In her first novel The Last Sane Woman (Verso) poet Hannah Regel investigates the pains and pleasures of artistic practice carried out against the odds. While researching in a small archive dedicated to women’s art young graduate Nicola Long happens upon one half of a correspondence, conducted half a century before, written by a recently graduated ceramicist to a friend. As Nicola reads on she becomes obsessed with the parallels between her own life and that of the woman she encounters in the letters.Regel was joined in conversation by LRB contributor and art critic Emily LaBarge.Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspodGet the book: https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/the-last-sane-woman-hannah-regel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Poets Ella Frears and Will Burns were at the shop to read from and talk about their new collections. Ella’s Goodlord, from Rough Trade Books, takes the form of a long, lyrical email to an estate agent, interrogating our obsession with ‘property’ with Frears’ characteristic humour and sharpness, while Will’s Natural Burial Ground (Corsair) is the second collection from a writer Max Porter has described as ‘a soulful English poet of the kind we don’t make enough of’. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her latest semi-autobiographical novel Playboy (Tuskar Rock, translated by Holly James), leading French writer Constance Debré describes how a woman, at the age of 43, abandons her apartment, her marriage and her successful legal career to lead a new life as an out lesbian and a writer. In a series of short, sharp vignettes the narrator describes a series of meetings with lovers, with her father and with her son and ex-husband, exploding heteronormative assumptions about what it means to be queer in a straight world. Debré was joined in conversation about her work by writer and critic Alice Blackhurst.Get Playboy: https://lrb.me/debrepodFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Throughout its history feminism has had a troubled relationship with policing, torn between seeking its protection and attacking its ingrained sexist bias. In Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? (Verso) Leah Cowan cuts a trenchant path through the debate, reminding us of the vibrant and creative alternatives envisioned by those who have long known the truth: the police aren't feminist, and the law does not keep women safe. She discusses the issue with feminist writer and scholar Lola Olufemi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her debut novel Scaffolding (Chatto) Lauren Elkin – ‘The Susan Sontag of her generation’, according to Deborah Levy – presents two couples occupying the same Paris apartment, five decades apart. Lauren Elkin’s previous works include Art Monsters, a landmark study of women artists, Flâneuse and a translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Inseparables. She was joined in conversation by writer and broadcaster Octavia Bright.Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspodGet the book: https://lrb.me/scaffoldingpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Federal Theatre Project, established as part of the New Deal in 1935 to provide employment opportunities for theatre professionals affected by the Great Depression, became the cornerstone of American radical drama, both on stage and on radio, throughout the late 1930s. Its staunchly political stance on labour and race relations and housing and health inequality proved popular with audiences, but less so with Congress which, in an atmosphere of growing anti-communist paranoia, withdrew the Project’s funding in 1939. In The Playbook (Faber) theatre historian and Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro tells the absorbing and disturbing tale, at the same time uncovering the deep roots of today’s culture wars. He's in conversation with historian and author Sarah Churchwell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anne Serre’s latest novel to appear in English, brilliantly translated from the French by Mark Hutchinson, was written in the aftermath of the death of the author’s younger sister, and recounts the tortured relationship between an unnamed narrator and his close childhood friend Fanny, a young woman suffering from profound psychological distress. Hailed in Le Point as a 'masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and elegance’, A Leopard-Skin Hat (Lolli Editions) is a bewildering rollercoaster of hope and despair, calling into question the form of the novel itself.Serre, Bordeaux-born author of 14 previous novels, was joined in conversation about her work with novelist and LRB contributor Lucie Elven.Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her debut novel Experienced (4th Estate) writer and cook Kate Young delves into the world of queer dating following, reluctant Bette on an odyssey of sexual encounters as she tries to catch up on the decade of fun she missed out on before coming out, always intending to return after the adventure to her true love Mei. ‘A fizzing rollercoaster of a romcom,’ writes Caroline O'Donoghue. ‘The sexiest book you'll read all year, and the most heartening’. Young read from her novel, and talked about it with Nicola Dinan, author of Bellies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born in Belgium in 1954 to conservative, Catholic parents, Lucy Sante migrated to New York in the 1960s, where she became associated with the Bohemian artistic milieu of the city. After producing several highly acclaimed works of history such as Low Life and The Other Paris and translating Félix Fénéon’s feuilletons for NYRB as Novels in Three Lines, she announced in 2021 that she was transitioning: ‘Yes, I’ve known since at least age 11 but probably earlier and yes, I suppressed and denied it for decades’, she wrote at the time. In I Heard Her Call My Name (Hutchinson Heinemann), ‘a generous, fearlessly revealing book’ (Samantha Hunt), she describes with great grace, wit and humility her decision to begin living the life she knew was truly hers.Sante is in conversation about her memoir with writer and filmmaker Juliet Jacques. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born in the pandemic lockdown of 2020, when Britain’s restaurants had closed their doors, Jonathan Nunn founded the online newsletter Vittles, which rapidly established itself as the premier platform for exploring food cultures in Britain and around the world. Out of Vittles was born London Feeds Itself, a fascinating collection of essays written at the intersections of food, architecture, history, and demography. First published by Open City in 2022, London Feeds Itself now appears in a new edition in association with Fitzcarraldo.In this episode, Jonathan Nunn speaks about the project with architectural historian Owen Hatherley, whose essay ‘The Housing Estate’ from the book serves as a springboard for the discussion.Get the book: https://londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/london-feeds-itself-jonathan-nunnFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the Covid lockdown Iain Sinclair took delivery of two large yellow boxes containing fresh prints of photographs by the master-chronicler of Soho John Deakin who died, obscure and penniless, in a Brighton hotel room in 1972. Sinclair, another master-chronicler of London’s hidden past, uses those and other images and memories – (‘an invaluable catalogue of artists and divas, actors, film producers, criminals and derelicts’) – to bring back to life the unique artistic milieu of Bohemian London in the 50s and 60s. Iain Sinclair read from and talked about Pariah Genius (Cheerio), in conversation with memoirist, novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CAConrad is one of the most productive and inventive poets of their generation. Writing in the New York Times, Tracey K. Smith described how Conrad’s poetry ‘invites the reader to become an agent in a joint act of recovery, to step outside of passivity and propriety and to become susceptible to the illogical and the mysterious’ – a susceptibility fully evidenced in Conrad’s latest Penguin collection, Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return.Conrad is joined by Luke Roberts, Senior Lecturer in Modern Poetry at King’s College London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drawing on her own experience restoring a walled garden in Suffolk, and moving between real and imagined gardens, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to John Clare’s enclosure elegies, from a wartime sanctuary in Italy to a grotesque aristocratic pleasure ground funded by slavery, Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth. She was joined in conversation with writer, critic and frequent LRB contributor Jon Day.Get The Garden Against Time: https://lrb.me/gardenlaingFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At a Bethesda Baptist chapel two worshippers, separated in age by three decades, are drawn together by common interests, driven apart by divergent loves, before being reunited by the mysteries surrounding their small town. Francis Spufford describes Enlightenment (Jonathan Cape) as ‘a book in which everything is kindled into light by Sarah Perry’s rapt, luminous attention: friendship, betrayal, faith, astronomy, the drizzle on the streets of Essex and the heavens above them.’ Sarah Perry, author of Essex Girls, Melmoth and The Essex Serpent, read from the novel and talked about it with nature writer and novelist Helen Macdonald. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Held is Anne Michaels’ long-awaited new novel – following on from the 1996 classic Fugitive Pieces and 2009’s The Winter Vault – exploring, in the words of Margaret Atwood, ‘war and its damages, passed through generations over a century’.Michaels shared an extended reading from Held with actor Stephen Dillane, who played Jakob Beer in the 2007 film adaptation of Fugitive Pieces, and was joined in conversation by the evening's host, Gareth Evans.Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspodGet the book: https://lrb.me/heldpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Choirboy, drag act, grandson, mentor, poet, lover, activist, performer: Dean Atta has played many roles in his life. In his explosive, candid and courageous memoir Person Unlimited (Canongate) he describes a life lived in defiance of categories. Benjamin Zephaniah wrote of Atta’s work as being ‘As honest as truth itself. He follows no trend; he seeks no favours . . . Beyond black, beyond white, beyond straight, beyond gay, so I say. Love your eyes over these words of truth. You will be uplifted’. Dean Atta reads from his work and talks about it with writer and broadcaster Michael Rosen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In The Future of Songwriting, lead singer with Throwing Muses, solo artist and songwriter Kristin Hersh reflects on the status and future of her chosen genre over a long, hot Christmas in Australia. In a series of conversations, encounters and philosophical dialogues Hersh delivers a fierce, funny and existential meditation on the art of the song - and its future. She was joined at the Bookshop by writer and critic Jennifer Hodgson.Get the book: https://lrb.me/kristinhershpodFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her debut novel Amma (Weatherglass), a multi-generational saga set in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and London, Saraid de Silva explores memory, trauma and displacement. She was in conversation with Nina Mingya Powles, author of Tiny Moons and Small Bodies of Water. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Siblings (Monitor Books) is a unique round-table discussion / poetry collection, convened by Will Harris, between Harris, Jay Bernard, Mary Jean Chan and Nisha Ramayya. The four poets explore real and imaginary siblings, writing communities, and the wayward directions of the lyric mode – writing as makers and friends about the possibilities that poetry enables now. All four poets convened at the Bookshop for discussion and readings.Get the book: https://lrb.me/siblingsbookFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Gillian Rose’s Love’s Work was published shortly before the author’s death in 1995, Marina Warner wrote in the LRB: ‘This small book contains multitudes. It fits to the hand like one of those knobbed hoops that do concise duty for the rosary, each knob giving the mind pause to open up to vistas of meditation on mysteries and passion.’To mark the publication of a new edition (Penguin Modern Classics) with an introduction by Madeleine Pulman-Jones, we host a discussion of Rose’s ‘masterpiece of the autobiographer’s art’ (Edward Said) and its legacy, featuring LRB contributing editor James Butler, Rebekah Howes of the University of Winchester and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1917: Virginia Woolf arrives at Asheham, on the Sussex Downs, immobilized by nervous exhaustion and creative block.1930: Feeling jittery about her writing career, Sylvia Townsend Warner spots a modest workman's cottage for sale on the Dorset coast.1941: Rosamond Lehmann settles in a Berkshire village, seeking a lovers' retreat, a refuge from war, and a means of becoming 'a writer again'.Harriet Baker describes in Rural Hours (Allen Lane) how three very different writers, more often associated with city living, found solace and inspiration in the English countryside. She was in conversation with Lauren Elkin, author of Art Monsters and Flâneuse and translator of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Inseparables. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lauren Oyler is one of our rowdiest and sharpest literary critics, twice causing the LRB website to crash from too much traffic, and author of the novel Fake Accounts. No Judgement is her first collection of non-fiction; a series of interlinked essays connecting internet gossip, the attention economy, and the role of criticism.Oyler is in conversation with journalist and cultural commentator Leo Robson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Three of Wales' best contemporary writers in an early St David's Day celebration of Wales in words. Novelist Joe Dunthorne, National Poet of Wales Hanan Issa and Carnegie prize-winning novelist and playwright Manon Steffan Ros explore the country's literary history, share its less-known treasures, and discuss the meaning of 'Welshness' today, in a one-off conversation with readings. The event was curated by Hay Festival as part of Wales Week in London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fernanda Eberstadt’s Bite Your Friends is both a history of the body as a site of resistance to power, and a subversive memoir, drawing on a cast of outrageous heroes including Diogenes, Saint Perpetua, Pasolini, Pussy Riot and the political artist Piotr Pavlensky, who nailed his scrotum to the pavement of Red Square to protest Vladimir Putin’s tyranny. Eberstadt was joined at the Bookshop by critic and novelist Olivia Laing, whose latest book The Garden Against Time (Picador) is forthcoming in May 2024.Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspodGet the book: https://lrb.me/biteyourfriendsbook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Clair Wills was in her twenties, she discovered she had a cousin she had never met. Missing Persons, or My Grandmother’s Secrets is a detective story, memoir and cultural history of Ireland’s Mother and Baby homes. ‘Attending to the ways that the past ruptures and grows through the present’, writes Seán Hewitt, ‘this is a history shaken by intimacy – a brave and rigorously humane book.’ Wills was joined in conversation with Alice Spawls, editor of the LRB and co-editor of After Sex (Silver Press).Get the book: https://lrb.me/missingpersonsFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alexandra Harris has previously cast her probing critical eye over poetic and artistic responses to English weather (in Weatherland), and English art of the 1930s and 40s (in Romantic Moderns); now, in The Rising Down (Faber & Faber) she turns it on the West Sussex landscape of her childhood, revealing the layers of buried lives beneath a familiar landscape in a work which the Independent has described as ‘scholarship at its life-enhancing best’. Harris was in conversation with essayist and critic Laurence Scott, author of Picnic Comma Lightning and The Four Dimensional Human. