Reading view

Elizabeth Strout – an interview

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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Two phat ladies

“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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How to read

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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Cold War machinations

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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Morals and mysteries

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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Magazine love

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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David Greig – revisiting 'Solaris'

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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Prize controversies

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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How to grow a human

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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Patronizing writers of colour

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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Scavenger of eternal truths

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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Unsettled by Sontag

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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The recipe for superstardom

"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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Is it too late?

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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What do the kids say?

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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'We should all be interested in pigeons...'

What kind of son was Philip Larkin? The TLS's poetry editor Alan Jenkins finds insight in some of the 4,000-odd letters and postcards the poet sent home to his "Mop" and "Pop"; Helen Macdonald, the author of H is for Hawk, tells us more than we could ever hope to know about pigeons and pigeon fanciers; Norma Clarke considers the internet artist Cold War Steve, whose ‘furious absurdism’ has won him some 192.8K Twitter followers, and ponders connections with the eighteenth-century satires of Hogarth and Gillray


Letters Home, 1936–1977, by Philip Larkin, edited by James Booth

Homing: On pigeons, dwellings, and why we return, by Jon Day 

Cold War Steve Presents...The Festival of Brexit, by Cold War Steve


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The most expensive mystery of all

The whereabouts of the "Salvator Mundi", the most costly artwork in the world, are still uncertain, as is its attribution to Leonardo da Vinci. Federico Varese, best known for his studies of the mafia, follows the trail; the TLS's history editor David Horspool considers the inner and outer worlds of Anne Frank’s diary, the actual anniversary of the Peterloo massacre, and a selection of other contributions to this week's special issue; Ladee Hubbard reflects on the late Toni Morrison, who died last week, and considers 'The Pieces I Am', a documentary that highlights Morrison's multifaceted life, work and legacy


The Collected Works, by Anne Frank, translated by Nancy Forest-Flier, Susan Massotty, Mirjam Pressler and Kirsten Warner and edited by Mirjam Pressler

Peterloo: The English uprising by Robert Poole

Legacy: One family, a cup of tea and the company that took on the world, by Thomas Harding

The Pieces I Am, by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders


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How to be modern: conspiracy theory, free will and the avant-garde

Jill Lepore traces the history of conspiracy theories and the conditions that allow them to thrive; Tim Crane talks us through whether we have free will or not, and why it is still a problem; Michael Caines looks at non-traditional approaches to criticism


Books

CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THEM, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski 

CONSPIRACIES OF CONSPIRACIES: How delusions have overrun America, by Thomas Milan Konda  

THE STIGMATIZATION OF CONSPIRACY THEORY SINCE THE 1950s:  ‘A plot to make us look foolish’, by Katharina Thalmann

THE AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES AND COVER-UPS: JFK, 9/11, the Fed, rigged elections, suppressed cancer cures, and the greatest conspiracies of our time, by Douglas Cirignano  

REPUBLIC OF LIES: American conspiracy theorists and their surprising rise to power, by Anna Merlan  

A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE SAYING:The new conspiracism and the assault on democracy, by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum  

HARVESTER OF HEARTS: Motherhood under the sign of Frankenstein, by Rachel Feder  

THE HUNDREDS, by Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Stewart  

TUNNEL VISION, by Kevin Breathnach  

ON THE LITERARY MEANS OF REPRESENTING THE POWERFUL AS POWERLESS, by Steven Zultanski  

The Limits of Free Will: Selected essays by Paul Russell 

Aspects of Agency: Decisions, abilities, explanations, and free will by Alfred R. Mele 

Self-Determination: The ethics of action – Volume One by Thomas Pink


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‘We don’t know what he has, we don’t know what he’s done with it’

Following the discovery of a strange book, Sarah Green revises the story of the late nineteenth-century poet Lionel Johnson, whose legacy was distorted in the 1950s by a criminal with a taste for fancy bedding; in the US, of 70,000 cases that went to disposition in 2016, more than 99 per cent resulted in conviction. What does this tell us? Clive Stafford Smith explains why American justice is a mirage; since 2015, Refugee Tales – part walking pilgrimage, part protest, part collection of narratives about those unjustly treated by Britain’s immigration system – has become an annual event. David Herd tells us what ground remains to be covered

 

Doing Justice: A prosecutor’s thoughts on crime, punishment, and the rule of law, by Preet Bharara


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