This year marks half a century since the establishment of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The TLS’s Fiction editor Toby Lichtig joins us to debate the point of literary prizes and discuss the most under- (or over-) rated winners; Joan C. Williams, the author of last year’s White Working Class: Overcoming class cluelessness in America, considers the political consequences of class divides in the US and Britain

Books

The White Working Class: What everyone needs to know by Justin Gest

Making Sense of the Alt-Right by George Hawley

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Tim Winton discusses his new novel, The Shepherd's Hut, with the TLS's Fiction editor Toby Lichtig. Go to the-tls.co.uk to read an exclusive extract from the novel. 

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Critic and novelist Margaret Drabble joins us to review the life and work of Muriel Spark, whose centenary we mark this year; Samuel Graydon discusses a new exhibition on J. R. R. Tolkien, including drawings and doodles, language trees and fan mail; the TLS's History editor David Horspool introduces a selection of new work on the medieval period

Works discussed

The Centenary Edition of the Novels of Muriel Spark, edited by Alan Taylor

Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth, an exhibition at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, with accompanying book by Catherine McIlwaine

‘Finding Henry – Why England’s most powerful medieval monarch should be better remembered’ by Claudia Gold, in this week’s TLS

Medieval Bodies: Life, death and art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell

Sea of Caliphs: The Mediterranean in the medieval Islamic world by Christophe Picard, translated by Nicholas Elliott

The Oxford English Literary History, Volume 1: 1000–1350: Conquest and Transformation by Laura Ashe

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We're joined by Arkady Ostrovsky to discuss Russia’s long history of using sport as a proxy for war and invasion; E. J. Iannelli draws our attention to the rise and (perhaps...) fall of the automobile in the US, and the distinctly American phenomenon of the car as teenage male rite of passage

Books

Machines of Youth: America’s car obsession by Gary S. Cross 

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We talk to Michael Pollan about his new book How To Change Your Mind: The new science of psychedelics, in which he explores the history and landscape of psychedelic drugs, for therapeutic and personal use.

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With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. On the first anniversary of Grenfell Tower, Terri Apter tells us about how art can respond to tragedy; former New York prosecutor David Pitofsky assesses the judicial heft of James Comey; and hear a bit of our interview with Michael Pollan on the beneficial return of psychedelic drugs.

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Jesmyn Ward’s most recent novel Sing, Unburied Sing won the National Book Award in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year. In this bonus episode, Jesmyn Ward talks to Roz Dineen about fiction, her characters, living through Hurricane Katrina, and the enormous burden of empathy. This continues a conversation started earlier in the year - and included in the podcast of April 26 - when Jesmyn discussed The Fire This Time, a collection of essays she had edited about racial politics and experience in America.

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We explore the complex, brutal, swaggering history of pearls and those who found, traded and wore them, with Kathryn Hughes. Sam Byers talks about the self-authored creation that was Michael Jackson and the public's response to him.

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Philip Roth, who died last week aged eighty-five, has left behind a vast literary canon and a complicated legacy. But is there more to this great American novelist than just sordid sex? Ben Markovits shares his thoughts; TLS Features editor, Roz Dineen interviews Man Booker international prize winner Olga Tokarczuk, and her translator, Jennifer Croft; Eric Ormsby explores the significance of context when translating the seemingly immutable text of the Qur’an.

Books

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

The Koran in English - A biography by Bruce B. Lawrence 

The Qur'an - A historical-critical introduction by Nicolai Sinai 

The Sanaa Palimpsest - The transmission of the Qur'a n in the first centuries by Asma Hilali 

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We’re joined by the novelist Margaret Drabble, whose books have for decades chronicled the difficult path to selfhood, particularly for women, and the actor and writer Robert Webb, whose recent memoir How Not To Be a Boy, focuses on how notions of masculinity shape identity. Recorded in front of a live audience at Bath Festival. 

