The TLS Podcast

Ian Buruma on the twentieth-century Italian writer Curzio Malaparte, a fascist and a fabulist with a hunger for war and a remarkable way of capturing it; Sue Stuart-Smith on gardening in the trenches of the First World War and the concept of horticultural therapy; to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, the TLS's history editor David Horspool talks us through a range of books, articles and essays covering the Second World War

Selected books

Diary of a Foreigner in Paris, by Curzio Malaparte, translated from the Italian and the French by Stephen Twilley

The Well-Gardened Mind: The restorative power of nature, by Sue Stuart-Smith

Dresden: The fire and the darkness, by Sinclair McKay

The Volunteer: The true story of the resistance hero who infiltrated Auschwitz, by Jack Fairweather

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James Waddell on the disorderly history of alphabetic order; Beejay Silcox, who fled Cairo for Western Australia as the coronavirus spread, tells a tale of star-crossed lovers; Jordan Sand gives a short cultural history of mask-wearing

A Place for Everything: The curious history of alphabetical order by Judith Flanders

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Lawrence Douglas, in Massachusetts, on the presidential past, present and future of Donald Trump; Irina Dumitrescu, in Germany, on books as escape (attempt) and reading the plague into plague-free books; Lucy Dallas presents this month’s round-up of audio / visual offerings

A Very Stable Genius: Donald Trump’s testing of America, by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig

Unmaking The Presidency: Donald Trump’s war on the world’s most powerful office, by Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes

American Carnage: On the front lines of the Republican civil war and the rise of President Trump, by Tim Alberta

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William Shakespeare, the writer who – above all others, perhaps – keeps giving and giving. Michael Caines takes us through the latest research, theories and discoveries (or not, as the case may be); Why do women read more fiction than men? Lucy Scholes returns to the age-old conundrum

Death by Shakespeare: Snakebites, stabbings and broken hearts by Kathryn Harkup

Untimely Death in Renaissance Drama by Andrew Griffin

Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro

Shakespeare and Trump by Jeffrey R. Wilson

‘Infecting the teller – The failure of a mathematical approach to Shakespeare’s authorship’ by Brian Vickers, in this week’s TLS

Why Women Read Fiction: The stories of our lives by Helen Taylor

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Today an edition of our new daily podcast - Stories of our times. Our new free daily news podcast takes you to the heart of the stories that matter, with exclusive access and reporting. Published for the start of your day, it is hosted by Manveen Rana and David Aaronovitch.

If you want to hear more please search for Stories of our times and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

With reading on the rise under the lockdown, TLS editor Stig Abell suggests three books for a little escapism during these uncertain times. 

Stories of our times is the new daily podcast from The Times. Listen to more episodes here

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Samuel Graydon reviews two new albums, by the folk troubadour Sam Lee and indie rock band Cornershop, both of which offer innovative and intelligent musical perspectives on modern England; the TLS’s arts editor Lucy Dallas presents this month’s ‘Audio/Visual’, a monthly round-up of listening and watching; Josephine Livingstone grapples with the 'omnivore paradox' in the arts sector: why broader tastes in art have not led to wider participation

Featured works

Old Wow by Sam Lee

England is a Garden by Cornershop

Audio: ‘Reply All’, the podcast

Visual: ‘Five Guys a Week’, Channel 4

Entitled: Discriminating tastes and the expansion of the arts by Jennifer C. Lena

Steal as Much as You Can: How to win the culture wars in an age of austerity by Nathalie Olah

Smashing It: Working class artists on life, art and making it happen, edited by Sabrina Mahfouz

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Tim Parks talks us through the lockdown from Milan; A. N. Wilson explains the Prayer Book Controversy of the 1920s, and why it's a bit like Brexit; and Anna Girling looks back on the - failed - poetic and critical career of Richard Aldington

Richard Aldington, Two volumes, by Vivien Whelpton

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Frances Wilson gets implausibly angry about the hypocrisy of Patrick O’Brian; Michèle Roberts makes the case for the forgotten author of the nineteenth century, George Sand; Miranda Seymour turns literary detective to identify a new work by Ada Lovelace. And Roz Dineen fails to be enticed by cakes.

Romans 1 & 2 George Sand; Edited by José-Luis Diaz and Brigitte Diaz

Patrick O’Brian – A very private life Nikolai Tolstoy

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