Perdendosi: an instruction, typically at the end of a piece, for musicians to gradually diminish in volume, tempo and tone, to the point of disappearance. Photographer Norman McBeath uses the term to describe the way his images of fallen leaves portray how they lose colour and volume, turning from living things into something like parchment. During lockdown, McBeath’s images were a constant companion to artist and writer Edmund de Waal, who responds to them here with a series of texts evoking change, decay and transformation, a unique collaboration beautifully documented in a new book from Hazel Press.McBeath and de Waal are in conversation with Alexandra Harris, Professor of English at Birmingham University and author of Weatherland and Romantic Moderns. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows was published in 1922 and is only now beginning to receive its due. The collection stands alongside the better-known masterpieces of that year in its distillation of the spirit of the age and its outsize influence.Writer, researcher, and LRB contributor Kevin Okoth joined poet Raymond Antrobus and author Paul Mendez to discuss McKay's extraordinary life and work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his fifth novel The Last White Man (Hamish Hamilton) Mohsin Hamid continues his exploration of cultural and racial displacement, commenced so brilliantly with Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Exit West. In what has been described as a contemporary remoulding of Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ a man awakes one morning to find that his skin has turned dark. Hamid was in conversation with Jo Hamya, author of Three Rooms (Vintage). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dawn Foster, chronicler of austerity Britain and leading voice from the housing crisis, passed away last year aged 34. Foster, author of Lean Out (Repeater, 2016) and LRB contributor, was a working class feminist who rose to prominence as a newspaper columnist and broadcast commentator; she was a fearless champion for those at the sharp end. In the week of the Queen's funeral, friends and colleagues discussed her life and legacy: K Biswas, critic and director of Resonance FM and On Road Media; James Butler, LRB contributing editor and co-founder of Novara Media; Lynsey Hanley, broadcaster and author; and Gary Younge, author and sociology professor at the University of Manchester.Read Dawn Foster's work in the LRB: lrb.me/dawnfosterFind more Bookshop events via the website: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chef proprietor at London’s Quo Vadis, Jeremy Lee’s commitment to locality, excellence and simplicity has made the restaurant a must-eat-at destination for every resident or visiting gourmet. He’s also, in stark contrast to the popular image of the celebrity chef, the jolliest and most affable host you might ever hope to be fed by. His new book Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many (4th Estate), ‘one of the most beautiful cookery books I have ever seen’ according to Rachel Roddy, encapsulates his approach to food and cooking: first and foremost, it is about giving and receiving pleasure.Lee is in conversation about food and pleasure with the writer and critic Olivia Laing, who has written of him: 'I worship Jeremy Lee … He has a true gift for living, and for writing about it too.Find out about upcoming events: https://lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Knocking Myself Up (Dey St.), Michelle Tea brings all her characteristic passion, wit and occasionally alarming candour to bear on the trials, tribulations and joys of trying to become, and becoming, a queer parent. Witch-enhanced honey, intrusive medical procedures, impertinent questions and generous drag queens collide in a memoir that is both hugely entertaining and, in the end, profoundly moving.Tea was in conversation with Isabel Waidner, author of We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff and Sterling Karat Gold.Find more upcoming LRB Bookshop events via the website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Now published for the very first time, Through the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever Stopping (House Sparrow Press) is Derek Jarman’s only piece of narrative fiction. Somewhere between a fairytale, acid trip and road movie, the work lays the foundations for many of the themes and styles that characterise Jarman’s work in film, painting and design.Joining host So Mayer, author of A Nazi Word for a Nazi Thing (Peninsula), to explore the book were writer Philip Hoare, Jarman scholar Declan Wiffen and artist Michael Ginsborg. