With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – We're joined in the studio by Sam Leith, Literary editor of the Spectator and self-professed rhetoric geek, discusses the problem of fake news in a post-truth world, with recourse to Aristotle and economic theory; we're running an extract, in this week's summer double issue, from My Absolute Darling, the new American novel everyone seems to be talking about – we'll discuss the dark material at its centre with the author himself, Gabriel Tallent; "Walid Jumblatt has the air of quiet dignity which befits a retired warlord with nearly half a million Twitter followers", so begins Alev Scott's essay on her experiences among the Druze of Lebanon, one of the country's eighteen recognised minorities. Alev joins us to describe an enlightening and troubling encounter. The podcast will take a break and return on August 31; keep up with the TLS at the-tls.co.uk
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Novelist Neel Mukherjee discusses the vexed state of Modern India and the legacy of Partition 70 years on; Frances Wilson considers a problematic clutch of books that look to describe a "sisterhood" of female writers from Jane Austen to Virginia Woolf and beyond
With Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig. The TLS critic David Collard explores the idiosyncratic worlds of Ian Nairn – architectural critic, psychogeographer, “a cross between Anthony Burgess and Tony Hancock” – and describes Nairn’s influence on a generation of authors, including Simon Okotie, whose new novel he’s also reviewed in this week’s TLS. The paper's biography editor Catharine Morris tells the story of Tuco, the African grey parrot, and his influence on the life and work of the novelist Brian Brett. Lisa Hilton explains why the Marquis de Sade is a progressive moral satirist and a “rotten pornographer”.
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Former US Government consultant Edward Luttwak explains how the rising cost of cars in the US lies behind Donald Trump's election, and why the Democrats' sustained failure to address the problem may lead to consecutive terms for The Donald and his progeny; Humans are, more or less, logical and rational beings, aren't they? Cecilia Heyes, Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical Life Sciences and Professor of Psychology, discusses the irrationality of human thought and why it's easier to reason together; Michael Hoffman, the German-born poet, translator and, most recently 2018 Man Booker International judge, reads his new translation of a poem by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, "Female, 33"
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – We're joined in the studio by Claire Harman, author of Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen conquered the world, to discuss the life and legacy of this perhaps most-loved of all authors: what makes her so special, so alive in the modern world? And will there be no end to (stranger and stranger) adaptations of her work?
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi: Politicians – Theresa May foremost among them – always begin their obfuscations and delusional self-justifications by pretending to offer clarity. Journalist James O'Brien joins us to discuss the past thirty-odd days in the world of Prime Minister May, from the flunked general election to the travesty of Grenfell Tower, in a quest for that most elusive of things – a clear and concrete plan; TLS Visual Arts editor Anna Vaux brings us a preview of Tate Modern's new exhibition, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, an examination of the role of black artists in the Civil Rights movement; historian Roy Foster considers the fraught new relationship between the Conservative Party and the Irish Democratic Unionist Party, finding parallels, and missed warnings, dating back more than 100 years
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi: David Bromwich dips into the newly published letters, spanning 1920–8, of Robert Frost, the farmer-cum-teacher-cum-giant of American poetry who believed that a master writer should 'invade' younger writers 'to show them how much more they contain than they can write down'; 'Conversations around race and racism tend not to happen as much in Britain as in America', says Bernardine Evaristo in a discussion of the state of race relations in Britain and the importance of a provocative new book, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race Book by Reni Eddo-Lodge
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – 'Few people are aware that every week the White House indulges in Terror Tuesday, where the US President personally approves people for death without any legal process at all' – so says Clive Stafford Smith, who joins us in the studio to chart the global proliferation of modern state-led assassination and the moral, legal and human 'collateral damage'; Lamorna Ash, fresh from a week's research aboard the Cornish deep-sea trawler Crystal Sea, offers insights into the distinct rhythms, language and politics of Britain's beleaguered fishing industry
Every year we ask a selection of TLS contributors what they'll be reading with those extra hours of daylight. In this episode, we're joined by Fiction editor Toby Lichtig and Arts editor Lucy Dallas to pick through the results and discuss our own selections. Plus, an exclusive interview with 2017 Man Booker International-winner, the Israeli novelist David Grossman, and translator Jessica Cohen
With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. We discuss the election that nobody won and (almost) nobody predicted; varnishing day at the Royal Academy's summer exhibition; and the dubious merits of 1967's Summer of Love.
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Distinguished social psychologist Carol Tavris discusses whether we are seeing the end of definition by gender and whether there is any benefit in trying to track, physiologically and psychologically, the differences between men and women; Brian Dillon tackles the past, present and future of the essay form, via the indolent and melancholic work of Cyril Connolly, whose book The Unquiet Grave is "one of the strangest, funniest, most formally daring if badly flawed contributions to the literature of depression, disarray and the decay of ambition"; finally, the TLS's Religion Editor Rupert Shortt joins us to consider the true meaning of Islam, a religion so full of contradictions that – according to one critic – “very few Muslims consciously understand what being Islamic truly means”.
