Podcasts by The TLS Podcast

A Story With Strings Attached from 2022-02-17T06:35:56

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Alex Clark are joined by Ann Hallamore Caesar, Professor Emerita in Italian Literature at the University of Warwick, to discuss the birth and legacy of Pinocchio, ...

Writers at the Gates of Dawn from 2022-02-10T08:56:37

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Sara Hudston to talk about how to write about our environment, who gets to write about it, why it is so crucial - and "horsey" books; and Jame...

Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun! from 2022-02-03T00:01

This week, to mark 100 years since the publication of ‘Ulysses’, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the novelist Audrey Magee to discuss how James Joyce wrestled with the demands, pol...

Clarity, Honesty, Fluff from 2022-01-27T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Benjamin Markovits, the novelist, critic and teacher of creative writing, to discuss 100 American essays spanning 300-odd years (‘have we...

Carnival of Darkness from 2022-01-20T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the writer and broadcaster Muriel Zagha to discuss 'Nightmare Alley', an unsettling vision of delight and deceit from the Mexican filmmak...

Give Me Your Heart from 2022-01-13T05:39:45

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the poet A. E. Stallings to reconsider the ground-breaking work of Edna St Vincent Millay, a modern but not modernist poet, once judged '...

A Constant State of Foreignness from 2022-01-06T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the writer and translator Chiara Marchelli to revisit the work of Antonio Tabucchi, a master of the uncanny, ten years after his dea...

Best of 2021 from 2021-12-30T16:45:29

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas look back at this year’s podcasts.

We hear from Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Drabble, Mary Beard and Paul Muldoon...

BONUS: Sarah Hall and Sarah Moss – an interview from 2021-12-23T00:01

A conversation between the novelists Sarah Hall and Sarah Moss, both of whose most recent novels confront life in the middle of a pandemic, chaired by the TLS’s fiction editor Toby Lichtig.

This Is Magic from 2021-12-16T09:32:30

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Emer Nolan, Professor of English at Maynooth University, to discuss the letters of John McGahern, one of Ireland’s most accomplish...

On not letting it be from 2021-12-09T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Francesca Wade, at work on a book about Gertrude Stein’s afterlife, to discuss Stein’s ‘lost’ notebooks – and the magnificent amount of r...

George Orwell and his Roses and a History of Self-Improvement from 2021-12-02T00:01

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark discuss roses, Orwell and rhizomatic thinking with Margaret Drabble; Kathryn Hughes is our guide through histories of self-improvement; plus, what log-rolli...

Books of the Year 2021 from 2021-11-25T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by TLS editors to look through twelve months of intriguing books, as nominated by contributors including Mary Beard, the poet Paul Muldoon a...

The Mythic Town of Concord and the Magic of the Lighted Window from 2021-11-18T00:01

This week, Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig are guided by Mark Ford through Concord, Massachusetts, the home of Emerson, Thoreau and the Transcendentalists; we talk to Susan Owens about the mys...

The Booker-winner and the Beatle from 2021-11-11T00:01

This week, the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig speaks to 2021’s Booker Prize-winner Damon Galgut, whose recent novel ‘The Promise’ follows one family through three decades of life and death in...

Wild Lives from 2021-11-04T00:01:53

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Michael Sherborne to consider a master of science fiction, H. G. Wells, whose life was a runaway spaceship… until it ran out of steam; Ni...

Doom, Faith and Sabotage from 2021-10-27T23:01

This week, ahead of COP26, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by David Wallace-Wells, the author of ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’, to discuss a flurry of new books on climate change and what...

Radical Turns from 2021-10-20T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Michael Caines are joined by Jenni Quilter, the author of ‘New York School Painters and Poets: Neon in daylight’, to discuss the colourful and ceaselessly experime...

The Autumn Livres from 2021-10-13T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Russell Williams, to talk through the uniquely French phenomenon of the rentrée littéraire - the politics, the scandals, the big bea...

E.M. Forster's Happy Solution from 2021-10-07T09:06:28

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Peter Parker, the biographer of J. R. Ackerley and Christopher Isherwood among others, to reconsider the gestation and legacy of E. M. Fo...

When the Flawed Succeed from 2021-10-03T23:01

In this bonus TLS long read, the former politician Rory Stewart discusses to power of modern politics, Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and the corrosion of morals.

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Survival of the Wittiest from 2021-09-29T23:01:45

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the scholars Janet Todd and Derek Hughes to revisit the life and work of Restoration England’s first woman of letters, the playwright Aph...

Sad and Twisted Stories from 2021-09-23T08:36:36

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Skye C. Cleary to discuss Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘lost’ novel, ‘The Inseparables’, published almost seventy years after it was written; Ann...