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Remember the Details, Skye Arundhati Thomas reflects on the Indian protest movement that began in mid-2019 against xenophobic and casteist citizenship laws. In the wake of the state erasure of these events, it asks what it means to remember, and how words and imagery inscribe reality into history. Thomas was joined by Preti Taneja, writer, activist, and contributing editor at The White Review.Find more upcoming LRB Bookshop events via the website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Helen Mort’s latest collection, The Illustrated Woman, has just been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, the latest accolade in what has been an incredibly productive year: 2022 has also seen the publication of her memoir of walking and motherhood, A Line above the Sky, and a collaborative lyric essay (with Kate Fletcher), Outfitting, exploring fashion and wild ecology.Caroline Bird’s latest book is Rookie, a long-awaited selection gathering material from her seven Carcanet collections – including The Air Year, which won the Forward Prize in 2020. She is also a playwright, and was an official poet for the London Olympics in 2012.Mort and Bird discuss and read from their work.Find upcoming events at the Bookshop here: https://lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cooking, we are told, has nothing to do with serious thought; the path to intellectual fulfilment leads directly out of the kitchen. In Small Fires (Pushkin), essayist and food writer Rebecca May Johnson takes a different path, rewriting the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge, revelation and radical thought.Johnson, author of the popular Substack ‘Dinner Document‘, was in conversation with Jonathan Nunn, who writes about the London food scene for eater.co.uk and edits the ‘Vittles’ newsletter.Find more upcoming LRB Bookshop events via the website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, published in English for the first time a century ago thanks to the efforts of his tutor at Cambridge Bertrand Russell, set out to solve all of the problems of philosophy in less than 100 pages, through a hierarchically numbered series of logical statements, or prepositions. He didn’t succeed, exactly – indeed, Wittgenstein himself was one of the book’s harshest critics – but that didn’t stop it becoming widely recognised as the most important work of philosophy of the 20th century. And its influence has extended into other artistic and intellectual fields too, from literature to cinema and music, and beyond.Joining Ray Monk, biographer of Wittgenstein and Russell and professor of analytic philosophy, for a conversation about the power of the Tractatus and the unparalleled breadth of its influence, were Signe Gjessing, whose Tractatus Philosophico-Poeticus, a dazzling poetic reimagining, was published earlier this year, and the celebrated composer, musician and interdisciplinary pioneer Max Richter. The conversation will be chaired by Sam Kinchin-Smith, Head of Special Projects at the LRB. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrey Kurkov is the celebrated Ukrainian author of Death and the Penguin and 18 other novels. His letters from Ukraine about his family’s flight from Kyiv became essential daily listening on the Today programme in the aftermath of the 2022 invasion.Two weeks after the Russian invasion began, Kurkov was joined by Oksana Zabuzhko, Robert Chandler, James Meek, Ilya Kaminsky, and Lyuba Yakimchuk for a special event chaired by Peter Pomerantsev.All the proceeds from ticket sales were donated to the Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital, an NGO coordinating the provision of medical care by civilian doctors on the Ukrainian front line.Find more upcoming LRB Bookshop events via the website: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her journalism Juliet Jacques writes about art, literature, culture and politics from a distinctive trans perspective. Front Lines (Cipher Press) collects seminal pieces written between 2007 and 2020. Juliet Jacques writes in her introduction ‘I never believed any journalism was objective, nor that there was any point in even trying to be. Above all, activism is needed to fight this, with journalism to support it: there is no point in pretending to be objective in our work, as the stakes remain just as high as they were back in 2010, perhaps even higher.’ Jacques is in in conversation with journalist Owen Jones.Find more upcoming events at the Bookshop here: http://lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two exciting young poets were at the shop to read from and talk about their work. Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s debut poetry collection Quiet (Faber) circles around ideas of Black interiority, intimacy and selfhood. ‘This book is a seismic event,’ writes Kayo Chingonyi. ‘Its vibrations will be felt for a long time to come.’ Editor of Poetry London André Naffis-Sahely’s second collection High Desert (Bloodaxe) is a psychedelic journal of end-times and an ode to the American Southwest, encompassing wildfires, Spanish colonial history, racial tensions and the recent pandemic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As he enters late middle age, Geoff Dyer turns, in The Last Days of Roger Federer, to the question of late – or, indeed, last – style. Lisa Appignanesi writes, ‘Geoff Dyer's wry meditations on mortality and late style have a dazzling way of dispelling gloom. Nietzsche and the Turin horse, vaporised Turner, dolorous Dylan, antics on courts and at Burning Man, Dyer's Last Days had me laughing aloud, a sure signal of deft seriousness. What is there to say except if this is late Dyer, it's great Dyer.’ Geoff is in conversation with the poet and critic Mark Ford.Find more upcoming events at the Bookshop here: http://lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since 2019, the Orwell Prize has celebrated the best in contemporary political fiction. Yara Rodrigues Fowler and Isabel Waidner, both on the prize’s 2022 shortlist, are in conversation with Sana Goyal, one of this year’s judges, talking about their novels there are more things and Sterling Karat Gold – books which not only take political issues as subject-matter but enact radical politics through their form. Find more upcoming events at the Bookshop here: lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Everything started with a photo. To see her free, hurtling fulsomely towards the future, made me think back to the life she shared with my father. Seeing the photo reminded me that those twenty years of devastation were not anything natural but were the result of external forces - society, masculinity, my father - and that things could have been otherwise.’Édouard Louis’s tender memoir of his mother is an exquisite portrait of womanhood, motherhood, the trials of both and the transcendent, fragile joy of eventual liberation. Louis, one of the leading French writers of his generation, discussed A Woman's Battles and Transformations (Harvill Secker) with its English translator the novelist Tash Aw, winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award for The Harmony Silk Factory and author most recently of We, The Survivors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seán Hewitt’s debut collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire (Cape), won the Laurel Prize in 2020; Max Porter praised it for its reverence to the natural world and ‘gorgeous wisdom’, both of which are apparent in his new book, All Down Darkness Wide, a unique memoir of queer longing, trauma and depression.Hewitt talks to Andrew McMillan, whose debut collection, physical (Cape), was the first poetry collection to win the Guardian First Book Award. His most recent book, pandemonium, was published in 2021.Find out about upcoming events: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At one time something of a backwater in the musical world, over the past few decades Scandinavia has become a musical powerhouse, encompassing all genres from Esa-Pekka Salonen to Björk. Copenhagen-based music journalist Andrew Mellor has travelled from Reykjavik to Rovaniemi to investigate the glories and the dark side of Nordic music, encountering composers, performers and audiences and to explore our complex fascination with the unique culture of the north.He was in conversation with James Jolly, radio presenter and former editor of Gramophone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two journalists with a multilingual background – Anna Aslanyan, the author of Dancing on Ropes: Translators and the Balance of History, and Daniel Trilling, the author of Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe – examine the role translation plays in reportage.News is an international commodity, subject to constant translation and retranslation as journalists frame, adapt and contextualise their source material to match their target audience. There is a curious contradiction between the right to information and the disinformation that results from it, precipitated by time pressure. Most journalism is done in a hurry, but is being the first to bring your readers a story from a distant part of the world worth the risk of spreading fake news?Find our upcoming events, online and in-person, here: lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed and The Idiot, joined us to read from and talk about her latest novel Either/Or. International travel, Harvard, Hungary and of course literature and philosophy collide in a heart-breaking and hilarious coming-of-age story by one of our most consistently thought-provoking writers.She was in conversation with Merve Emre, associate professor of English at the University of Oxford, author of several works of non-fiction and most recently the annotator of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Margo Jefferson talks to Colin Grant about her latest book, Constructing a Nervous System. It’s a memoir unlike any other, taking as its focus each ‘influence, love and passion’ which have gone to shape Jefferson as a person: her family, musicians, dancers, athletes and artists, and one which, in Maggie Nelson’s words, ‘takes vital risks, tosses away rungs of the ladder as it climbs’. Vivian Gornick describes it as ‘one of the most imaginative – and therefore moving – memoirs I have ever read’.Find our upcoming events, online and in-person, here: lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kate Folk's debut collection of short stories, Out There, combines science fiction, horror and psychological realism to explore the Kafkaesque precarities of social media and late capitalism: a house viscerally consumes its tenants, a curtain of void envelops the world, an army of AI chatbots is unleashed on the dating apps of San Francisco. Folk read from the book and was in conversation with Sharon Horgan, creator and star of the much-loved Channel 4 series Pulling and Catastrophe, who is working with Folk on adapting the collection's title story for television. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Written in 1954 but unpublished until after her death, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Inseparables is an intimate portrait, based on life, of female friendship on the cusp of womanhood. Its translator into English Lauren Elkin writes in her introductory note ‘“So is it any good?” people have asked me when I’ve told them I’m translating a ‘lost’ novel by Simone de Beauvoir … And I am relieved to say: yes. It is more than good. It is poignant, chilling and eviscerating.’Elkin, author of Flâneuse and No. 91/92: Notes on a Parisian Commute was in conversation with novelist and essayist Deborah Levy who has contributed an introduction to the UK edition. The event was chaired by Alice McCrum, programs manager at the American Library in Paris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Back in March 2018 Iranian-born Kaveh Akbar launched his debut collection Calling a Wolf a Wolf with us at the bookshop. He joined us again in digital form, for his second, Pilgrim Bell (Chatto), a rich and moving collection which explores issues of ambivalence around ethnicity, national identity and religious belief. He read a selection from his work, and discussed it with Seán Hewitt, fellow poet and author of Tongues of Fire and forthcoming memoir All Down Darkness Wide (Cape). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julian Barnes’s latest novel Elizabeth Finch, his first since The Only Story in 2018, is very much a novel of ideas. As a student sorts through the notebooks of his former teacher, the inspirational Elizabeth Finch, her ideas unlock for him the philosophies of the past and illuminate the present, underpinned by the story and ideas of Julian the Apostate, the late Roman Emperor who abandoned Christianity in favour of a neo-Platonic Paganism. Barnes was in conversation with Chris Power, author of A Lonely Man (Faber). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From debut author Nick Blackburn, a therapist specialising in LGBTQ+ issues, comes The Reactor, a powerful new addition to the literature of grief and recovery. Following the death of his father Blackburn examines the nature of destruction, both natural and human-made, drawing on a repertoire of film, music and pop-culture. Olivia Laing has described The Reactor as ‘Beautiful, strange and completely compelling’ and Helen Macdonald praises it as ‘One of the finest accounts of the mysterious workings of grief I have ever read.’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Niven Govinden’s sixth novel Diary of a Film (Dialogue) follows an unnamed director through the streets of an Italian town as he muses on cinema, queer love and the creative process; on its hardback publication, during first lockdown, the Financial Times described it as ‘a wise and skilfully controlled novel, which can be read in an afternoon, but which radiates in the mind for much longer.’ To celebrate the novel’s release in paperback, Govinden talks to Gareth Evans, the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s Moving Image curator.Find our upcoming events, online and in-person, here: lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On 29 November 2019 Usman Khan murdered Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt at Fishmongers’ Hall in London. Recently released from prison after serving a sentence for terrorism-related offences, Khan was attending an event to mark the anniversary of a writing course he had attended while in prison. Novelist Preti Taneja had been one of his tutors.In Aftermath (And Other Stories), described by Nikesh Shukla as ‘a masterclass work of literary brilliance’, Taneja has created from the horrific events of that day a searing lament, interrogating the language of terror, trauma and grief, a powerful indictment of the prison system and an equally powerful plea for its abolition. She was in conversation with Lola Olufemi, author of Feminism, Interrupted and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise.Find our upcoming events, online and in-person, here: lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Although born 20 years after Gwen John’s death, Celia Paul has always felt a strong affinity with the older artist. In Letters to Gwen John (Cape), described by Julia Blackburn as ‘A miraculous, door-opening book’, Paul has created in words and images an imaginary correspondence, and a spell-binding portrait of two women artists creating work against the grain, and entirely on their own terms. Paul talks about the book with the polymathic Olivia Laing, whose latest book is Everybody (Picador).Find out about our upcoming event, online and in person: lrb.me/lrbevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her latest book Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century (Oxford) Helen Thompson argues that while the earthquake that was the Covid-19 pandemic profoundly shocked the world order, the fault lines along which it operated had been building for decades. Her story begins with the energy crises of the 1970s, takes in the financial crash of 2008 before leading us to our current state of unease, disorder and instability. Thompson is in conversation with Ann Pettifor, economist and author of The Production of Money and The Case for the Green New Deal.Find our upcoming events, online and in-person, here: lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After twenty years novelist and essayist Pankaj Mishra makes a triumphant return to fiction. Described by Amit Chaudhuri as ‘his best work yet’ and by Neel Mukherjee as ‘unforgettable’, Run and Hide (Hutchinson Heinemann) explores, through the lives of three friends riding the high tide of India’s boom years, the implications and human costs of the thirst for wealth and power. Mishra, a regular contributor to the LRB, was in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Central to this modern myth is the ‘savage creative storm’ of 2-23 February 1922, when Rilke wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus and completed the Duino Elegies in less than three weeks. 100 years on from its conclusion, the poet and critic Ange Mlinko discusses Rilke, the cult of Orpheus and intense productivity with Don Paterson, whose versions of the Sonnets to Orpheus were published by Faber (and the LRB) in 2006, and the writer and artist Edmund de Waal, for whom the work of Rilke has been a constant touchstone.Find our upcoming digital and in-person events here: https://lrb.me/lrbevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fernanda Melchor first came to the attention of the English-speaking world with 'Hurricane Season', a tale of murder in a lawless Mexican village, described by Ben Lerner as ‘Brutal, relentless, beautiful, fugal’. In 'Paradais' she continues her exploration of violence, class and misogyny with a chilling story of two misfit teenagers living in a luxury housing complex, haunted by macabre fantasies of escape. Melchor discusses her work with Nicole Flattery.Find our upcoming digital and in-person events here: https://lrb.me/lrbevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘How do you write after Ulysses?’ asked the twice Booker-nominated novelist Tom McCarthy, author of C, Satin Island and most recently The Making of Incarnation, in the LRB in 2014. He reflects on working in Ulysses’s wake – as we all must – with the Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Philipsz, whose past installations have drawn extensively on Joyce’s writing (and interest in music). She also sings live. Chaired by the LRB's Head of Special Projects, Sam Kinchin-Smith.Presented in partnership with Shakespeare and Company. Photo credits: Nicole Strasser and Franziska Sinn. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lisa Appignanesi, Benjamin Burgis, Janan Ganesh and James Wolcott on ‘A Hitch in Time’, chaired by David RuncimanChristopher Hitchens was a star writer wherever he wrote; the London Review of Books, to which he contributed sixty pieces over two decades, was no exception. A Hitch in Time, published in December to mark the tenth anniversary of his death, collected 20 of the best in a selection James Wolcott describes, in his introduction, as ‘restorative, an extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.’ Wolcott discussed what he means – the pre-9/11 ‘Hitch in time’ that the collection recaptures – with Benjamin Burgis, author of Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters, along with the writer and campaigner Lisa Appignanesi, the FT columnist Janan Ganesh, and the LRB’s David Runciman.Part of our ongoing ‘Revivalism’ series of conversations focussing on literary revivals and heroes of the LRB archive. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With How Should a Person Be? Sheila Heti merrily and unforgettably extended our notions of what a novel might or ought to contain. In Pure Colour (Harvill Secker), brilliantly described by Kirkus Reviews as ‘that rarest of novels—as alien as a moon rock and every bit as wondrous,’ she continues her extraordinary project of expanding our minds to where they ought to be. Heti was in conversation about that project with Merve Emre, associate professor of English at the University of Oxford. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his long essay Losers (Peninsula) psychoanalyst and critic Josh Cohen examines, with characteristic wit and acuity, what our culture loses by undervaluing what Elizabeth Bishop famously called ‘the art of losing.’ Drawing on a wide range of sources and inspirations from mythology, psychology and literature, including Freud, Winnicott, Beckett, Kafka, Thomas Bernard and Robert Walser, Cohen was in conversation with novelist and essayist Deborah Levy, who has written of Losers ‘With compassion, skill and verve, Josh Cohen eloquently dismantles societal and personal delusions about winning and losing.’