This week, Mary Beard talks us through coins and emperors, real and fake, and the hidden networks beneath the Roman Empire; and Norma Clarke discusses the life and work of Rosa Bonheur, a celebrated female artist who kept her radical private life to herself.
This week, Baillie Gifford Prizewinner Katherine Rundell describes how John Donne’s life force captivated her; and celebrated actor and playwright Wallace Shawn surveys a lifetime of writing essays.
This week, we discuss Emmanuel Carrère’s incisive account of France’s judicial response to the Bataclan attacks; and a host of TLS contributors on their favourite books of 2022.
This week, Alex Clark and Lucy Dallas explore the rise to prominence of Volodymyr Zelensky, the satirical stand-up turned president and war leader; and blow the cobwebs off the world’s rarest medieval manuscripts.
'The Zelensky Effect' by Olga Onuch and Henry E Hale
'Zelensky: Ukraine’s president and his country' by Steven Derix with Marina Shelkunova, translated by Brent Annable
'The Fight of Our Lives: My time with Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s battle for democracy, and what it means for the world' by Iuliia Mendel, translated by Madeline G Levine
'Zelensky: A biography' by Serhii Rudenko, translated by Michael M Naydan and Alla Perminova
'The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club' by Christopher de Hamel
This week, we learn about the final years of the Napoleonic era, poke around the exclusive gentlemen’s watering holes of Pall Mall, and discover how Roy Orbison ended up meeting his wife in Batley Variety Club.
’Napoleon: The decline and fall of an Empire, 1811-1821’ by Michael Broers
’Napoleon at Peace: How to end a revolution’ by William Doyle
‘Behind Close Doors: The secret life of London’s private members’ clubs’ by Seth Alexander Thévoz
‘Clubland: How the working men's club shaped Britain’ by Pete Brown
This week, Toby Lichtig interviews the new Booker laureate, Shehan Karunatilaka, and discovers why he killed off his protagonist; and we explore the latest developments in a Chaucerian controversy.
‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ by Shehan Karunatilaka
Richard Dunn joins Alex and Lucy to discuss how humanity began to measure the world around it; and Lauren Elkin illuminates the immense artistic contribution of Annie Ernaux, this winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature.
‘Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement’ by James Vincent
The work of Annie Ernaux, Nobel Prize laureate 2022
Sofia Chelyak joins us to preview this weekend’s Lviv International Book Forum, in which guests including Margaret Atwood and Henry Marsh will join Ukrainian writers and thinkers in an online extravaganza; plus highlights of our live podcast on narrative arcs in fiction, history and politics and how to support a literary fundraiser for those affected by floods in Pakistan.
This week, Dennis Zhou joins us to illuminate the activism, anarchism and agility of the poet Gary Snyder; and Hannah Skoda reports from the Globe on a bold reinterpretation of the life of Joan of Arc.
'Collected Poems' by Gary Snyder, edited by Jack Shoemaker and Anthony Hunt
This week, we talk to Jonathan Spector about the European premiere of his play at the Old Vic; and Dimitra Fimi unpacks what's behind the new tv series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Eureka Day, The Old Vic, London, until October 31
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Amazon Prime