Freedom, Books, Flowers & The Moon

Read by Lisa Dwan. Full text available at the-tls.co.uk  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Catherine Taylor on bookish goings on in the north of England, from her family’s bookshop in Sheffield to the Northern Fiction Alliance of small presses; Diarmaid Ferriter considers the fraught matter of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland; Fríða Ísberg on the spectre of war in Icelandic film and fiction BooksThe Border: The legacy of a century of Anglo-Irish politics by Diarmaid FerriterHotel Silence (Ör) by Auður Ava ÓlafsdóttirWoman at War, directed by Benedikt ErlingssonSection 6 of “American Standard”, a new poem by Paul Muldoon published in this week’s TLS; read by Lisa Dwan (full recording available as a separate podcast episode)  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Imogen Russell Williams on children's books that tackle grief and war, “offering distressed adults the calming certainty of a script, and baffled children the reassurance of straightforward answers”; Carl Miller discusses the creation, and squabbling continuation, of Reddit, one of the most popular websites in the world; A. N. Wilson considers the Travellers Club in London, now in its 200th year, where Britain's prime ministers "got stuff done" BooksWhite Feather by Catherine and David MacPhailThe Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKayAn Anty-War Story by Tony RossOnly One of Me by Lisa Wells and Michelle Robinson (illustrated by Tim Budgen and Catalina Echeverri)The Afterwards by A. F. Harrold and Emily GravettWe Are the Nerds: The birth and tumultuous life of Reddit, the internet's culture laboratory by Christine Lagorio-ChafkinThe Travellers Club: A bicentennial history (1819–2019) by John Martin Robinson   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Boyd Tonkin states the case – never overstated – for literature in translation, and reviews a commendable recent effort "to grasp, and to survey, the entire planet of words"; Andrew Scull considers the travails of social psychology and the egos and experiments that professed to tell us something essential about human nature by setting fire to forests or electrocuting dogs... Books Found in Translation: 100 of the finest short stories ever translated, edited by Frank WynneThe Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment by Gina Perry The Hope Circuit: A psychologist’s journey from helplessness to optimism by Martin Seligman   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tom Stevenson offers a recent history of political assassination, from a CIA manual of 1953 to the Jamal Khashoggi affair; The literary achievements of Nancy Cunard have long been eclipsed by her image as the archetypal flapper-muse of the roaring 1920s – as Anna Girling reveals a previously unknown short story (published for the first time in this week's TLS), we reassess Cunard's legacy; Who killed Edwin Drood? In 1914, faced with Dickens's final, unfinished novel, prominent literary types gathered to stage the trial of Drood's alleged killer – Pete Orford tells us more...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With Stig Abell and Lucy DallasLara Pawson drops in to tell the tale of David Wojnarowicz, the New York artist whose time has come. Elaine Showalter examines a new biography of Germaine Greer. Kim Addonizio, winner of the Mick Imlah Prize for Poetry, reads her victorious poem. Plus, Lucy admits to having an allotment, and Stig learns he has been introducing the show all wrong.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An end-of-year edition, bringing together some of our favourite bits from the past twelve months: Kathryn Hughes on whether and where Charlotte Brontë meets Jane Eyre; Margaret Drabble reviews the life and work of Muriel Spark, whose centenary we marked this year; David Baddiel discusses whether Jewishness is inherently funny; Clare Pettitt revisits the history of the Peterloo massacre of 1819. A refresher for regular listeners and a sampler for newcomers – with thanks to all.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Who is Odysseus? Why can't he get home? And will the gods help or hinder his journey? In this special episode, the TLS's Classics editor Mary Beard chairs a panel featuring the author and academic Simon Goldhill, the memoirist and translator Daniel Mendelsohn, the poet Karen McCarthy Woolf and the novelist Madeline Miller. This is a recording of a live event, staged in collaboration with the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival in October 2018.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

