London Review Bookshop Podcast

Grand Hotel Abyss is a majestic group biography exploring who the Frankfurt School were and why they matter today. Combining biography, philosophy and storytelling, Jeffries explores how the Frankfurt thinkers, including Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse, gathered in hopes of understanding the politics of culture during the rise of fascism. Their lives, like their ideas, profoundly, sometimes tragically, reflected and shaped the shattering events of the twentieth century. In conversation with Sarah Bakewell, the author of the critically acclaimed At the Existentialist Café, portraying the lives and ideas of the existentialists, Jeffries discussed how the Frankfurt School elaborated upon the nature and crisis of our mass-produced, mechanised society, and how much these ideas still tell us about our age of social media and runaway consumption. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

'Never has the story been told so well,' said the New York Review of Books of Anthony Gottlieb's The Dream of Reason, a history of Western philosophy from the Ancient Greeks to the Renaissance. In The Dream of Enlightenment he continues the story with the great thinkers of the Enlightenment. Gottlieb was in conversation with Julian Baggini, author of numerous works on philosophy, including The Pig that Wants to be Eaten and 99 Other Thought Experiments and his most recent, Freedom Regained: The Possibility of Free Will (Granta), for an evening of conversation about the history of philosophy, and how to write about it for a popular audience. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Roger Hardy worked for more than 20 years as a Middle East analyst with the BBC World Service. In his new book, The Poisoned Well: Empire and its Legacy in the Middle East, he argues that the causes of the region’s troubled present are rooted in the era of Western colonial domination. Hardy discussed his book with Jonathan Steele of the Guardian, Hazem Kandil, lecturer in political sociology at Cambridge, and BBC broadcast journalist Robin Lustig. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Icon of radical American Letters Eileen Myles has produced more than 20 volumes of fiction, memoir and poetry over the past three decades, a body of work that led the novelist Dennis Cooper to describe them as 'one of the savviest and most restless intellects in contemporary literature.' To mark the publication of their novel Chelsea Girls in paperback and a new collection of poetry I Must Be Living Twice (Serpents Tail and Tuskar Rock respectively) Eileen Myles was at the shop to read from and discuss their work with Olivia Laing, author of To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring and most recently The Lonely City. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast, Ruth Padel reads from and discusses her new long poem, 'Tidings', a Christmas tale featuring a little girl, a homeless man and a fox, that takes us on a journey from Australia to London and New York via Rome and Bethlehem, She is in conversation with fellow poet Sarah Howe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Renowned arabist and regular LRB contributor Robert Irwin was in the shop to read from and talk about his latest novel 'Wonders Will Never Cease' (Dedalus), his return to fiction after a break of 17 years. Set during the Wars of the Roses, the book promises to be a mind-altering blend of fantasy, fact and fiction, encompassing the Swordsman’s Pentacle, the Draug, the Miraculous Cauldron, the Curse of the Roasted Goose, the Talking Head and the Museum of Skulls. In this podcast, listen to Irwin in conversation with Nicholas Lezard, whose weekly ‘Choice’ column in the Saturday Guardian has made him one of Britain’s most influential book reviewers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The revolutionary Leveller movement grew out of the explosive tumult of the 1640s and the battlefields of the English Civil Wars. They were central figures in those turbulent years which resulted in the execution of Charles I and the abolition of the House of Lords, and brought Britain to the edge of a radical republican government. From the streets of London and the clattering printers’ workshops that stoked the uprising to the rank and file of the New Model Army and the furious Putney debates, at which the Levellers argued with Oliver Cromwell about the fate of English democracy, the Levellers' story demonstrates the revolutionary potential of ordinary people, and provides hope and inspiration for the future. In this podcast listen to historian and activist John Rees discuss his new book 'The Levellers' Revolution' with Diane Purkiss, Professor of English at Keble College, Oxford and author of 'The People’s History of the English Civil War' and 'Literature, Gender and Politics During the English Civil War'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen to Cockburn discuss his latest book 'The Age of Jihad' (Verso) with 'Guardian' journalist Rachel Shabi, author of 'Not the Enemy: Israel's Jews from Arab Lands'. Award-winning journalist Patrick Cockburn’s chronicles of the collapse of Syria/Iraq and the devastating role of the West have become essential reading for anyone interested in the dominant conflict of our time – the Sunni-Shia war – and in the birth of ISIS. So prescient have his analyses of the region been that last year the judges of the British Journalism Awards advised the UK government to ‘consider pensioning off the whole of MI6 and hiring Patrick Cockburn instead.’