This week, Lucy Lethbridge explains what a curate's eye is, and how ideas of British cooking range from Aga fantasies to bacon butties; and J. S. Barnes takes us to the dark side of the festive season, via Dickens and M. R. James....
'The British Cookbook: Authentic home cooking recipes from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland' by Ben Mervis
'To Be Read At Dusk: Dickens, ghosts and the supernatural', Charles Dickens Museum, London, until March 5, 2023
'The Witch Farm', BBC Radio 4 and Sounds
'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas', Nunkie Theatre Company, December 24, live online
Simon McBurney, the artistic director of the endlessly innovative and influential Complicité theatre company, talks to Lucy Dallas about two of their major new projects.
This week, we hear how the music-hall star Josephine Baker became a secret agent; and we talk to Simon McBurney of Complicité theatre company, about their haunting audio production of Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising.
'The Flame of Resistance' by Damien Lewis
'The Dark Is Rising' by Susan Cooper, BBC World Service, December 20
This week, Breeze Barrington takes us through a history of art with a difference - there are no men; and Larry Wolff talks us through the diva-rich operatic event of the season, the world premiere of The Hours at the Met in New York.
'The Story of Art Without Men' by Katy Hessel
'The Hours' by Kevin Puts
Metropolitan Opera, New York, until December 15. Live transmission in various cinemas, December 10
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
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