Greatest Hits from 2021-09-20T09:40:37

In this bonus TLS long read, the writer Paul Genders discusses the influence of pop music on literature.

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Don't sweat it from 2021-09-16T03:00

This week, Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig are joined by the critic and gym-sceptic Irina Dumitrescu to consider a clutch of books about fitness – how it came to be the industry it is, what it mean...

Indexes, Newsletters, Potatoes, Gold! from 2021-09-08T23:00

Lucy Dallas and Michael Caines are joined by Dennis Duncan, the author of ‘Index, A History of the’, to discuss how we navigate the contents between books' covers, taking in alphabets, concordan...

TLS Summer Library: Part IV from 2021-09-01T23:01

Throughout the summer, we are revisiting the very best of the podcast during the last year.

In this episode - it's movie week; the author Colin Grant discusses Steve McQueen's Small Ax...

TLS Summer Library: Part III from 2021-08-25T23:01

Throughout August, we are revisiting the very best of the podcast during the last year.

In this episode; the comedian David Baddiel joins Toby Lichtig to talk about his book 'Jews Don'...

The Guidance of Brains from 2021-08-22T23:01

In this bonus TLS long read, the writer and author of Mind the Gap, Ferdinand Mount, asks - how much is too much meritocracy?

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TLS Summer Library: Part II from 2021-08-18T23:01

Throughout August, we are revisiting the very best of the podcast during the last year.

In this episode; the TLS's Classics editor Mary Beard emphasizes the importance of teaching Clas...

TLS Summer Library: Part I from 2021-08-11T23:01

Throughout August, we are revisiting the very best of the podcast during the last year.

In this episode; the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig talks to Douglas Stuart about his 2020 Bo...

Turning poetry into profit with Alighieri Jewellery's Rosh Mahtani from 2021-08-11T11:00

In a special bonus podcast we bring you an episode of Secrets of the Side Hustle that we think you might enjoy.

Host Laura Jackson speaks with Alighieri Jewellery founder, Rosh Mahtani...

Paternal Effects from 2021-08-08T23:01:16

In this bonus TLS long read, Michele Pridmore-Brown, researcher at The University of California - Berkeley, discusses what science can tell us about manliness.

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A Genius of Cancer and a Queen of Bohemia from 2021-08-04T23:01:14

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Thomas Morris, the author of 'The Matter of the Heart: A history of the heart in eleven operations', to discuss the extraordinary life an...

The Miraculous Mundane from 2021-07-28T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Nick Groom, Professor of Literature in English at the University of Macau, to discuss William Blake, who saw wonders everywhere...

Private Profits, Public Cost from 2021-07-25T23:01

In this bonus TLS long read, the writer Joan C. Williams discusses how Amazon’s business practices harm America.

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The movie we want it to be from 2021-07-21T23:01:42

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas as joined by Keith Hopper, a critic of film and literature, to revisit the film ‘Midnight Cowboy’ (1969), a 'dark, difficult masterpiece' sta...

Insiders, outsiders and insider-outsiders from 2021-07-15T03:00

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Noo Saro-Wiwa, the author of ‘Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria’, to discuss developments in travel writing; Alice Kelly, t...

No Ideas, But in Things from 2021-07-11T23:01

In this bonus TLS long read, the writer Joyce Carol Oates explores the quintessential American minimalism of Walker Evans.

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Proust's Way from 2021-07-07T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Adam Watt, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Exeter, to mark 150 years since the birth of Marcel Proust...

Strange Worlds of Their Own from 2021-06-30T23:01:12

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the novelist Margaret Drabble to consider the ‘curiously free-floating reputation’ of Russell Hoban, whose adult nov...

Robots Working, Humans Reading from 2021-06-23T23:01

This week: How far off is a world in which robots do most of our jobs? Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Benjamin Schneider, a DPhil Candidate in Economic and Social History at Merto...

Mozart the Happy Harlequin and Lost British Labourism from 2021-06-16T23:01

This week, Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig are joined by Paul Griffiths to discuss the beauty and grace of Mozart, the untortured genius; David Edgerton talks us through the decline and fall of Bri...

A Bengali Polymath and an ‘Accidental Modernist’ from 2021-06-09T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Rosinka Chaudhuri, the author of ‘The Literary Thing: History, poetry and the making of a modern cultural sphere’, to discuss R...

‘But Where’s the Poetry?!’ from 2021-06-02T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Michael Caines are joined by the critic and literary scholar Marjorie Perloff to discuss an encyclopedic work that sets out to tackle ‘Art and thought in the Cold ...