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Poet, essayist, novelist, broadcaster, artist and film-maker John Berger celebrates his 90th birthday this month. To mark the occasion we have declared him our Author of the Month for November. John Berger’s work, across a range of media, has been transforming the way we look at art, life and everything else, from Ways of Seeing in 1972 to the present day. In our latest podcast in collaboration with Verso, Gareth Evans, Tom Overton, Yasmin Gunaratnam and Mike Dibb discuss Berger's art and politics and its continuing relevance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sheila Rowbotham was one of the leading figures behind the Women’s Liberation Movement in Britain and is one of the best-loved feminists of our times. In conversation with Melissa Benn, Rowbotham discussed her latest book 'Rebel Crossings: New Women, Free Lovers and Radicals in Britain and the United States' and its transatlantic story of six radical pioneers, showing how rebellious ideas were formed and travelled across the Atlantic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Lerner and Andrea Brady in conversation at the London Review Bookshop. Lerner is a novelist, poet and critic, whose most recent collection is No Art, and whose controversial critical essay The Hatred of Poetry began as a piece in the LRB. Brady is a professor, poet and editor at Barque Press, whose most recent book is Mutability: Scripts for Infancy, published by University of Chicago Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the tyranny of exercise to the crisis of policing, via the sexualization of childhood (and everything else), Mark Greif’s Against Everything is an essential guide to the vicissitudes of everyday life under twenty-first-century capitalism and a vital scrutiny of the contradictions arising between our desires and the excuses we make. In a wide-ranging conversation for the latest Verso podcast in collaboration with the London Review Bookshop, Mark Greif and Brian Dillon discuss modes of critique and cultural forms, and the role of the intellectual in stripping away the veil of everyday life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the aftermath of the failed military coup, two of Turkey’s most prominent young writers discuss Turkey, its past, present and future. Ece Temelkuran’s 'Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy' is published by Zed Books, and Kaya Genç’s 'Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey' is newly published by I.B. Tauris. The chair for this evening was Daniel Trilling, editor of the New Humanist and author of Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain's Far Right. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen to this podcast of poetry 'up close' with 'Prac Crit' founding editor and winner of the T.S Eliot Prize, Sarah Howe. Four recently featured poets – Vahni Capildeo, Mark Waldron, R.A. Villanueva and Maureen McLane – read and discuss their latest work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen to Sarah Moss reading from and talking about her fifth novel 'The Tidal Zone' (Granta) an exploration of parental love, illness and recovery. She was in conversation with Max Porter, 'Granta' editor and author of 'Grief is a Thing With Feathers' (Faber and Faber), winner of the 2016 Dylan Thomas Prize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Baltimore. Ferguson. Tottenham. Clichy-sous-Bois. Oakland. Ours has become an 'age of riots' as the struggle of people versus state and capital has taken to the streets. In this podcast listen to award-winning poet and theorist Joshua Clover and writer and philosopher Nina Power unpick a new understanding of this present moment and its history. Rioting was the central form of protest in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was supplanted by the strike in the early nineteenth century. It returned to prominence in the 1970s, profoundly changed along with the coordinates of race and class. Historical events such as the global economic crisis of 1973 and the decline of organized labor, viewed from the perspective of vast social transformations, are the proper context for understanding these eruptions of discontent. As social unrest against an unsustainable order continues to grow, how can future antagonists be guided in their struggles toward a revolutionary horizon? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Curator Gareth Evans and scholar Esther Leslie discussed the fiction of the legendary critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin, published in *[The Storyteller][1]* (Verso) in English translation for the first time. The actor Flossie Draper, Walter Benjamin’s great-grand-daughter, gave readings from the book. His stories revel in the erotic tensions of city life, cross the threshold between rational and hallucinatory realms, celebrate the importance of games, delve into the peculiar relationship between gambling and fortune-telling, and explore, in an intriguingly different way, many of the themes that are familiar from Benjamin's philosophical work. The novellas, fables, histories, aphorisms, parables and riddles in this collection are brought to life by the playful imagery of Paul Klee. *The Storyteller* has been translated and edited by Sam Dolbear, Esther Leslie and Sebastian Truskolaski. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The flaneur – an almost invariably male idler dawdling through city streets with no apparent purpose in mind – is familiar to us from the works of Baudelaire, Benjamin and Edmund White. In a glorious blend of memoir, cultural history and psychogeography, Lauren Elkin investigates the little-considered female equivalent, from George Sand to Agnes Varda and Sophie Calle, leading us through the streets of London, Tokyo, Venice, New York and, of course, Paris. Lauren Elkin, a contributing editor at the White Review, discussed the phenomenon of the flaneuse, and her own walking life with Brian Dillon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast George Monbiot and John Lanchester discuss Monbiot’s latest book 'How Did We Get into this Mess?' (Verso) and assess the state we are now in: the devastation of the natural world, the crisis of inequality, the corporate takeover of nature, our obsessions with growth and profit and the decline of the political debate over what to do. One of the most vocal and eloquent critics of the current consensus, Monbiot makes a persuasive case for change in our everyday lives, our politics and economics, the ways we treat each other and the natural world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his latest book White Sands (Canongate) inveterate traveller, novelist and essayist Geoff Dyer investigates, through ten journeys to places as distant from one another as Mexico, Beijing, French Polynesia and LA, the mystery of why we travel. Geoff Dyer's unique blend of humour and intellectual heft was on dazzling display in this evening of conversation with Gareth Evans, curator of film at the Whitechapel Gallery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Psychoanalyst Darian Leader was at the shop to present his latest book 'Hands: What We Do with Them and Why' (Hamish Hamilton), in conversation with the novelist and essayist Tom McCarthy. Hands, in Leader's analysis, both as things in themselves and as metaphors, figures of speech and elements in folklore, are a fundamental constituent of humanity's distinctive nature. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the latest Verso podcast in collaboration with the London Review Bookshop, Esther Leslie, Marina Warner and Michael Rosen join Gareth Evans to discuss Walter Benjamin's experimentation with form and media, his concept of storytelling and the communicability of experience, and the themes that run throughout Benjamin’s creative and critical writing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast, listen to Maggie Nelson in conversation with author Olivia Laing in the bookshop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gabriel Josipovici came to the bookshop to discuss his new book, Hamlet Fold on Fold, a scene-by-scene examination of Hamlet resisting grand interpretative narratives in preference for focusing on our physical experience of watching, reading and... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast listen to a discussion chaired by Tariq Ali, celebrating the life and work of historian and sociologist Benedict Anderson, who died in December last year shortly after completing his memoir, 'A Life Beyond Boundaries' (Verso). Tariq Ali is in conversation with Laleh Khalili and T.J. Clark. Interdisciplinary and always innovative, Anderson’s many books, most notably 'Imagined Communities', brought about a fundamental shift in the way we think about the history of nationalism, nationhood and globalisation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it mean to be middle class or working class? How does class affect us? Lynsey Hanley and Dawn Foster came to the bookshop to discuss Hanley's latest book, *Respectable* (Allen Lane), which argues that class remains resolutely with us, as strongly as it did fifty years ago, and with it the idea of aspiration, of social mobility, which received wisdom tells us is an unequivocally positive phenomenon, for individuals and for society as a whole. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seymour Hersh has been a towering presence in American journalism for nearly 50 years. In 1970 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his articles exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. In 2015 his 10,000 word article 'The Killing of Osama Bin Laden' proved so popular that it crashed the London Review of Books's website. In between, he has written articles on Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Israel and countless other topics, their common thread being their refusal to take government explanations and denials at face value. Hersh talked about his work with LRB contributing editor Adam Shatz, and in particular about his new book The Killing of Osama Bin Laden (Verso). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Britain's best-known classicist Mary Beard in discussion about her latest book, *[SPQR][1]* (Profile), in our special off-site event at Senate House. Natalie Haynes wrote in the *Observer* of Beard, 'She is never less than a vastly engaging tour guide around some of the best-known parts of the Roman story, debunking its myths with ease.' This podcast is her in conversation with James Davidson, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Warwick University and a regular contributor to the *LRB*. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rupert Shortt in discussion with Dr Rowan Williams, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, on Shortt's new book *God is No Thing*. Even though parts of the Western world now appear almost totally secularised, Christianity remains the most potent worldview on earth alongside Islam. In *God is No Thing* Rupert Shortt argues that Christianity is a much more coherent, progressive body of belief — philosophically, scientifically and culturally — than often supposed by its critics. Alert to the menace posed by religious fundamentalism, as well as to secularist blind spots, he shows how a self-critical faith is of huge consequence to wider human flourishing and offers an erudite and eloquent argument for the importance of Christian values in modern life. Rupert Shortt is religion editor of the Times Literary Supplement and a former Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford. His books include *God's Advocates: Christian Thinkers in Conversation*, *Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack*, and *Rowan's Rule: The Biography of the Archbishop*. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Macdonald Lockhart's first book *[Raptor][1]*, (HarperCollins) documents a series of journeys in search of each of Britain's breeding birds of prey, from Scotland's mighty eagles to the tiny merlin. In this podcast Lockhart, an associate editor of and regular contributor to *Archipelago* magazine, is in conversation about this exciting project with [Tim Dee][2], BBC Radio producer, dedicated birdwatcher and author of *[The Running Sky][3]* and *[Four Fields][4]*. [1]: /on-our-shelves/book/9780007459872/raptor-a-journey-through-birds [2]: /profiles/tim-dee [3]: /on-our-shelves/book/9780099516491/running-sky-a-bird-watching-life [4]: /on-our-shelves/book/9780099541370/four-fields Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When asked about the meaning of the late string quartets Beethoven famously remarked 'Oh those are not for you, they are for a later age.' Has that later age arrived? In a talk illustrated by musical excerpts both recorded and live, the leader of the Takács Quartet Edward Dusinberre discusses the significance and challenge of these extraordinary pieces of music with editor-in-chief of *Gramophone* James Jolly. **Presented in association with *Gramophone* and EFG International.** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Lean Out (Repeater Books) writer, journalist and LRB contributor Dawn Foster takes issue with the corporate-style feminism outlined in Sheryl Sandberg's influential bestseller Lean In. Does this trickle-down feminism offer any material gain for women collectively, or is it merely window-dressing PR for the corporations who caused the financial crash? She concludes that leaning out of the corporate model is a more effective way of securing change than leaning in. Foster was joined by Zoe Williams, Guardian journalist and author of Get It Together (Cornerstone). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gregor Hens discussed his new book Nicotine with Will Self. Written with the passion of an obsessive, Nicotine addresses a life of addiction, from the epiphany of the first drag to the perennial last last cigarette. Reflecting on his experiences as a smoker from a young age, Gregor Hens investigates the irreversible effects of nicotine on thought and patterns of behaviours. He extends the conversation with other smokers to meditations on Mark Twain and Italo Svevo, the nature of habit, the validity of hypnosis, and the most insignificant city in the United States, where he lived for far too long. With comic insight and meticulous precision, Hens deconstructs every facet of the dependency and offers a brilliant disquisition on the psychopathology of addiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marina Warner wears many hats, as cultural critic, mythographer, historian and essayist, but one of her best-fitting hats is her writer of short fiction hat. Her latest volume is *Fly Away Home* (Salt). Helen Simpson may have fewer hats, but is nonetheless one of the finest writers of short stories in the language. Her latest collection is Cockfosters* (Cape). Marina Warner and Helen Simpson came to the shop and read from and talked about their work. In this podcast they debate the status of short fiction in the literary canon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A new novel from Edna O'Brien is without question a major literary event, and *The Little Red Chairs* (Faber) is her first for a decade. A hunted war criminal from the Balkans takes refuge in an isolated village on Ireland's West coast, masquerading as a faith healer, and exercises a fatal attraction over its inhabitants. At this event in the Bookshop, O'Brien talked about the novel with *LRB* mainstay Andrew O'Hagan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ten years after the publication of his highly acclaimed and prize-winning 1599 James Shapiro moves the Shakespeare story on to 1606, the year of *King Lear*, *Macbeth* and *Antony and Cleopatra*. At the shop talking about *1606* (Faber) with Shapiro was Charles Nicholl, author of *The Reckoning*, *The Lodger* and *Traces Remain*. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Claire-Louise Bennett and Joanna Walsh met at the London Review Bookshop to read from and discuss their new books, Pond (Fitzcarraldo Editions) and Hotel (Bloomsbury). The discussion was chaired by Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell (Penguin). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elena Ferrante's translator, Ann Goldstein, was joined by Joanna Biggs, Lisa Appignanesi and Alex Clark to discuss the appeal and mystery of the enigmatic Italian author. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dino Joannides, consummate food fanatic, bon viveur and author chaired a panel of writers and chefs to discuss the question: 'Is there such a thing as Italian cuisine?'. On the panel was food educator and journalist Katie Parla, historian Professor John Dickie and celebrated chef Francesco Mazzei. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In July 2012, aged thirty, Juliet Jacques underwent sex reassignment surgery—a process she chronicled with unflinching honesty in a Guardian column. Interweaving the personal with the political, Trans: A Memoir is a powerful exploration of debates that comprise trans politics in a world where, even in the liberal and feminist media, transgender identities go unacknowledged, misunderstood or worse. It is also a moving and involving portrait of an artist, tracing Jacques’s path to becoming a writer, via her explorations of film, music and art. With award-winning novelist and writer Chloe Aridjis, Jacques discussed the cruxes of writing and identity and the problems of performance and confessional writing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seventy-five years ago, on 26 September 1940, perhaps the 20th century's greatest cultural critic died in a small town on the Spanish border as he attempted to leave France, escaping the Nazis. This summer, writer and commentator Brian Dillon imagined a retracing of Benjamin's steps, tracking his life's work to that terminus in the Pyrenees. Scholar and Benjamin biographer Esther Leslie has recently edited and translated Benjamin's *On Photography* (Reaktion Books) and translated his *Archive* (Verso Books). Together they considered the extraordinary range, achievement and reach of this remarkable and hugely influential writer. The evening was hosted by Gareth Evans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at Oxford University and, according to Simon Jenkins 'geographer royal by appointment to the left' was at the shop to present a new edition of his *Inequality and the 1%* (Verso), in conversation with Dawn Foster. 