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The world is being slowly poisoned, the environment destroyed. Why don’t we care about such an apocalypse more? Clare Saxby joins us to discuss; Mary Beard considers the cultural legacy of Caligula, that most reviled of all emperors, via a revisionist work of fiction told from the perspective of the emperor's exiled sister; as Arsène Wenger's twenty-two year tenure as Arsenal manager draws to a close, the TLS's History editor and Arsenal fan David Horspool shares his thoughts on football's modern myth-making

Books  

Mourning Nature: Hope at the heart of ecological loss and grief, edited by Ashlee and Karen Landman Cunsolo

Walking on Lava: Selected works for uncivilised times, edited by Charlotte Du Cann, Dougald Hine, Nick Hunt and Paul Kingsnorth

Energy Humanities: An anthology, edited by Imre Szeman and Dominic Boyer

Caligula by Simon Turney

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Lucy Dallas is joined by Madeline Miller to discuss her new book, Circe.

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With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas

Real-life millennial Samuel Earle pops in to consider the status of young people in an unequal society, keeping avocado references to a minimum; Ruth Scurr analyses the role of mothers in life and literature; and Madeline Miller talks about inhabiting the role of Circe.

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In popular science books, including 'Seven Brief Lessons on Physics' and 'Reality Is Not What It Seems', the Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli has studied the phenomena – namely time and space – that structure our very existence. In doing so, he has become something of a phenomenon himself, praised for his charm, clarity and humour – things we might not immediately associate with the field of quantum gravity. Here, the TLS's Samuel Graydon asks him about his new book The Order of Time

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How do we account for Richard Nixon's stubborn unpopularity? Sure, he was a liar and a crook, but that has not stopped the rehabilitation of many a politician – as a new biography appears Barton Swaim joins us to discuss; why is it that certain ailments suffered by women are so scarcely discussed or resolved? Leonore Tiefer considers endometriosis and a "legacy of disinterest";  “The world is far more complicated than what we see”, says the theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, putting it mildly. Reality “is mind-blowing” – here, he discusses the structure of time with the TLS's Samuel Graydon

Books

Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli 

Ask Me About My Uterus: A quest to make doctors believe in women's pain by Abby Norman

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Martin Rowson, cartoonist for the Guardian and elsewhere, joins us to discuss caricature as political hit-job; the TLS's Arts editor Lucy Dallas considers the jolly japes and scrapes of the Beano, as that publication marks its eightieth year; and our Features editor Rozalind Dineen goes to meet Jesmyn Ward, a writer described in our pages as “an important new voice of the American South – one developing, perhaps, into the twenty-first-century’s answer to William Faulkner”

Books

The Communist Manifesto: A Graphic Novel, adapted by Martin Rowson

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race by Jesmyn Ward 

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With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. Lionel Shriver castigates the arrogant British for snootiness over American English; David Coward tells the story of Simon Leys, "the man who did for Mao" and who called Sartre a "windbag"; and Kate Bingham reads her poem "This hair".

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Are we hard-wired to feel other people’s pain? And if so, is it necessarily a good thing? Andrew Scull has reviewed three new books on empathy and joins us to tell us more; Charles Dickens's love of all things theatrical – in life as in art – is no secret. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst considers fifty years' worth of Dickens adaptations for the stage (and film)

Books

The Empathy Instinct by Peter Bazalgette

Against Empathy: The case for rational compassion by Paul Bloom

The Invention of Humanity: Equality and cultural difference in world history by Siep Stuurman  

Dickensian Dramas: Plays from Charles Dickens (Volume One, edited by Jacky Bratton; Volume Two, edited by Jim Davis 

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Who are the most exciting novelists from the British Isles currently working? In a spirit of mischief, the TLS asked 200 notable names in the publishing industry (editors, agents, publishers and writers) to nominate those at the top of their literary game. The critic Alex Clark and TLS fiction editor Toby Lichtig join us in the studio to pick through the results

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The political philosopher John Gray discusses the failures of liberalism; as the TLS publishes its 6,000th issue, Ruth Scurr delves into the back issues to explore how the paper has changed, and how it reflects literary culture more broadly; the TLS's poetry editor Alan Jenkins reads two of his favourite poems from the past century: D. J. Enright 's "The Laughing Hyena, by Hokusai" and "In Your Mind" by Carol Ann Duffy

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