The LRB Podcast
Weekly conversations, and occasional readings, from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, with guest hosts Adam Shatz, Meehan Crist and more.
The London Review of Books · London Review of Books
Show overview
The LRB Podcast has been publishing since 2011, and across the 15 years since has built a catalogue of 457 episodes, alongside 2 trailers or bonus episodes. That works out to roughly 350 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a fortnightly cadence.
Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 35 min and 58 min — though episode length varies meaningfully from one episode to the next. It is catalogued as a EN-language Society & Culture show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 5 days ago, with 33 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2024, with 63 episodes published. Published by London Review of Books.
From the publisher
The LRB Podcast brings you weekly conversations from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, and featuring our fortnightly 'On Politics' podcast hosted by James Butler. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: https://lrb.me/crlrbpod LRB Audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: https://lrb.me/storelrbpod Get in touch: [email protected]
Latest Episodes
View all 457 episodesPoetry and the Turning World: Weather
World Cup Cupidity
Poetry and the Turning World: Divorce
On Politics: What went wrong with HS2 (and almost everything else)
Poetry and the Turning World: Technology
Poetry and the Turning World: Work
On Politics: Myths of Populism
Jane Austen's ‘Emma’ and the art of misreading
Gaza after the Ceasefire
A Rough Guide to Money Laundering
When will AI replace us?
On Politics: A New Era for UK Politics
On Politics: The Fall of Orbán, the Rise of Magyar
James Lasdun's road trip to America's courts
On Politics: The Pope and the President
The War in Lebanon
Men Looking at Men
The philosophy of Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’
On Politics: Iran and the Oil Crisis
Trump’s war on Iran has highlighted recent dramatic changes in the politics of oil. While the United States still guarantees maritime security in the Middle East, it is no longer the primary beneficiary, with most oil and gas exports from the Persian Gulf going to Asia. In Britain, meanwhile, debates over drilling in the North Sea point to the urgent need for electrification, both to achieve greater energy security and to reach net zero by 2050. In this episode, James is joined by Helen Thompson, a professor of political economy at the University of Cambridge, who argues that the war, though far from inevitable, stems in part from regional and international tensions caused by the shifting of energy flows. They discuss the central role that finance, and insurance in particular, plays in deciding whether tankers can sail, and how energy requirements helped Trump to secure the backing of major US corporations in the 2024 presidential election. Read more on politics in the LRB: https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: https://lrb.me/crlrbpod LRB Audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: https://lrb.me/storelrbpod Get in touch: [email protected]
Insulin Wars
Diabetes has been recognised as a fatal condition for thousands of years: its symptoms are described in ancient Chinese, Sanskrit and Greek texts. But it wasn’t until the late 19th century that its cause began to be understood, as scientists conducted experiments on dogs. It was a pair of researchers at the University of Toronto in the early 1920s who – through a gruelling series of experiments that would not pass an ethics review today – eventually isolated the hormone that patients with diabetes are lacking. On this episode, Liam Shaw, who reviewed the latest edition of Michael Bliss’s classic book The Discovery of Insulin in a recent issue of the LRB, joins Thomas Jones to discuss the history of diabetes treatments from insulin to Ozempic, the all-too-human scientists who discovered them and the companies that profit from them. Read Liam’s piece: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n06/liam-shaw/bring-me-bimagrumab From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: https://lrb.me/crlrbpod LRB Audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: https://lrb.me/storelrbpod Get in touch: [email protected]