TLS editors discuss some memorable arts events from the past twelve months; plus, food and drink in literature and a preview of the TLS's Christmas double issue, including how to do German food, M. F. K. Fisher, French food slang, pub stories, and a deconstruction of the traditional British Christmas dinner   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lucy Atkins charts our changing relationship with Orcinus orca, from "demon dolphin" to cuddly icon; Ruth Scurr on the lives and unlikely friendship of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn BooksOrca: How we came to know and love the ocean’s greatest predator by Jason M. ColbyJohn Evelyn: A life of domesticity by John Dixon Hunt The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn by Margaret Willes  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michael Caines on the little-known romantic William Gilbert, a “man of fine genius” (according to William Wordsworth) who had “unfortunately received a few rays of supernatural light through a crack in his upper story”; Daniel Beer tells the tale of the Gulag at Solovki, a converted monastery known as “the Paris of the Northern concentration camps”, a place of brutality but also of resistant culture and ideas; finally, Laurence Scott considers the cultural history of shoeshining, from Dickens to Police Squad BooksWilliam Gilbert and Esoteric Romanticism by Paul CheshireIntellectual Life and Literature at Solovki, 1923–1930: The Paris of the northern concentration camps by Andrea Gullotta  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Forty years since the controversial Spanish constitution of 1978, Rupert Shortt, Hispanic editor at the TLS, discusses the painful evolution of democracy in Spain; Siobhan Magee considers our problematic relationship with farmed animals, namely dairy cows, and crops, such as palm oil; Dwight Garner, a literary critic at the New York Times, offers glimpses into his commonplace book, in which four decades of favourite quotations converse with each otherBooksThe Cow with Ear Tag #1389 by Kathryn GillespiePalma Africana by Michael Taussig  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A handful of TLS editors gather for the yearly process of picking through contributors' Books of the Year selections, and nominate their own books to remember; Serhii Plokhy, the winner of this year's Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction for 'Chernobyl: The history of a nuclear catastrophe', speaks to the TLS's History editor David HorspoolSelected booksThe Western Wind by Samantha HarveyCharles de Gaulle: A certain idea of France by Julian JacksonNormal People by Sally RooneyMurmur by Will EavesCirce by Madeline MillerTalking To Women by Nell DunnGhost Wall by Sarah MossThe Collected Letters of Flann O’Brien, edited by Maebh LongGrant by Ron Chernow   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mary Beard joins us to answer the question: Is it accurate to call Donald Trump a fascist?, while the TLS's fiction and politics editor Toby Lichtig discusses how the President is presented, in books and on film; and Julia Bell looks back on her Oxford entrance interview - with no fondness - and wonders: "Was it a trap or a test?"BooksFear: Trump in the White House by Bob WoodwardThe Fifth Risk by Michael LewisNobody hates Trump more than Trump by David Shields   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

To mark the centenary of the end of the First World War, the TLS's History editor David Horspool talks us through books, exhibitions and events that commemorate cataclysmic slaughter and scars that endure to this day; it’s easy to think of privacy invasion as a peculiarly modern phenomenon, but it has its own history dating back to the American Civil War – Sarah Igo tells us more; finally, the food writer Bee Wilson discusses two new cookbooks that capture a “fresh mood of experiment in the kitchen”Works discussedPandora’s Box: A history of the First World War, by Jörn Leonhard (translated by Patrick Camiller)Robert Graves: From Great War poet to ‘Good-Bye to All That’, 1895–1929 by Jean Moorcroft WilsonMaking a New World (across the Imperial War Museum, London, and the Imperial War Museum North)Plus reviews and original pieces published in the TLS, including “What did Tommy read: The complex mental worlds of soldiers on the Western Front” by Bill Bell – go to

As Mike Leigh's film of the Peterloo massacre of 1819 is released, Clare Pettitt revisits the history; Marina Benjamin offers a personal and literary account of the threshold between sleep and wakefulness; following the publication of a second volume of Sylvia Plath's letters, Hannah Sullivan looks for fresh insights into the poet's work, life and death; finally, Sam Riviere reads his new poem, "Sushi Tuesday"Works discussedPeterloo, directed by Mike LeighInsomnia by Marina BenjaminThe Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume I (1940-1956) and Volume II (1956-1963), edited by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Are authors, reviewers and publicists wasting their time on book coverage? The contemporary conversation about books and ideas goes way beyond traditional features and interviews. Book groups, academic seminars, Amazon user reviews, Goodreads, the press, radio, podcasts, and sometimes even TV: the form, tone and quality of coverage has infinite variety. But how much does any of it help the books business – if it can be measured at all? Do authors, reviewers, and publicists feel their efforts are worthwhile? Michael Caines, an editor at the TLS, chairs an eclectic panel for a crucial conversation about the conversation around books. (This a live recording of an event, in collaboration with BookMachine, which took place on October 3, 2018, at the Driver, Kings Cross, London)  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Elaine Showalter on a history of obscenity and censorship and the largely futile efforts of a US Postal Inspector; Ladee Hubbard on five years of Black Lives Matter and the myth of an egalitarian, post-racial America; Kassia St Clair on women, weaving and the rewriting of historyBooksLust on Trial: Censorship and the rise of obscenity in the age of Anthony Comstock by Amy Werbel The Fire This Time: A new generation speaks about race, edited by Jesmyn WardMy Brother Moochie: Regaining dignity in the face of crime, poverty and racism in the American South by Isaac J. Bailey  The Golden Thread: How fabric changed history by Kassia St Clair    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Keith Miller joins us to discuss everybody's favourite Renaissance man; the TLS's Fiction editor Toby Lichtig meets Anna Burns, the winner of the 2018 Man Booker Prize for her novel Milkman; this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, meanwhile, remains suspended following charges of serious sexual misconduct and cronyism – Richard Orange reports on the mess that has engulfed the Swedish AcademyBooksLiving with Leonardo: Fifty years of sanity and insanity in the art world and beyond by Martin Kemp  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mary Beard reflects on the peculiarities of Homer's best-loved, many-sided epic; Neel Mukherjee on the scandalous survival of the Indian caste system; following the recent party conferences, James O'Brien offers a wry overview of Britain's political messBooks: The Measure of Homer: The ancient reception of the Iliad and the Odyssey by Richard HunterAnts Among Elephants: An untouchable family and the making of modern India by Sujatha GidlaHow To Be Right ... in a World Gone Wrong by James O'Brien  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.