This week, what TLS contributors are reading this summer; and Catherine Taylor on a trio of novels highlighting the growing pains of adolescence.
'Back in the Day', by Oliver Lovrenski, translated by Nichola Smalley
'Fun and Games', by John Patrick McHugh
'Girl, 1983', by Linn Ullmann, translated by Martin Aitken
Produced by Charlotte Pardy
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Today’s bad idea is ‘genius’, the label that has enabled all sorts of terrible behaviour through the ages. Writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis explains how and why the idea of genius gets misapplied to people and things that just aren’t. Why are geniuses meant to be tortured? Why are individual geniuses prized over the collaborations that lie behind most innovations? Why do we think that people who are brilliant at one thing will be good at everything else? Plus, David makes the case for Dickens as a bona fide genius.
The Genius Myth by Helen Lewis is out from today wherever you get your books https://bit.ly/3FSAKda
David’s new 20-part series Postwar – about the 1945 general election and the making of modern Britain – is available now on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002d8v1
Next time on The History of Bad Ideas: The Decisive Battle w/Dan Snow
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For the first episode in our new series about how bad ideas take hold, David talks to economist Mark Blyth about austerity, the cost-cutting idea that refuses to die. Why is it an article of faith that states need periodic purging to stop them getting too greedy? Why does this so often happen at times when it does most harm, from the 1930s to the financial crisis that began in 2008? And how is the politics of austerity playing out today, in Starmer’s Britain, in Milei’s Argentina and in the DOGE wars happening in Trump’s America?
David’s new 20-part series Postwar – about the 1945 general election and the making of modern Britain – is available now on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m002d8v1
Next time on The History of Bad Ideas: Genius w/Helen Lewis
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Neste episódio, Paulo Henriques Britto e Anna Vianna, dois tradutores que atuam de formas bem diferentes, falam sobre tradução literária, interpretação simultânea e os desafios de transpor ideias de um idioma para o outro, como, por exemplo, a presença cada vez maior da inteligência artificial. Eles compartilham também conselhos para quem está começando na profissão.
O episódio foi realizado com apoio da Lei Rouanet – Incentivo a Projetos Culturais.
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This week, Sara Lodge counts the ways that mathematics influenced writers from Byron to Trollope; and Russell Williams on the transformative power of rites and rituals.
'The Number Sense of Nineteenth-Century British Literature', by Stefanie Markovits
'The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic', by Alan Moore and Steve Moore
Produced by Charlotte Pardy
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Today’s political trial is perhaps the most consequential in English history: the trial and execution of King Charles I for treason in January 1649. How could a king commit treason when treason was a crime against the king? How could a court try a king when a king has no peers? How could anyone claim to speak for the people after a civil war when so many people had been on opposite sides? The answers to these questions would cost more than one person his life – but they would also change forever the prospect of holding tyrants to account.
Out now on PPF+: Part 2 of David’s conversation with Robert Saunders about the 1975 European referendum and the question of why it all ended up so differently in the Brexit referendum of 2016. Sign up now to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus
David’s new 20-part series Postwar – about the 1945 general election and the making of modern Britain – is available now on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002d8v1
Next time: The History of Bad Ideas: Austerity w/Mark Blyth
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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