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Professor of Sociology at University College London, argues in Speculative Communities (Chicago) that speculation is no longer confined to the sphere of finance, but has, through virtual marketplaces, new social media and dating apps, become an integral part of the most intimate realms of our lives. Komporozos-Athanasiou will be in conversation with economist Grace Blakeley, author of Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation, James Bridle, author of New Dark Age, and Will Davies, Reader in Political Economy at Goldsmiths and author of Nervous States. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vron Ware’s take on what it means to be English has, thankfully, little time for nostalgic visions of a post-Brexit rural paradise. In Return of a Native (Repeater Books) and with a sly nod to Thomas Hardy, she revisits her home turf in Hampshire to explore what it means to see the world from a small place. Her stories of violence and resistance, growth and destruction encompass deep time, colonial histories and global capitalism. Vron Ware, visiting professor in the Gender Studies department at London School of Economics, was in conversation about her work with Hazel Carby, author of Imperial Intimacies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s clear that the Covid pandemic has changed the way we need to think about public health, social justice, the economy and a good deal else besides. Michael Rosen, who became gravely ill with the disease, and whose bibliography is both too long and too impressive to list here, and Rachel Clarke, a journalist who became a doctor and has been heroically working on the frontline, were in conversation about the pandemic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2021’s Nobel Laureate in Literature Abdulrazak Gurnah is in conversation about his work with author Kamila Shamsie. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Diane Di Prima began writing her revolutionary ‘Letters’ in 1968, conjuring a potent blend of utopian visions, ecological urgency and spiritual insight. By turns a manifesto for breaking free, a manual for street protest and a feminist broadside, these poems are as relevant to the convulsions and crises of today as they were fifty years ago. To launch an expanded 50th anniversary edition of Revolutionary Letters from Silver Press our event featured readings by Helen Charman, CA Conrad and Mira Mattar and a conversation about Di Prima with Sophie Lewis, Francesca Wade and Sarah Shin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oppositions collects Mary Gaitskill’s essays of 30 years; taking in subjects as diverse as Nabokov, horse-riding and the Book of Revelation, they’re as sharp and incisive as her fiction. Gaitskill is in conversation about the book with Octavia Bright, author and host of the ‘Literary Friction’ podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In ​The Woman Who Buried Herself (Hazel Press) Alys Fowler takes us deeper and deeper into, and under the soil, until there is no longer a separation. This story emerged like a fairy tale told to her during long hours daydreaming whilst weeding, in a sense it is her garden’s own tale which ventures into mythic realms, exploring the seen and unseen, mysteries of science, the animal and the organic in consciousness of life and love.Fowler was reading from the book and in discussion with Bee Wilson, LRB contributor and the author of the recent The Way We Eat Now (Harpercollins). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Towards the end of the 19th century Iain Sinclair’s great-grandfather Arthur made an accident-prone and largely disastrous colonial expedition to Peru. In his latest book, accompanied by his daughter, Iain Sinclair abandons his familiar London territory to follow in his ancestor’s footsteps, perhaps also hoping to eclipse his shadow. What he finds makes harrowing but essential reading in a story of exploitation, colonialism and environmental devastation. Sinclair was in conversation about his journey with Gareth Evans, curator of film at the Whitechapel Gallery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dante’s Purgatorio is as much an allegory of spiritual transformation as it is one of psychological rebirth, personal healing, and self-transcendence. Combining a graceful lyricism with decades of study, D.M. Black’s translation and commentary reveal new dimensions in Dante’s many portraits of people trying to find their way through life and what comes after. This fresh, bilingual edition of Purgatoriowas published on September 14th 2021, the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Black is in conversation with writer and translator Robert Chandler and psychoanalyst Giovanna di Ceglie. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Clegg and Jess McKinney launch their new Hazel Press poetry collections with reading and conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.