A newly discovered, pseudonymously signed mock-letter to the editor of 'The Lady’s Magazine' in 1823 tells the story of a wannabe writer who is visited by the "gentle spirit of Miss Austen". Not only might the letter offer new information on what Austen might actually have been like, says Devoney Looser, it is also the first piece of Jane Austen-inspired fan fiction; Anna Picard discusses the poet Anne Boyer’s memoir of modern illness and considers the intersections of literature and cancer; Jonathan Lynn shares memories of adventures with his cousin Oliver Sacks

For more on the Jane Austen story, go to www.the-tls.co.uk

'The Undying: Pain, vulnerability, mortality, medicine, art, time, dreams, data, exhaustion, cancer, and care' by Anne Boyer

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Norma Clarke considers the third and final volume of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher; having spent the past twenty years reporting on Russia, Owen Matthews tries to put his finger on why Vladimir Putin may prove to be one of the most successful political leaders of our era

Books

The Code of Putinism by Brian Taylor 

Putin’s World: Russia against the West and with the rest by Angela Stent 

The Putin System: An opposing view by Grigory Yavlinsky

Kremlin Winter: Russia and the second coming of Vladimir Putin by Robert Service

The Return of the Russian Leviathan by Sergei Medvedev, translated by Stephen Dalziel

We Need To Talk about Putin: How the West gets him wrong by Mark Galeotti

Dealing with the Russians by Andrew Monaghan

Putin v. the People: The perilous politics of a divided Russia by Samuel A. Greene and Graeme B. Robertson

Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The path from market economy to kleptocracy by Anders Åslund

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It's that time again... TLS contributors and editors share recommendations from a year of reading

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The author of 'The Five: The untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper', which won the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, speaks to Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi

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Just over ten years since introducing readers to a frustrated maths teacher called Oliver Kitteridge, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout reprises the character in a new novel, ‘Olive, Again’. Here, Strout talks to the TLS’s Roz Dineen about the craft of writing, why Olive has returned, and ageing on the page

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“Apart from capitalism itself, is there any cultural and economic manifestation in the world today as ubiquitous, powerful and globalized as football?” John Foot assesses two new studies of the game; just over ten years ago, Elizabeth Strout introduced readers to a frustrated maths teacher called Olive Kitteridge. The novelist speaks to Roz Dineen about bringing Olive back onto the scene; the famously over-the-top cookery show ‘Two Fat Ladies’ last graced our television screens twenty years ago. Anna Girling celebrates the legacy of this unlikely union

 

‘The Age of Football: The global game in the twenty-first century’ by David Goldblatt

‘Ultra: The underworld of Italian football’ by Tobias Jones

‘Olive, Again’ by Elizabeth Strout

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TLS editors talk about Virginia Woolf's writing for the TLS, as we publish a collection of the reviews she wrote for us over a period of thirty years; on the eve of George Eliot's bicentennial, Rosemary Ashton talks about how she came to conclusions, moral and otherwise, in her novels; Caryn Rose sees Bruce Springsteen's new film and looks over his 'storied fifty-year career' 

Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on How to Read by Virginia Woolf

Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen, edited by Jonathan D. Cohen and June Skinner Sawyers

Western Stars by Bruce Springsteen

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Sarah Lonsdale recounts how writers became enmeshed in national struggles; Jane Yager tells the surprising story of DIY punk in the DDR; we talk to Robert Potts about the pleasures of reading John le Carré ("I was never happier than when I was reading John le Carré")

Cold Warriors: Writers who waged the literary Cold War, by Duncan White 

Burning Down the Haus: Punk rock, revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall, by Tim Mohr   

Agent Running in the Field by John le Carré

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Michael Caines reports on an unprecedented gathering of work by William Hogarth, “replete with a bitter exuberance, folly finely observed and sin satirized”; “Sometimes a dark and stormy night calls for nothing more innovative than a classic chilling tale.” Joanna Scutts considers three new compendiums of the spooky and the macabre; Les Green makes a case for changing the UK's constitution (writing it down in one place being a good start...)