D. H. Lawrence in flames from 2021-05-27T02:00:52

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Gerri Kimber to discuss a bold new biography of D. H. Lawrence, 'the most judged writer of his age'; twenty-odd writers share their for...

Jane Austen and abolition from 2021-05-20T02:00

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Devoney Looser, Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and the author of ‘The Making of Jane Austen’, to discuss new resea...

Angela Thirkell’s Relentless Self-Belief from 2021-05-12T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Dinah Birch, Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool, to consider the work of Angela Thirkell, a kind of (but not ...

Pirandello’s Controlled Chaos from 2021-05-05T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Ann Hallamore Caesar to mark 100 years since the première of the modernist masterpiece ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’, consideri...

Violence Upon the Roads from 2021-04-28T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Patricia Craig, a writer and critic from Northern Ireland, who relates a sad and murky case of accidental killings, which took place duri...

Underground and on the Run from 2021-04-21T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Patricia J. Williams to discuss ‘Giving a Damn: Racism, romance and Gone with the Wind’, Williams’s deeply researched, and deeply felt, e...

Getting Shakespeare’s Measure from 2021-04-14T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford, to discuss the new Arden 3 edition of ‘Measure for Measure’, on...

Philip Roth, For Better, For Worse, Forever? from 2021-04-07T23:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Elaine Showalter, Professor Emerita of English at Princeton University, to discuss Blake Bailey’s keenly anticipated ‘Philip Roth: The bi...

Dreams of America from 2021-03-31T23:01

This week, Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig are joined by Mary Norris, a New Yorker and editor at - what else? - the New Yorker magazine, to discuss the changing life of the city and i...

Myth-busting, awkwardness, pure Marvellousness from 2021-03-25T00:01

Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the historian Mark Mazower, who presents new approaches to the battle for Greek independence in 1821; Noreen Masud reviews a performance of Stevie S...

Vivian Gornick’s Time from 2021-03-18T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the critic and novelist Claire Lowdon to consider Vivian Gornick, an American writer of essays – on literature, politics, the self – that...

Avoidance and absurdity from 2021-03-11T03:00:35

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Ann Pettifor, the economist and author of ‘The Case for the Green New Deal’, to discuss some inconvenient but incontrovertible truths lef...

Ishiguro’s AI and Grendel’s Mother from 2021-03-04T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Edmund Gordon to review 'Klara and the Sun', Kazuo Ishiguro’s surprisingly hopeful new novel about an Artificial Friend; the world’s firs...

Nostalgia, Outsiders and "Rubber Tramps" from 2021-02-25T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Joyce Carol Oates to talk about the minimalist beauty in the photographs of Walker Evans, and his austere approach to his art. Colin Gran...

Weapons, Grouse and Red Herrings from 2021-02-18T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Alan Rusbridger, former editor of the Guardian, to discuss the rise of Bellingcat, an investigative body, started in one man’s bedroom in...

Tentatively Pressing from 2021-02-11T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Cal Revely-Calder, who finds that, in Samuel Beckett Studies, jargon and certainty too often crowd out impressions of the work and the im...

The Barbara Comyns revival from 2021-02-04T03:00

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Avril Horner, author of a biography of Barbara Comyns whose quirky, menace-laced novels, long championed by Graham Greene, are finding th...

BONUS: David Baddiel - Jews Don't Count from 2021-01-29T00:01

The writer and comedian David Baddiel has written a book called 'Jews Don't Count', which explores the insidious, pervasive, exclusionary nature of ‘progressive’ antisemitism. Here, he talks to ...

Borges - Encounters and "Encounters" from 2021-01-28T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by David Gallagher to discuss two new books about Jorge Luis Borges – one a collection of essays and remembrances by the great Lat...

Delicate Matters from 2021-01-21T00:01

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Clifford Thompson to discuss One Night in Miami, a film by Regina King, which sees Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Cassius Clay gathe...

Epiphanies and Kidneys from 2021-01-14T04:00

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the TLS's Classics editor Mary Beard, who, via an old exam paper, emphasizes the importance of teaching Classics in context (Q1: "Dryads,...

This is Pakistan from 2021-01-07T04:00

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the Karachi-based journalist Sanam Maher to discuss cliché and originality in foreign correspondents' writing on Pakistan; a whistle-stop...

Jacques Tati’s Serious Gags from 2020-12-17T04:00

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the critic Muriel Zagha to marvel at a five-volume, “definitive” study of the iconic French filmmaker Jacques Tati, every aspect of whose...

