The TLS Podcast

By The TLSSociety & Culture Arts Fiction

The TLS Podcast episodes

July 18, 2018 Women, in and out of control
“How much do you make things happen or let them happen to you?” “Can women be happy alone?” – questions such as these form the basis of a series of interviews with women, from heiresses to factory workers, conducted in the 1960s by the British writer Nell Dunn; as a reissue of Talking To Women appears Kate Webb introduces us to this seminal feminist text. And Patricia J. Williams discusses the role and lingering influence of the Progressive Era's 'American Plan' to stamp out immorality through policies including compulsory STD tests and government-endorsed sterilization

Books
Talking To Women by Nell Dunn
Fixing the Poor: Eugenic sterilization and child welfare in the twentieth century by Molly Ladd-Taylor
The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, surveillance, and the decades-long government plan to imprison 'promiscuous' women by Scott W. Stern
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39 min
July 11, 2018 Summer Books 2018
We’re joined in the studio by TLS editors for arts, features and fiction, respectively, Lucy Dallas, Roz Dineen and Toby Lichtig, to pick through a selection of TLS writers’ summer reading choices – from reworked Classical myths to Deadpool comics – before offering a taste of our own, including books by Sally Rooney, Bruno Latour and an account of witchcraft and agrarian cults in early modern Italy. Go to the-TLS.co.uk to read our summer books feature in full.
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39 min
July 11, 2018 Ode to Lee Child – a bonus episode
Sam Leith, the books editor of the Spectator, and Stig Abell discuss their mutual appreciation of the crime novels of Lee Child.
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28 min
July 04, 2018 Notes on 50 years of the Man Booker Prize
This year marks half a century since the establishment of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The TLS’s Fiction editor Toby Lichtig joins us to debate the point of literary prizes and discuss the most under- (or over-) rated winners; Joan C. Williams, the author of last year’s White Working Class: Overcoming class cluelessness in America, considers the political consequences of class divides in the US and Britain

Books
The White Working Class: What everyone needs to know by Justin Gest
Making Sense of the Alt-Right by George Hawley
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38 min
June 27, 2018 An interview with Tim Winton – a bonus episode
Tim Winton discusses his new novel, The Shepherd's Hut, with the TLS's Fiction editor Toby Lichtig. Go to the-tls.co.uk to read an exclusive extract from the novel.
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26 min
June 27, 2018 The wildness of Muriel Spark
Critic and novelist Margaret Drabble joins us to review the life and work of Muriel Spark, whose centenary we mark this year; Samuel Graydon discusses a new exhibition on J. R. R. Tolkien, including drawings and doodles, language trees and fan mail; the TLS's History editor David Horspool introduces a selection of new work on the medieval period

Works discussed
The Centenary Edition of the Novels of Muriel Spark, edited by Alan Taylor
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth, an exhibition at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, with accompanying book by Catherine McIlwaine
‘Finding Henry – Why England’s most powerful medieval monarch should be better remembered’ by Claudia Gold, in this week’s TLS
Medieval Bodies: Life, death and art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell
Sea of Caliphs: The Mediterranean in the medieval Islamic world by Christophe Picard, translated by Nicholas Elliott
The Oxford English Literary History, Volume 1: 1000–1350: Conquest and Transformation by Laura Ashe
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53 min
June 20, 2018 Russia's blood games
We're joined by Arkady Ostrovsky to discuss Russia’s long history of using sport as a proxy for war and invasion; E. J. Iannelli draws our attention to the rise and (perhaps...) fall of the automobile in the US, and the distinctly American phenomenon of the car as teenage male rite of passage

Books
Machines of Youth: America’s car obsession by Gary S. Cross
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34 min
June 13, 2018 Changing your mind and opening the doors
We talk to Michael Pollan about his new book How To Change Your Mind: The new science of psychedelics, in which he explores the history and landscape of psychedelic drugs, for therapeutic and personal use.
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24 min
June 13, 2018 Rules of law
With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. On the first anniversary of Grenfell Tower, Terri Apter tells us about how art can respond to tragedy; former New York prosecutor David Pitofsky assesses the judicial heft of James Comey; and hear a bit of our interview with Michael Pollan on the beneficial return of psychedelic drugs.
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42 min
June 07, 2018 Jesmyn Ward’s lyrical fiction - a bonus episode
Jesmyn Ward’s most recent novel Sing, Unburied Sing won the National Book Award in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year. In this bonus episode, Jesmyn Ward talks to Roz Dineen about fiction, her characters, living through Hurricane Katrina, and the enormous burden of empathy. This continues a conversation started earlier in the year - and included in the podcast of April 26 - when Jesmyn discussed The Fire This Time, a collection of essays she had edited about racial politics and experience in America.
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32 min