The TLS Podcast

“What we often forget in the daily drumbeat of abuses by the dominant tech companies is our complicity in these abuses, and in the fundamental and unsettling ways the internet has changed every one of us.”

As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enters its seventieth anniversary, Dave Eggers, in the 2018 PEN H. G. Wells lecture, argues that urgent amendments are needed to mitigate the corrosive effects of technology on the societal and the personal. You can read an edited extract from the lecture on the TLS website.

This is a recording of an event that took place on December 16, 2018, at the Bridge Theatre, London.  

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Phil Baker guides us through the morbid, wistful and yet immensely charming world of the writer and illustrator Edward Gorey; Frances Wilson weighs the pleasures and pains of letter and email writing; Ian Sansom on the struggle to be funny

Books

Born To Be Posthumous: The eccentric life and mysterious genius of Edward Gorey, by Mark Dery

What a Hazard a Letter Is: The strange destiny of the unsent letter, by Caroline Atkins

Written In History: Letters that changed the world, by Simon Sebag Montefiore

In Their Own Words: Volume 2: More letters from history

Wit's End: What wit is, how it works, and why we need it, by James Geary

Messing About In Quotes: A little Oxford dictionary of humorous quotations, compiled by Gyles Brandreth

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David Coward celebrates the 400th anniversary of the birth of Cyrano de Bergerac, whose radical thought has long been obscured by his protuberant nose; Muriel Zagha on Molière, France’s most famous playwright, and a bold new adaptation of Tartuffe; finally, a poem by Stephen Knight: “Rail Replacement Bus Service” (sigh)

Molière’s ‘Tartuffe’, a new version by John Donnelly, at the National Theatre, London

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With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas

Toby Lichtig comes in to talk the wide scope of Jewish culture, the “lachrymose” theory of history and why it is Arthur Miller time once more. Roz Dineen deals with porn, pile-ons and goop podcasts. And we call Thea when she is “working from home” to check in on her new dog.

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The writer and comedian Charlie Higson, half of the team behind The Fast Show, on the curious history of comedy written and performed by pairs; the novelist Margaret Drabble considers the dizzying new releases from the estate of Anthony Burgess, the man Philip Larkin once called “the Batman of contemporary letters”  

Texts

Stan & Ollie, directed by Jon S. Baird 

Morecambe & Wise: 50 years of sunshine, by Gary Morecambe

The Double Act: A history of British comedy duos, by Andrew Roberts

Soupy Twists!: The full, official story of the sophisticated silliness of Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie, by Jem Roberts

Beard’s Roman Women by Anthony Burgess, edited by Graham Foster

Puma by Anthony Burgess, edited by Paul Wake

The Black Prince by Adam Roberts

Obscenity and the Arts, a talk by Anthony Burgess, edited by Johnny Walsh

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As the MeToo movement continues to focus our attentions on questions around abuse, consent and justice, Rebecca Watson joins us to discuss the various and prolonged impacts of sexual assault, and the warping effect of trauma on narrative; the TLS’s French editor Adrian Tahourdin considers the inexorable rise of “le globish” (by which English words supplant, or pervert, French ones), and presents the diverse and challenging books in contention for this year’s Society of Author’s Translation Prizes

Books

Not That Bad: Dispatches from rape culture, edited by Roxane Gay

A False Report: A true story by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong

On Rape by Germaine Greer 

The President’s Gardens by Muhsin al-Ramli, translated by Luke Leafgren 

Seeing Red by Lina Meruane, translated by Megan McDowell

Kruso by Lutz Seiler, translated by Tess Lewis 

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