Freedom, Books, Flowers & The Moon

Michael Caines joins us to discuss female liberation in genteel Cheltenham; we look ahead to an Odyssey extravaganza, with Ted Hodgkinson from the Southbank centre; Paul Muldoon brings a salutary note of optimism to US politics and history with his new poem "With Joseph Brant in Canajoharie"BooksVotes for Women: Cheltenham and the Cotswolds by Sue JonesThe Odyssey translated by Emily WilsonSelected Poems 1968-2014 by Paul Muldoon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this bonus episode, the TLS's History editor David Horspool discusses Thomas Cromwell with Diarmaid MacCulloch, the author of a new, definitive biography.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lorna Scott Fox joins us to discuss the fiftieth anniversary of Mexico's Tlatelolco of 1968, a travesty still shrouded in obfuscation; the TLS's History editor David Horspool discusses Thomas Cromwell with Diarmaid MacCulloch, the author of a new, definitive biography; and finally, Rozalind Dineen offers a round-up of interesting new podcastsBooks and podcasts discussedMéxico 68: The students, the President and the CIA by Sergio AguayoThomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCullochThe Teachers Pet (The Australian)West Cork (Audible)The Ratline (BBC)In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Philip Horne and Frances Wilson join us to discuss Henry James, the not-always masterly Master who gave us novels as apparently divergent as Washington Square, with its clear, tight prose, The Ambassadors (prone to accidents of publication) and The Golden Bowl, which spills pleasures of an altogether more sinuous nature; plus, details of a little-known trip James took to California, which – unexpectedly, perhaps –“completely bowled” him over  BooksGenerous Mistakes: Incidents of error in Henry James by Michael Anesko The Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James: The Ambassadors; Edited by Nicola Bradbury. The Portrait of a Lady; Edited by Michael Anesko. The Jolly Corner and Other Tales, 1903–1910; Edited by N. H. Reeve (Michael Anesko, Tamara L. Follini, Philip Horne and Adrian Poole, general editors)  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Roz Dineen on the time-stained image of the artist-addict, The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, and whether “stories about getting better [can] ever be as compelling as stories about falling apart"; "David Foster Wallace would send me letters and I wouldn’t answer them. He would send works in progress with forlorn notes. 'You’re under no obligation to read or to pretend you’ve read the enclosed,' he wrote on one piece. I didn’t." – David Streitfeld recalls being David Foster Wallace's "worst friend"BooksThe Recovering by Leslie JamisonIn The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close encounters with addiction by Gabor Maté    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Andrew Motion discusses the life, work and curious afterlife of his friend and "subject" Philip Larkin; Imogen Russell Williams has written an essay on diversity (or the lack of it) in children's books and offers some recommendations; Zoe Williams gives her verdict on the very British political tradition that is Prime Minister’s QuestionsBooksPhilip Larkin: A writer's life by Andrew Motion (1993; reissued September 2018)  The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo  Square by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen  I Am Thunder by Muhammad KhanKnights and Bikes by Gabrielle KentYou’re Safe With Me by Chitra Soundar and Poonam MistryKnights and Bikes by Gabrielle KentYou’re Safe With Me by Chitra Soundar and Poonam Mistry(For all the books discussed by Imogen Russell Williams, go to the-tls.co.uk)Punch and Judy Politics: An insider’s guide to Prime Minister’s questions by Tom Hamilton and Ayesha Hazarika  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Carl Miller, the author of The Death of the Gods, which deals with how power works and who holds it in the digital age, sheds light on how algorithms, originally devised as simple problem-solving devices, have become so complicated that no one, not even their creators, can control them; Kristen Roupenian points out the problem with an “unfailingly enthusiastic” compendium of twentieth-century female intellectuals (including Dorothy Parker and Joan Didion): who is left out and why?; eighty-odd years ago, Zora Neale Hurston, now best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, interviewed Kossola O-Lo-Loo-Ay, the last known survivor of the Atlantic Slave Trade. As her book is finally published, Colin Grant joins us to tell us more Books The Death of the Gods: The new global power grab by Carl Miller Sharp: The women who made an art of having an opinion by Michelle Dean Barracoon: The story of the last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out

In the course of his long literary career, Samuel Johnson reviewed only one novel. Who was it by? None other than the "preposterously confident” Charlotte Lennox, a force in eighteenth-century prose and a model for Jane Austen – Min Wild tells us more; What happens if you ask a literary critic to watch top-grossing (pun intended) Hollywood comedies from the past three decades? Robert Douglas-Fairhurst explains how comedy reflects broader culture and anxieties; How are women treated in film and television? Is there cause for celebration? Alice Wadsworth joins us in the studio to discuss.BooksCharlotte Lennox: An independent mind by Susan Carlile Stealing the Show: How women are revolutionizing television by Joy Press Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive portrayals in speculative film and TV by Diana Adesola Mafe   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Are we entering a new age for LSD, full of medical potential? Can it shed its heavily tie-dyed cultural baggage? And who has written the finest prose about psychedelics? Toby Lichtig joins us to discuss; Eri Hotta (re)introduces us to Natsume Sōseki, "the greatest novelist of modern Japan"; Kate Chisholm considers the chequered history of Virago, founded in 1973 as a "feminist press", plus 40 years of Modern Classics, a series conceived to challenge the established male dominated literary canon and rescue and rehabilitate forgotten works by women  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With Stig Abell and Roz Dineen. Steven Nadler drops in to tell us all we need to know about the much-misunderstood Descartes; and En Liang Khong visits the Foundling museum to see an installation about how to commemorate loss.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