'Dorling asks questions about inequality that fast become unswervable,' wrote Zoë Williams in the *Guardian*. 'Can we afford the superrich? Can society prosper? Can we realize our potential?' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alexandra Harris, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Liverpool University, was at the shop to talk about her latest book Weatherland (Thames and Hudson), a study of the complex relationship between English artists and writers and the infamous British weather, from Chaucer in the 14th century to John Piper in the 20th. Harris was in conversation with art historian and biographer Frances Spalding. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Three of the best new poets in years were reading in the Bookshop. Helen Mort’s *[Division Street][1]* (Chatto) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize (almost unheard of for a debut collection) and the Costa Prize; Liz Berry’s *[Black Country][2]* (Chatto) won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection; and Sarah Howe’s just-released *[Loop of Jade][3]* (Chatto) is shortlisted for the same award. United by a strong sense of place, any one of them on their own would be worth turning out for – on a rare triple-bill, presenting an evening of poetry and conversation, they’re unmissable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steven Nightingale's Granada: The Light of Andalucía (Nicholas Brealey) is a rhapsodic celebration of one of Spain's most beautiful and fascinating cities, and his adoptive home. From the extraordinary flourishing of Granada under the Moors, when it became the effective cultural and philosophical capital of the known world, through the horrific ethnic cleansing of the 15th and 16th centuries, to the tragedy of Civil War and one of the city's most famous sons Federico GarcÍa Lorca in the 20th century, Nightingale's account is as captivating and digressive as the tangled streets of El Albayzín itself. Steven Nightingale was in conversation with the historian of Arabic literature Robert Irwin, whose study of Granada's most famous landmark, The Alhambra, is published by Profile. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Israeli author Etgar Keret has been described by Clive James as 'one of the most important writers alive', by Salman Rushdie as 'A brilliant writer ...The voice of the next generation' and by the New York Times as 'A genius.' Keret is mainly celebrated for his short – often very short – stories, but he has also written graphic novels, and screenplays for film and television. Etgar Keret joined us at the shop to read from and talk about his latest book The Seven Good Years (Granta), a darkly absurd memoir of the author's recent past that ruminates on everything from his three-year-old son's impending military service to the terrorist mindset behind 'Angry Birds', and whose anti-hero is a dogged telemarketer who seems likely to pursue Keret to, and possibly beyond, the grave. He was in conversation with the novelist Naomi Alderman, whose most recent novel The Liars' Gospel is published by Penguin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two very different books, Iain Sinclair’s Black Apples of Gower and Brian Catling’s The Vorrh share a measure of common ground: the Cave of Origin (in which all narratives fester and cook). The two writers discuss and read from their work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past two decades Carcanet’s New Poetries anthologies have been discovering the best new poets in English, and have provided readers with their first taste of authors such as Sophie Hannah, Patrick McGuinness, David Morley and Sinéad Morrissey. To celebrate the publication of New Poetries VI we hosted an evening of readings by some of the featured poets; Jee Leong Koh, Rebecca Watts, Joey Connolly, Vahni Capildeo and (our very own) John Clegg. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alice in Wonderland is 150 years old this year. To celebrate her anniversary we have invited Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Professor of English Literature at Oxford University and Fellow of Magdalen College, to talk about his latest book The Story of Alice (Harvill Secker), a triple biography of Caroll's Alice books, of their subject Alice Liddell, and their creator Charles Dodgson. Douglas-Fairhurst will be in conversation with Vanessa Tait, author of The Looking Glass House (Atlantic), and the great grand-daughter of Alice Liddell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In On Elizabeth Bishop novelist and essayist Colm Tóibín provides a deeply personal meditation on one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, and one who has had a powerful influence on his own work. ‘Above all,’ writes Saskia Hamilton, ‘he honours Bishop’s exact ways with language, and his sifting of what is said from what is unsaid in her poetry illuminates his own watchful and patient art as a novelist.’ Tóibín joined us at the shop to talk about Elizabeth Bishop with the poet and critic Ruth Padel whose most recent collection, Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth, was published by Chatto in 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.