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – TLS Politics editor Toby Lichtig speaks to Assaf Gavron, author of a fascinating essay on the role of football in the politics of the Middle East, and runs us through a number of pieces from this week’s issue on the legacy of the Six-Day War, 60 years on; "No wild animal plays a more significant or ambivalent role in the imaginings of the British than the fox", so says Tom Holland, who joins us to consider this curiously divisive beast; fresh from a marathon production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, opera critic Guy Dammann explains the importance of this towering work of music and drama
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – TLS Philosophy editor Tim Crane grapples with the mind-body problem and "what it means to be the kind of creatures we are", plus the year that brightened Nietzsche's outlook, and Biscuit the dog's self-consciousness; Korean American author Min Jin Lee on how Korean literature approaches the difficult dream of reunification and what a new collection of stories, The Accusation by the pseudonymous author "Bandi", "the first work of fiction written by a North Korean author presumed still to be alive and living in the country”, tells us about life in that deeply mysterious land; finally, the great Alasdair Gray, author of Lanark, reads "From Vers Doré by Gérard de Nerval", a new work first published in this week's TLS.
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Michel Foucault was so fascinated by lettres de cachet – pre-Revolutionary requests made by citizens to the lieutenant of police calling for the imprisonment without trial of a troublesome family member or neighbour – that he co-edited a little-known compendium of them: Biancamaria Fontana joins us to explain; Was the "plunder of black life" the driving force in making America great? Stephanie McCurry weighs in on a recent book, Slavery's Capitalism: A new history of American economic development; finally, in light of the Oxford Companion to Cheese, Paul Levy considers the politics of cheese and makes the case for a good strong Cheddar.
With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. Sudhir Hazareesingh gives his analysis of the French election and the rise of Macron; Toby Lichtig (sic) helps us tackle genre fiction, including our tips for the greatest ever historical novel; and Hal Jensen celebrates an 8-hour play about American identity.
On April 30, at London's Southbank Centre, an extraordinary cast of readers – including Philippe Sands, Tom Stoppard, Niklas Frank, whose father was Adolf Hitler's lawyer, and Susan Pollack, who survived the camp – gathered to mark 70 years since the publication of this seminal account of humanity at its most brutal. Across five episodes, in collaboration with the Southbank Centre, we bring you the full, live recording of the event, part of the Belief and Beyond Belief festival, exploring what it means to be human. This performance was directed by Nina Brazier with music directed by Tomo Keller and performed by Raphael Wallfisch, Tomo Keller, Robert Smissen, Simon Wallfisch and Lada Valesova; the event was devised by A. L. Kennedy and Philippe Sands, in collaboration with Ted Hodgkinson, Senior Programmer for Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre. You'll find all episodes on the-tls.co.ukChapters 1–3 read by: human-rights lawyer Philippe Sands QC; author A. L. Kennedy; actors Samuel West...
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Frances Wilson on how Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions of 1789 laid the foundations for the messy modern memoir; TLS commissioning editor Mika Ross-Southall on a strange new exhibition of Picasso's work that examines his career-long engagement with minotaurs and matadors; Lorna Scott Fox rediscovers Leonora Carrington, an almost-forgotten radical artist-thinker for our fragile times.
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – The graphic artist Nicola Streeten discusses two new exhibitions, in Paris and London, linking comics to trauma theory, radical politics and feminism; Alexander van Tulleken on a new book by two "rock star professors" that purports to provide a bold new solution to the refugee crisis; a crackly clip just a few minutes long is all we have left of Virginia Woolf's voice – Emily Kopley fills us in on the fraught context behind "Craftsmanship", a talk broadcast by the BBC 80 years ago
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Philippe Sands discusses his forthcoming project which assembles an international cast of actors, writers, musicians and politicians to read Primo Levi's seminal account of survival in Auschwitz, seventy years after its publication; as part of our Shakespeare edition this week, TLS Commissioning Editor Michael "The Doctor" Caines considers how protective we should be of the man and the work; Rebecca Spang wades through the murky matter of money, the growth of "off shore" finance and the bewildering sexualization of monetary metaphors.Discover more at www.the-tls.co.uk.
With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – TLS editor James Campbell, Baldwin's biographer and friend, on the writer's complex presence and legacy on and off screen; Michael Rosen on the "disappearance" of Émile Zola and the long, dappled shadow of the Dreyfus Affair; Jane Yager on a sensational and problematic investigation into mass rapes committed by allied soldiers in Germany in the wake of the Second World War, and how attitudes have – and haven't – changed.Discover more at www.the-tls.co.uk
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