In this event from 2018, Brian Dillon, UK editor of Cabinet magazine and author of several books of essays, fiction, history and art criticism, talked about his first book, In the Dark Room, published by Penguin in 2005 and now available again in a handsome new edition from Fitzcarraldo, with Sophie Ratcliffe, Associate Professor in English, University of Oxford and author of On Sympathy (Oxford, 2008). Exploring the intersections of grief and memory, in his own personal history and beyond, Dillon evokes, in prose of great beauty and lucidity, the pain both of loss, and that of remembering the lost. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lynsey Hanley's Estates, first published by Granta in 2008, has become over the past decade one of the key texts to analyse Britain's urban landscape in the post-War period. To mark a new edition of her seminal work, Hanley, a regular contributor to the Guardian and the New Statesman, was in conversation with fellow journalist Dawn Foster, who has written widely on housing and social issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this event from June 2017, Brian Dillon talks to Max Porter about his latest book, Essayism (Fitzcarraldo Editions). Dillon has been fascinated by the essay form throughout his reading and writing life, and Essayism is at once a paean to this venerable and still vibrant genre, and a dazzling contemporary example of it. Porter is the author of the prize-winning Grief is the Thing with Feathers (Faber). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russian twentieth-century poetry is one of the pinnacles of European literature and we still know little about it. This event includes readings from Yesenin, Mayakovsky, Maria Petrovykh, Varlam Shalamov (still better known for his prose) and the emigre poet Georgy Ivanov, one of the very greatest of all Russian lyric poets. Stephen Capus, Robert Chandler, Boris Dralyuk and James Womack read some of their translations included in the new Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the nights close in, what could be better than to gather around the (virtual) hearth and consider multi-award winning poet Robin Robertson's shadow-wracked new collection, Grimoire (Picador).A grimoire is a manual for invoking spirits, and in Robertson's intense Celtic take, it tells stories of ordinary people caught up, suddenly, in the extraordinary: tales of violence, madness and retribution, of second sight, witches, ghosts, selkies, changelings and doubles, all bound within a larger mythology. This is a book of curses and visions, gifts both desired and unwelcome, full of the same charged beauty as the Scottish landscape – a beauty that can switch, with a mere change in the weather, to hostility and terror.Joining Robertson in conjuring the spirit of place, people and purpose are Alasdair Roberts, the extraordinary singer-songwriter and keeper of the tradition, and the T.S. Eliot prize-winning poet Jen Hadfield, whose most recent collection is Byssus. With host, Gareth Evans.. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daisy Lafarge’s Life Without Air (Granta), following on the tails of her pamphlets understudies for air and capriccio, is one of the mostly hotly-awaited debut collections of 2020. She read from the collection, and was in conversation about it with Rachael Allen, author of Kingdomland (Faber) and Lafarge’s editor at Granta. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

London, the Capital of world capitalism, a centre of global finance and a place of immense wealth and privilege, has an often unacknowledged red underbelly, stretching from Herbert Morrison in the 1930s to Sadiq Khan in the 2020s. In Red Metropolis (Repeater), Tribune culture editor and historian Owen Hatherley looks back at that tradition, and argues that a socialist, democratic, pluralist city could become a beacon of hope for the whole country and beyond. Hatherley is in conversation with Novara Media’s senior editor Ash Sarkar.Buy the book from us here: londonreviewbookbox.co.uk/collections/owen-hatherley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga presented her latest novel, the Booker-shortlisted This Mournable Body (Faber). The third in a trilogy which began with Nervous Conditions and continued with The Book of Not, This Mournable Body tells the ongoing story of Tambudzai and her struggles with patriarchy and the legacy of colonialism as she tries to make her way, on her own terms, in 1990s Harare. Dangarembga has for many years been as involved in politics as in literature and film (for her all three are intimately connected), and has served as education secretary for the Movement for Democratic Change. She is currently awaiting trial in connection with her role in peaceful anti-corruption protests in Zimbabwe, charges which have led many prominent writers around the world to leap to her defence.Dangarembga was in conversation with Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton, a gothic romance set in Georgian London which combines elements of Bildungsroman, crime fiction and slave narrative with a healthy dose of righteous anger.This event was held in partnership with Faber Members. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In our event from 16 July 2019, Geoff Dyer talks to Frances Wilson about D.H. Lawrence. Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage, published in 1997, is a brilliant account of attempting to write, and most often failing, a book about his great hero D.H. Lawrence. Now, more than two decades later, he has edited a selection of Lawrence's essays for Penguin. Subjects covered in this freewheeling volume include art, morality, obscenity, songbirds, Italy, Thomas Hardy, the death of a porcupine in the Rocky Mountains and, presciently, the narcissism of photographing ourselves. Historian and biographer Frances Wilson's most recent book is Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas de Quincey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On publication of Andrew Motion's new book of poetry, Essex Clay, he joined Alan Hollinghurst in conversation at St George's Bloomsbury. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Writer and critic Brian Dillon’s latest book Suppose a Sentence (Fitzcarraldo) is a series of essays, each of them taking as its pretext a single sentence drawn from literature. What emerges is a dazzling experiment in criticism, a personal and at times polemical investigation of style, meaning and sense. Dillon was in conversation about his work with Olivia Laing, author of Funny Weather and Crudo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Novelist, memoirist, essayist and contributing editor to the LRB John Lanchester sets out to chill you to the virtual bone with his first ever collection of short fiction Reality and Other Stories (Faber). As if modern life weren’t unsettling enough, Lanchester makes it even more so with tales of haunted mobile phones, selfie sticks with demonic powers and other stories of technology gone horribly, horribly wrong in this retread of M.R. James for the Zoom generation.As we prepare for what might be the strangest Hallowe’en in living memory, John Lanchester discussed the uncanny with the LRB’s head of special projects Sam Kinchin-Smith.Buy the book from us here: https://londonreviewbookbox.co.uk/products/reality-and-other-stories-by-john-lanchester Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The European Union Prize for Literature aims to put the spotlight on the creativity and diverse wealth of Europe’s contemporary literature and to promote the circulation of literature beyond national and linguistic borders. To discuss the prize, the state of European literature and Britain's place in the post-Brexit international literary community, we welcomed two past winners: Sunjeev Sahota, who won in 2017 for his Man Booker shortlisted novel The Year of Runaways; and 2014 winner Evie Wyld, author of All the Birds, Singing. The discussion was chaired by critic and former EUPL jury member Catherine Taylor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In celebration of the life, work and legacy of William Trevor, one of the giants of modern Irish fiction, authors Salley Vickers, Kevin Barry, Hermione Lee and BBC Radio 4 Books Editor Di Speirs read from and talked about their favourites of his novels and short fiction, to mark the publication of Last Stories (Viking). Trevor, who died in 2016, won the Whitbread prize three times, was five times shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and in 2014 was made Saoi by Aosdána, Ireland’s most prestigious artistic award. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We were joined by Toby Litt, Helen Charman, Lisa Kelly and Mary Jean Chan, four of the poets featured in Carcanet’s New Poetries VII. From the first anthology, published in 1994, through to this seventh volume, the series showcases the work of some of the most engaging and inventive new poets writing in English from around the world. The New Poetries anthologies have never sought to identify a school, much less a generation: the poets included employ a wide range of styles, forms and approaches, and new need not be taken to imply young. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Three-times Booker-nominated author and LRB editor-at-large Andrew O’Hagan’s latest novel centres on the powerful friendship between James and Tully, fuelled by teenage rebellion and the unforgettable soundtrack of late 80s British music. Stretching over three decades, Mayflies is a captivating study of adolescence becoming adulthood, with all the shades of light and darkness that has made O’Hagan one of the most respected writers of his generation.O’Hagan was in conversation with Edmund Gordon, biographer of Angela Carter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Igbo and Tamil writer and artist Akwaeke Emezi's mesmerising first novel Freshwater was published to universal acclaim in 2018, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Their second book was Pet, a novel for young adults that raised difficult and pertinent questions about cultures of denial, and was described as ‘beautiful and genre-expanding’ in the New York Times. To mark the publication of their second novel for adults The Death of Vivek Oji, a heart-wrenching tale of one family’s discords and misunderstandings, the London Review Bookshop hosted a live online conversation between Akwaeke Emezi and their editor at Faber, Louisa Joyner.The interview between Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Dionne Brand referred to in their conversation can be found here: https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2018/06/temporary-spaces-of-joy-and-freedom/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Novelist and essayist Kirsty Gunn’s latest novel Caroline’s Bikini is a powerful retelling of one of the oldest stories in western literature – that of unrequited love. In a series of conversations in West London bars, Gunn unravels the passion of financier Evan Gordonstone for the glamorous Caroline Beresford, an unravelling that brings Gordonstone to the brink of destruction. Kirsty Gunn is the author of six works of fiction and several essay collections, and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Dundee. She read from her latest book, and talked about it with Max Porter, author of Lanny. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leading political thinker Chantal Mouffe proposes a new way to define left populism today: it is more than an ideology or a political regime. It is a way of doing politics that can take various forms but emerges when one aims at building a new subject of collective action — the people. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Across five collections, Maureen N. McLane's poetry has won admirers for its distinctive mix of the humourous and the cerebral, a voice the London Review of Books described as ‘Somewhere between teenage fangirl and Wordsworth professor.’ The best of those five collections is now gathered in her first selected, What I'm Looking For (Penguin).McLane was at the shop to read from and discuss her work with poet and critic Sarah Howe, whose collection Loop of Jade won the 2015 T.S. Eliot prize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘This past is a dimension of the present, without which the present is mutilated.’In Lord of all the Dead, Javier Cercas plunges back into his family history, revisiting Ibahernando, his parents' village in southern Spain, to discover the truth about his ancestor Manuel Mena, who died fighting on the Francoist side at the Battle of the Ebro. Who are we to judge the dead? How can we reconcile national and family history, the political and the domestic? Cercas was in conversation with Gaby Wood, journalist and literary director of the Booker Prize Foundation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Five Dials 57, ‘To Leave and to Be Left Behind’, explores the imaginative space of the journey – where it can take us and how it can change us. Guest-edited by Sophie Mackintosh, it brings together a range of playful, intimate and risk-taking voices from across contemporary fiction and poetry. To celebrate the launch of this special issue, Sophie was joined in conversation by three of the magazine’s contributors – Rachael Allen, Bridget Minamore and Yara Rodrigues Fowler. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In conversation with Dave McKean, Richard McGuire talks about his graphic novel, Here, a book-length expansion of his groundbreaking 1989 sequence of the same name, Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To celebrate the publication of Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told?, a new selection of Jenny Diski's LRB essays, chosen and introduced by Mary-Kay Wilmers, Deborah Friedell talked to Chloe Diski about Jenny's life and work.You can order Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told? from us here: https://lrb.me/order Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two of Ann Quin’s admirers, novelist and essayist Deborah Levy and writer and critic Juliet Jacques, will be joined in conversation about her life and work by Jennifer Hodgson, editor of The Unmapped Country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are more beautiful things than Beyoncé (Corsair) won Morgan Parker a wide UK readership; Magical Negro takes and expands on the achievement of that first collection, dealing as it does with objectification, loneliness, stereotyping and the stubbornness of ancestral trauma. Danez Smith has called Parker ‘one of this generation’s best minds, able to hold herself and her world, which includes all of us, up to impossible lights’. Parker read from Magical Negro, and was in conversation with Georgina Lawton, journalist and essayist, who writes for the Guardian and gal-dem magazine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Writing on Lorna Goodison’s poetry, Derek Walcott asks ‘What is the rare quality that has gone out of poetry that these marvellous poems restore? Joy.’ Goodison has served as the Poet Laureate of Jamaica and published twelve volumes of poetry; her Collected Poems came out from Carcanet in 2017. In 2019, she won the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.Linton Kwesi Johnson is one of the only three poets to be published as a Penguin Modern Classic while still alive; his collections include Inglan is a Bitch, Tings an’ Times, and Mi Revalueshanary Fren.Johnson and Goodison were in conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There is a sort of chase for coherence in the current commercial market for fiction ... a sort of terror of there being any kind of mystery in a book, or even a character being confused.Deborah Levy, described by Lauren Elkin in the TLS as ' one of the most exciting voices in contemporary British fiction' was at the Bookshop to talk about her latest novel Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton), which explores the strange and monstrous nature of motherhood.“A bright broth of myth, psychology, Freudian symbolism and contemporary anxiety.” – Guardian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are we English, British, European, citizens of the planet Earth or none of the above? The ‘Citizens of Everywhere’ project invites writers, artists and journalists to respond to the seismic shifts in European and American politics, and their implications for the future, in ways that are creative, surprising, and, most importantly of all, useful. Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, Labour peer and former director of Liberty, novelist Tom McCarthy and campaigner Eloise Todd were at the shop to debate the future of citizenship in Britain, Europe and beyond. Lauren Elkin, author of Flaneuse and co -director of the Centre for New and International Writing at the University of Liverpool, was in the chair. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fleeting appearance of black faces in Tudor paintings marks the silent presence of a community's untold story. Who were the black men and women who lived, loved, and died in Renaissance Britain? How did they arrive? And how can we recover their voices when all we have is a glimpse in a portrait here, or church and court record there? At this event the writer Fred D'Aguiar and historians David Olusoga and Catherine Fletcher joined Nandini Das, director of TIDE, to explore the challenge of using fiction to recover those lost voices in history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory (Polity) Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi engage in a critical dialogue that seeks to expand our understanding of capitalism, revealing it to be not merely a system of economic relations, but rather a form of institutionalised social order, and one that continually reinvents itself through crisis. Nancy Fraser, Professor of Political & Social Science at the New School for Social Research, was in conversation about capitalism and its discontents with Ann Pettifor, Director of Prime (Policy Research in Macroeconomics), Fellow of the New Economics Foundation and author of The Production of Money (Verso). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danny Dorling, Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford and, according to Simon Jenkins in the Guardian, 'the geographer royal by appointment to the left', returned to the Bookshop to talk about his new book A Better Politics: How Government Can Make Us Happier (London Publishing Partnership). Dorling's book looks at the evidence for a successful politics that would promote happiness and health and suggests policies that take account of this evidence. Dorling was in conversation with Rupa Huq, Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, and Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laleh Khalili and Rafeef Ziadah on shipping and capitalism in the Arabian peninsula.You can order the book discussed in this episode here: lrb.me/order Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Radio producer and naturalist Tim Dee has curated in Ground Work (Cape) an essential collection of autobiographical essays from distinguished writers, all of which explore, in diverse ways, the complex and increasingly vexed relationship between the human and natural. Tim Dee was in conversation with two of the book's contributors, Marina Warner and Ken Worpole. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nikita Lalwani’s latest novel You People (Viking) centres on a London pizzeria where the chefs are Sri Lankan and many of the kitchen staff are illegal immigrants. Through a diverse set of characters Lalwani draws a vivid portrait of contemporary British life as it really is lived. Lalwani was in conversation with her editor Mary Mount.‘Enthralling as a thriller, yet also a beautiful human drama, and a serious enquiry into the possibility of goodness.’ - Tessa Hadley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adam Mars-Jones talks about his newly-published novel, ‘Box Hill’ with Richard Scott. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Although our events programme is on hold at the moment, we’re delighted that Danny Dorling and Zoe Williams could get together virtually to record this podcast in lieu of the planned event.In his intriguing and counterintuitive new book Slowdown (Yale), Danny Dorling argues that, contrary to what most of us believe, human life is actually slowing down, in diverse areas from birth rate to GDP to technological innovation. And, what’s more, in an arresting graphic style combining text and data with illustrations by Kirsten McClure, he shows how slowing down can be good for the planet, for the economy and for our lives in general.For more information on the book and Danny's project, you can visit the Slowdown website hereYou can order Slowdown from us here: lrb.me/order Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mick Herron’s hero/anti-hero Jackson Lamb is everything Le Carré’s Smiley isn’t, as well as quite a lot of what he is. Drunk, obese, bone-idle and ridiculously talented in the dark arts of spycraft, he is also ridiculously loyal to the inhabitants of Slough House, a group of misfits, addicts and screw-ups who have been exiled from the security services for a range of misdemeanours both real and concocted. His five Slough House novels so far are brutal, ruthless, intricately plotted and, it’s important to mention, also extremely funny. Herron presented the sixth of them, Joe Country (John Murray) in the company of historian and novelist Miranda Carter who has, as M.J. Carter, herself created a series of brilliant thrillers, beginning with The Strangler Vine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘We architects must be idealists’, wrote Minnette de Silva, Sri Lanka’s first female architect. Shiromi Pinto’s second novel, Plastic Emotions (Influx Press) is based on de Silva’s life, charting her affair with Le Corbusier and her attempt to rebuild Sri Lanka in the aftermath of independence. Pinto was in conversation with Owen Hatherley, whose most recent book is The Adventures of Owen Hatherley in the Post-Soviet Space, and Olivia Sudjic, the author of Exposure. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sam Contis discusses ‘Dorothea Lange’s Day Sleeper’, the way women photographers are remembered and forgotten and how one artist encounters another in the world and in the archive, with Joanna Biggs, assistant editor at the LRB. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lars Iyer, author of the Spurious trilogy and Wittgenstein Jr. revisits philosophy in his latest novel Nietzsche and the Burbs (Melville House). Set in a modern secondary school, Iyer’s novel follows a group of students through their last few weeks of school, centring on an enigmatic and charismatic recent transferee from private education, nicknamed by his fellow pupils ‘Nietzsche’ both for his brilliance and intimations of oncoming madness. Iyer is currently Reader in Creative Writing at Newcastle University, where he was formerly a long-time lecturer in philosophy.Iyer was in conversation with Jon Day, author of Homing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her previous book Strands poet and essayist Jean Sprackland brought lyrically to life the hidden histories of objects found on her local beaches. Now in These Silent Mansions (Jonathan Cape) she brings together a magpie-like collector’s instinct, a historian’s restless curiosity and a poet’s keen sensibility to investigate what graveyards can tell us about both the dead and the living. Revisiting cemeteries in the towns and cities she has over the years called home, she unearths the fascinating, moss-hidden histories of those buried there, and investigates how memory and remembering ties us to the past, the present and the future.Sprackland was in conversation with Chris McCabe, a writer who has travelled extensively through the graveyards of London in books such as Cenotaph South, In the Catacombs and most recently, The East Edge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anne Enright’s latest novel Actress (Cape) tells the story of the relationship between Irish theatre legend Katherine O'Dell and her daughter Norah, as told by Norah herself. Early stardom in Hollywood, triumphs and tragedies on the stages of Dublin and London, and a career unravelling into infamy and eventual insanity are vividly evoked in a brilliant novel about mothers, daughters, secrets and the corrosiveness of fame.Anne Enright, author of six previous novels including Booker-winning The Gathering was in conversation with Andrew O’Hagan, editor-at-large for the LRB and author of many works of fiction and non-fiction, most recently The Secret Life: Three True Stories (Faber). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leïla Slimani was the first Moroccan woman to win France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for her novel Lullaby. Her latest book Sex and Lies (Faber) departs from fiction to explore the lives of and give a voice to the young women of Morocco, struggling to survive and thrive in a deeply conservative, patriarchal culture.Slimani was in conversation about her work with Professor Amia Srinivasan, tutorial fellow in Philosophy at Oxford and contributing editor at the LRB, where she has published articles on, inter alia, sexual politics, sharks and octopuses. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By day, Julia Ebner works at a counter-extremism think tank, monitoring radical groups from the outside, but two years ago, she began to feel that she was only seeing half the picture. She needed to get inside the groups to truly understand them. So she decided to go undercover in her spare time - late nights, holidays, weekends - adopting five different identities, and joining a dozen extremist groups from across the ideological spectrum including White Supremacists, ISIS, German Neo-Nazis, ‘Trad Wives’ and ‘Jihadi Brides’. The results of her research are presented in Going Dark (Bloomsbury), and give us a terrifying and essential insight into the mindset of extremism and the motives and strategies of its adherents.She was in conversation with Daniel Trilling, author of Bloody Nasty People and Lights in the Distance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like Beethoven, the poet Ruth Padel first came to love and understand music through playing the viola. Her great grandfather, a concert pianist, studied music in Leipzig with Beethoven’s friend and contemporary. Her latest collection Beethoven Variations (Chatto) is simultaneously a biography in verse of the great composer and a passionate and highly personal account of how one creative genius can feed, and feed on, another.She was joined in an evening of readings and conversation about Beethoven, poetry and music by poets Raymond Antrobus and Anthony Anaxagorou, both of whom are currently engaged in creative projects working on and from the life and work of Beethoven. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Harris reads from his debut collection RENDANG, alongside poet and editor Rachael Allen.Find out about upcoming events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/bookshopeventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The writer Samantha Harvey has won wide acclaim and a devoted following for her novels, most recently The Western Wind, set in mediavel Somerset. In her latest book The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping (Cape) she turns to philosophical memoir, with an account of a bout of insomnia that afflicted her from out of the blue, and led her to re-examine many of her assumptions about life, about writing, and about the human mind.She was in conversation about her work with novelist Tessa Hadley, who has described The Shapeless Unease as ‘gritty with particulars, concrete and substantial even when it is most philosophical and far-reaching … What a beautiful book.’Find out about upcoming events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/bookshopeventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.