Hogarth: Place and progress, at the Sir John Soane’s Museum, until January 5, 2020

A Quaint and Curious Volume: Tales and poems of the gothic

Women’s Weird: Strange stories by women, 1890–1940, edited by Melissa Edmundson

Promethean Horrors: Classic tales of mad science, edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes

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Having asked a selection of writers to nominate their favourite magazines/journals, for a symposium in this week’s TLS, we pick through the results; as Granta turns forty, Alex Clark dives into the magazine’s archives, recently given to the British Library, and emerges clutching gems and old boots (including meeting minutes and evidence of fantasy commissioning); finally, the novelist and translator Lydia Davis talks us through her Thoreau-inspired approach to gardening

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Bernardine Evaristo speaks to the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig about her novel 'Girl, Woman, Other'

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Having been staged in Edinburgh and Melbourne, David Greig's adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 'Solaris' is now at the Hammersmith Lyric Theatre in London. The TLS's Arts editor Lucy Dallas asks him about returning to this strange story of contact, consciousness and how to avoid using "fremulators" on stage

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As the Nobel in Literature and the Booker Prize break the rules, split opinion, and (probably) boost sales of a few books, a bunch of TLS editors share their thoughts on the whole endeavour of prize-giving (Michael: "you may as well throw a stone..."); Alexander van Tulleken considers 'War Doctor: Surgery on the front line', David Nott's tales from the operating tables, and floors, of war-torn places; as his stage adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 'Solaris' comes to London, David Greig, the artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, talks to the TLS's arts editor Lucy Dallas

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In this bonus edition of the podcast, William Collins have taken over the feed to play a new episode of their podcast, Ideas Matter. In this exclusive extract, science writer Phillip Ball talks to his editor Myles Archibald about the ideas explore in his book, How To Grow A Human.

To subscribe to Ideas Matter and discover more authors by William Collins, click here.

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As #PublishingSoWhite continues to shame publishers into diversifying their lists, Colin Grant discusses some of the anxieties and complexities beneath the surface; Andrew Motion on why he keeps returning to William Wordsworth; Kate Miller reads a new poem, "Turned-down"

Wordsworth’s Fun by Matthew Bevis

The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and their year of marvels by Adam Nicolson

Wordsworth’s Poetry: 1815–1845 by Tim Fulford

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Was the 1960s a good decade for Norman Mailer? Thomas Meaney reconsiders the work; Henry Hitchings on Auberon Waugh, anarcho-snob and master of the "vituperative arts"; Toby Lichtig on the vitality of documentary filmmaking

‘Collected Essays of the 1960s’ and ‘Four Books of the 1960s’ by Norman Mailer

 

A Scribbler in Soho: A celebration of Auberon Waugh, edited by Naim Attallah

Waugh on Wine, by Auberon Waugh

Say What Happened: A story of documentaries, by Nick Fraser

Open City Documentary Festival – opencitylondon.com

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Elaine Showalter on the “avid, ardent, driven, generous, narcissistic, Olympian, obtuse, maddening, sometimes loveable but not very likeable” Susan Sontag; Patrice Higonnet goes in search of the real Robespierre; A. N. Wilson cuts through class, aristocracy, family and fantasy in Downton Abbey

Sontag: Her life, by Benjamin Moser

Robespierre: L’homme qui nous divise le plus, by Marcel Gauchet

Downton Abbey (Various cinemas)

Almanach de Gotha 2019, two volumes, edited by John James

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"When future historians study these troubled times, they will marvel at the relentless rise of sea levels, strongman politics and Kardashians." So says Irina Dumitrescu, who joins us to discuss the phenomenon of celebrity, from Sarah Bernhardt to the Kardashian-Jenners; Rafia Zakaria on the murder of the Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch, aka "How I'm looking?" girl; Lamorna Ash on 'Bait', a new film about a timeless clash between them and us, set in a small Cornish fishing village

The Drama of Celebrity by Sharon Marcus

Kardashian Kulture: How celebrities changed life in the 21st century by Ellis Cashmore

Tweenhood: Femininity and celebrity in tween popular culture by Melanie Kennedy

A Woman Like Her: The short life of Qandeel Baloch by Sanam Maher

Bait by Mark Jenkin, in various cinemas 

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The future of the planet is in question this week, or at least, humanity's place on it, as Gabrielle Walker discusses possible solutions to climate change and why we don't need to panic - yet - but we do need to act, together. The TLS's fiction editor, Toby Lichtig, talks us through the hype and hoopla around Margaret Atwood's sequel to The Handmaid's Tale - and what the book itself is like. And are you Team Scott or Team Zelda? Joanna Scutts looks at 'the messy intertextuality of a marriage', and the question of influence within the Fitzgerald ménage. 

Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? by Bill McKibben

Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change by Nathaniel Rich

Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime by Bruno Latour

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Save Me The Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald

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We turn to children's and YA literature in this week's episode, with Rozalind Dineen and Toby Lichtig presenting new releases (as reviewed by a selection of young readers), as well as discussing some of the pros and cons of age-specific reading; Robert Douglas-Fairhurst reintroduces J. M. Barrie's classic work Peter Pan, where a wild imagination masks tragic, sometimes disturbing, realities

Alfie On Holiday by Shirley Hughes

The Fate of Fausto: A painted fable by Oliver

The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell

The Burning by Laura Bates

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