Lamorna Ash joins us to talk about Shy, Max Porter’s tale of teenage angst; and Jonathan Taylor on an illuminating survey of the uses and abuses of storytelling.
’Shy’ by Max Porter
’Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative’ by Peter Brooks
This week, Margarette Lincoln on the secret life of Daniel Defoe, government agent; and Claire Lowdon transports herself back to the teenage turmoil of Martin Amis’s debut novel, fifty years on.
‘The Cambridge Edition of the Correspondence of Daniel Defoe’ edited by Nicholas Seager
Flora Willson explores the struggle of four women composers to have their work heard, and Biancamaria Fontana on the late David Graeber’s survey of Madagascan pirate kingdoms.
‘Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World’ by Leah Broad
‘Pirate Enlightenment: Or the Real Libertalia’ by David Graeber
In our first instalment, we talk to novelist Dame Margaret Drabble and her son, gardener and TV presenter Joe Swift. Their wide-ranging conversation includes a disagreement over pelargoniums, Joe’s childhood insistence on playing football in his mother’s cottage garden, the joys of irregular hedges and fashions in fiction and foliage alike.
This week, Margaret Drabble and Joe Swift talk about the relationship between literature and gardening; and a new short-story collection from Margaret Atwood.
This week, we examine the highs and very many lows of the writing life. Tom Seymour Evans explores a disquieting biography of crime writer James Ellroy, and Stephen Marche shines a light into the abyss of literary failure in his new book.
‘Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy’ by Steven Powell
In an extract from Lawcraft, published by TLS Books last month, Geoffrey Robertson explains how Russian oligarchs use British courts to close down investigative journalism.
This week, Richard Norton-Taylor braves the terrifying world of cyberattacks and their brutal cost; and Lucasta Miller on an intriguing collection of 19th-century commonplace books.
'Pegasus: The Story of the World’s Most Dangerous Spyware’ by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud
‘Striking Back: The End of Peace in Cyberspace - and How to Restore It’ by Lucas Kello
The work of scholar and collector William St Clair
This week, Elizabeth Dearnley hunts for the hags, fairies and wandering women of the pagan past; and Ruth Scurr on a thrilling final book from the celebrated journalist Janet Malcolm.
‘Queens of the Wild: Pagan Goddesses In Christian Europe’ by Ronald Hutton
‘Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory’ by Janet Malcolm
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