To mark 200 years since Emily Brontë’s birth, we are joined by Robert Potts and Jacqueline Banerjee to look back at Brontë’s life and most famous work Wuthering Heights – with a nod to Kate Bush’s memorable track, as well as to other, more recent tributes; Mika Ross-Southall shares the story of Tommy Nutter, the "rebel tailor of 1960s Savile Row", who, from humble origins, pulled himself up by the force of his wild imagination to dress anyone who was anyoneBooks, etc Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (new edition by HQ; with a foreword by Michael Stewart)Ill Will: The untold story of Heathcliff by Michael Stewart Emily Brontë: A life in twenty poems by Nick Holland Emily Brontë Reappraised: A view from the twenty-first century by Claire O’CallaghanEmily Jane Brontë and Her Music by John HennessyThe Brontë Stones project - https://bit.ly/2LOgEiQHouse of Nutter: The rebel tailor of Savile Row by Lance Richardson  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“How much do you make things happen or let them happen to you?” “Can women be happy alone?” – questions such as these form the basis of a series of interviews with women, from heiresses to factory workers, conducted in the 1960s by the British writer Nell Dunn; as a reissue of Talking To Women appears Kate Webb introduces us to this seminal feminist text. And Patricia J. Williams discusses the role and lingering influence of the  Progressive Era's 'American Plan' to stamp out immorality through policies including compulsory STD tests and government-endorsed sterilizationBooksTalking To Women by Nell DunnFixing the Poor: Eugenic sterilization and child welfare in the twentieth century by Molly Ladd-Taylor The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, surveillance, and the decades-long government plan to imprison 'promiscuous' women by  Scott W. Stern   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We’re joined in the studio by TLS editors for arts, features and fiction, respectively, Lucy Dallas, Roz Dineen and Toby Lichtig, to pick through a selection of TLS writers’ summer reading choices – from reworked Classical myths to Deadpool comics – before offering a taste of our own, including books by Sally Rooney, Bruno Latour and an account of witchcraft and agrarian cults in early modern Italy. Go to the-TLS.co.uk to read our summer books feature in full.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sam Leith, the books editor of the Spectator, and Stig Abell discuss their mutual appreciation of the crime novels of Lee Child.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This year marks half a century since the establishment of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The TLS’s Fiction editor Toby Lichtig joins us to debate the point of literary prizes and discuss the most under- (or over-) rated winners; Joan C. Williams, the author of last year’s White Working Class: Overcoming class cluelessness in America, considers the political consequences of class divides in the US and BritainBooksThe White Working Class: What everyone needs to know by Justin GestMaking Sense of the Alt-Right by George Hawley  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tim Winton discusses his new novel, The Shepherd's Hut, with the TLS's Fiction editor Toby Lichtig. Go to the-tls.co.uk to read an exclusive extract from the novel.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Critic and novelist Margaret Drabble joins us to review the life and work of Muriel Spark, whose centenary we mark this year; Samuel Graydon discusses a new exhibition on J. R. R. Tolkien, including drawings and doodles, language trees and fan mail; the TLS's History editor David Horspool introduces a selection of new work on the medieval periodWorks discussedThe Centenary Edition of the Novels of Muriel Spark, edited by Alan TaylorTolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth, an exhibition at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, with accompanying book by Catherine McIlwaine‘Finding Henry – Why England’s most powerful medieval monarch should be better remembered’ by Claudia Gold, in this week’s TLSMedieval Bodies: Life, death and art in the Middle Ages by Jack HartnellSea of Caliphs: The Mediterranean in the medieval Islamic world by Christophe Picard, translated by Nicholas ElliottThe Oxford English Literary History, Volume 1: 1000–1350: Conquest and Transformation by Laura Ashe  See acast.com/privacy fo

We're joined by Arkady Ostrovsky to discuss Russia’s long history of using sport as a proxy for war and invasion; E. J. Iannelli draws our attention to the rise and (perhaps...) fall of the automobile in the US, and the distinctly American phenomenon of the car as teenage male rite of passageBooksMachines of Youth: America’s car obsession by Gary S. Cross   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We talk to Michael Pollan about his new book How To Change Your Mind: The new science of psychedelics, in which he explores the history and landscape of psychedelic drugs, for therapeutic and personal use.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. On the first anniversary of Grenfell Tower, Terri Apter tells us about how art can respond to tragedy; former New York prosecutor David Pitofsky assesses the judicial heft of James Comey; and hear a bit of our interview with Michael Pollan on the beneficial return of psychedelic drugs.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.