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Frantz Fanon was only 36 when he died in 1961, but his books and ideas – from White Skin, Black Masks to The Wretched of the Earth – have proved lastingly influential. Adam Shatz’s The Rebel’s Clinic is both a biography of Fanon and an in-depth study of his writing.Shatz, the US editor of the London Review of Books and the author of Writers & Missionaries, was joined by Kevin Okoth, author of Red Africa: Reclaiming Revolutionary Black Politics.Listen to Adam discuss Fanon with Judith Butler on Close Readings: https://lrb.me/fanonhcGet the book: https://lrb.me/rebelsclinicpodFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the time of his death in 2017, the architectural critic and historian Gavin Stamp (Private Eye’s ‘Piloti’) had nearly completed his monumental survey of British architecture between the world wars. His wife, the writer and historian Rosemary Hill, has edited the text for publication. Interwar: British Architecture 1919-1939 (Profile) is a refreshing reassessment of the period which looks beyond modernism to give a broader picture of an age of turbulence and contradiction.Hill was joined in conversation with Rowan Moore, whose most recent book is Property: The Myth that Built the World (Faber).Get Interwar: https://lrb.me/interwarpodFind more events at the London Review Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Revolutionary Acts (Faber), Jason Okundaye meets an elder generation of Black gay men and listens as they share intimate memories and reflect upon their lives. Through their conversations he traces these men's journeys and arrivals to South London through the seventies, eighties and nineties from the present day, seeking to reconcile the Black and gay narratives of Britain. Okundaye was in conversation with Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk and contributor to the London Review of Books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Within the British music scene, recent years have borne witness to underground genres emerging from the inner cities, going on to become some of the most popular music in the nation. In Where We Come From, journalist Aniefiok Ekpoudom travels the country to explore the dawn, boom and subsequent blossoming of UK rap and grime. Taking us from the heart of south London to the West Midlands and South Wales, he explores how a history of migration and an enduring spirit of resistance have shaped the current realities of these linked communities and the music they produce. These sounds have become vessels for the marginalised, carrying Black and working-class stories into the light. Ekpoudom was joined in conversation with Gary Younge, journalist and author of Dispatches from the Diaspora.Buy the book: https://lrb.me/ekpoudompodFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laleh Khalili’s new book The Corporeal Life of Seafaring (Mack) draws on her own experiences to describe with care and imagination the material and physical realities of contemporary commerce at sea, detailing (in the words of Steve Edwards) ‘the labouring bodies – hands, legs, and eyes; flesh and soul; suffering and solidarity – that make the world go round. In the process, the connections and divisions of the world economy come into view.’ Khalili was in conversation with LRB contributing editor James Butler, the co-founder of Novara Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fleur Adcock’s sly, laconic poems have been delighting audiences since her 1964 debut The Eye of the Hurricane. Her Collected Poems draws together the work of sixty years; as Fiona Sampson writes, ‘Informality and immediacy are good ways to remake a world; and Adcock’s style has not dated in the half-century since her debut.’ Adcock was joined in conversation at the Bookshop with her publisher, Neil Astley, and read from her Collected Poems.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodBuy Fleur Adcock’s Collected Poems: lrb.me/adcockpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Holly Pester discusses her debut novel, The Lodgers, with Nathalie Olah. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Here is a wasteland / of parched aesthetics / patched up with modern tubes’ – Rachael Allen’s long-awaited second collection, God Complex, is a long narrative poem describing the breakdown of a relationship against a backdrop of environmental degradation and toxicity. In this episode, she reads from the collection and was joined in conversation with the poet Lucy Mercer, whose first collection is Emblem (Prototype, 2022).Buy God Complex: lrb.me/godcomplexpodFind more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lara Pawson discusses her new book Spent Light with Jennifer Hodgson.Find out more about London Review Bookshop events: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Muldoon reads from and talks about his collection Howdie-Skelp.Find out more about London Review Bookshop events: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/events Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Our history of giving up – that is to say, our attitude towards it, our obsession with it, our disavowal of its significance – may be a clue to something we should really call our histories and not our selves’, wrote Adam Phillips in a 2022 LRB piece, ‘On Giving Up’. Now developed and expanded into a book of the same title, Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up, and helps us to address the central question: what must we give up in order to feel more alive? Phillips was joined in conversation by Dame Hermione Lee.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodBuy On Giving Up: lrb.me/givinguppod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lavinia Greenlaw’s new book The Vast Extent is a collection of ‘exploded essays’, about light and image, sight and the unseen, covering wide territories with the scientific precision and ease of access which characterises her poetry. She was joined by Jennifer Higgie, author of The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodGet The Vast Extent: lrb.me/thevastextentpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seán Hewitt’s new poetry collection Rapture’s Road follows hard on the heels of Tongues of Fire – the winner of the 2021 Laurel Prize – and the bestselling memoir All Down Darkness Wide. Like its predecessors, the collection confronts dark and difficult subject matter in startlingly beautiful lyric language, ‘exquisitely calm’ in the words of Max Porter. Hewitt read from the collection and was in conversation with Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth, whose long-awaited new novel Enlightenment is coming out in May. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey, published in 2017, the first into English by a woman, was hailed as a ‘revelation’ by the New York Times and a ‘cultural landmark’ by the Guardian. With her translation of the Iliad, ten years in the making, she has given us a complete Homer for a new generation.Emily Wilson, professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is a regular contributor to the LRB and the host of one of our Close Readings series of podcasts, Among the Ancients. Wilson was joined in conversation by Edith Hall, professor at Durham University and the author of many acclaimed books on Ancient Greek culture and its influence on modernity. The event was chaired by Wilson’s Close Readings co-host, Thomas Jones, and passages from Wilson’s Iliad were read by acclaimed actors Juliet Stevenson and Tobias Menzies.Buy the book: lrb.me/wilsoniliadFind more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodSubscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mary Jean Chan reads from their new collection, Bright Fear, and discuss it with Andrew McMillan.Chan’s debut, Fleche, won the Costa Book Award for Poetry in 2019. Bright Fear extends and develops that collection’s themes of identity, multilingualism and postcolonial legacy, while remaining deeply attuned to moments of tenderness, beauty and grace.Andrew McMillan’s most recent collection is pandemonium (Cape, 2021); a novel, Pity, is forthcoming in 2024. Together with Chan, he edited the landmark anthology 100 Queer Poems(Penguin). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who would you invite to a dinner party? In The Dinner Table, a delicious collection of great food writing from past and present, talented writer-chefs Kate Young and Ella Risbridger will introduce you to Samuel Pepys on the glories of parmesan, Shirley Jackson on washing up, Katherine Mansfield on party food, Nigella Lawson on mayonnaise, Michelle Zauner on kimchi and a great deal else besides.Buy the book: lrb.me/dinnertablepodFind more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Part script, part novel, part manual, Sorcerer (Prototype) is the latest unclassifiable book written in collaboration between the artist and writer Ed Atkins and the poet and critic Steven Zultanski – a gentle, contemplative work about the pleasures of conversation, being with others, and being alone. ‘Unlike many narratives, Sorcerer does not put crisis and conflict at the centre of the story’, write Atkins and Zultanski, describing their theme as ‘the intractability of reality – both its resistance to clear meaning and its sweetness, weirdness.’ Atkins and Zultanski were in conversation with the art writer and journalist Emily LaBarge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care, Lynne Segal, Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, continues the radical exploration of how the personal and the political interact. As Baroness Helena Kennedy KC writes, ‘Both memoir and manifesto, this wonderful book charts a personal history of feminist socialism - and, with her usual humane wisdom, our author points the way to a better politics.’ She was joined in conversation by Amelia Horgan, author of Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism.Get a copy of Lean on Me: lrb.me/lynnesegalpodFind more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Someone Else's Empire Tom Stevenson, a contributing editor at the LRB, dispels the potent myth of Britain as a global player punching above its weight on the world stage, arguing instead that its foreign policy has for a long time been in thrall to the wishes and interests of the United States.He talks about his book with writer, filmmaker, publisher and activist Tariq Ali. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mathias Enard’s latest novel, The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild takes us to the marshlands of South West France in a Rabelaisian celebration of life, love and death. Juan Gabriel Vasquez writes of him ‘Every novel by Mathias Enard reminds me of the reasons why I read fiction. He is ambitious, erudite, full of life, and a wonderful stylist to boot. He is one of the great novelists of our time.' He reads from his book and talks about it with Chris Power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her most personal book to date, Love and Money, Sex and Death (Verso) McKenzie Wark writes with her characteristic acuity about gender transition, communism, history, art, memory and the journey of discovering who one really wants to be.Wark talks about that journey with Lauren John Joseph, author of At Certain Points We Touch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Reading Waidner is like plugging into an electric socket of language and ideas’ wrote Jude Cook in the Guardian, praising Isabel Waidner’s Sterling Karat Gold. Waidner reads from their latest novel Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, and talks about it with academic, performer and activist Diarmuid Hester, whose forthcoming book Nothing Ever Just Disappears Waidner has described as ‘insightful, delightful, and enlightening: an essential entrant into the queer canon.’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.