatcroft/

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Flora Willson explores the struggle of four women composers to have their work heard, and Biancamaria Fontana on the late David Graeber’s survey of Madagascan pirate kingdoms.

‘Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World’ by Leah Broad

‘Pirate Enlightenment: Or the Real Libertalia’ by David Graeber

Produced by Charlotte Pardy

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