Stalin, little and large from 2020-12-10T04:00

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Toby Lichtig are joined by Stephen Lovell, Professor of Modern History at King’s College London, to discuss two important biographies of Joseph Stalin, covering th...

Beethoven at 250 from 2020-12-03T04:00

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Paul Griffiths, the author most recently of the novel Mr Beethoven, to discuss the heroic oeuvre of the great composer, 250 years after h...

BONUS: 2020 Booker Prize Winner - Douglas Stuart from 2020-11-27T04:00

In this special bonus episode, the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig talks to Douglas Stuart about his 2020 Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain

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Out Caravaggio-ing Caravaggio from 2020-10-22T03:00

The critic and novelist Elizabeth Lowry joins Thea Lenarduzzi and Toby Lichtig to discuss the Italian Baroque master Artemisia Gentileschi, the subject of a major exhibition at th...

Dancing on Air from 2020-10-15T03:00

From a ballet stream to Homer's wine-dark sea. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the historian and critic Judith Flanders to review the return of dance with new offerings from t...

Milk as Metaphor from 2020-10-08T03:00

From a carvery lunch in Howards End to emotional Eurocrats. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Norma Clarke to discuss the role in literary creation of food and its increasingly ...

Seduction and Uprisings from 2020-10-01T03:00

From Ovid to the "Black Spartacus". Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the TLS's classics editor Mary Beard to pick apart the story of "seduction", ancient and modern, the poet F...

Murder at the Opera from 2020-09-24T03:00

From Poirot on the River Nile to Verdi's take on the infamous Scottish play. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas talk to writer Laura Thompson about the work of Agatha Christie and how she managed to m...

Books! Books! Books! from 2020-09-16T23:00

Toby Lichtig talks us through this year's Booker shortlisted novels, plus a couple of others, and Lucy Dallas reports on the French scene (where real life and fiction blur...); finally, we explo...

Sex and the City of Ladies from 2020-09-09T23:00

In 1405, Christine de Pisan took up the pen in defense of her maligned sex, imagining a 'City of Ladies' in which the most virtuous female leaders of history might be preserved from the distortions...

The TLS, rewind #4 from 2020-08-26T23:00

Throughout August, we are revisiting our books roundups from previous years, and today we’re returning to last year’s suggestions. In 2019, our contributor Diana Darke said in the paper: "A lot ...

The TLS, rewind #3 from 2020-08-19T23:00

Throughout August, we are revisiting our books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance to catch up on books you might have missed. Today we are sauntering back to the summer of 2018, and...

The TLS, rewind #2 from 2020-08-12T23:00

Throughout August, we are revisiting books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance once again to hear recommendations from our writers and editors, on subjects like Marcel Proust’s lette...

The TLS, rewind #1 from 2020-08-05T23:00

Throughout August, we are revisiting books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance to catch up on all that good stuff. Today we’re skipping back to 2016’s books of the year recommendatio...

Climate change, from 'doomism' to optimism from 2020-07-29T23:00

Gabrielle Walker talks us through three unhelpful attitudes to global warming, as exemplified in the Michael Moore-produced film Planet of the Humans; Sudhir Hazareesingh discusses the complex r...

Life as a Roman emperor from 2020-07-22T23:00

What style of life did an ancient Roman emperor lead? How did he actually spend his time? Mary Beard fills us in; Frances Wilson on literary couples (and their pet names) and what they can, and ...

How the West was written from 2020-07-15T23:00

Geoff Dyer on why Larry McMurtry’s novel Lonesome Dove was one of the most memorable reading experiences of his life (a taster from his essay: “There was no book and no reader. There was just this ...

Romance versus realism from 2020-07-08T23:00

Min Wild on recent attempts to get to grips with that most slippery of beasts, the history of the novel (expect a lively cast, including Frances Burney, Daniel Defoe, Laurence Sterne and Jane Po...

The Pet Shop Boys paradox from 2020-07-01T23:01

Lynsey Hanley on the Pet Shop Boys and how a music duo that has always refused to play the pop game just keeps winning; The TLS’s history editor David Horspool talks us through a selection of ar...

Bernardine Evaristo wins again from 2020-07-01T09:24:54

When, last year the writer and activist Bernardine Evaristo, won the Booker Prize for fiction – becoming in fact, the first black British person to do so – we at the TLS were not surprised. Evarist...

Holiday in the living room from 2020-06-24T23:00

TLS editors pick through the books some of our writers will be reading this summer, and share their own selections.

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Don’t forget Edward Earl Johnson from 2020-06-17T23:00

The death row lawyer Clive Stafford Smith certainly can’t, especially as this week should have seen Edward Earl Johnson turn sixty. Instead, in 1987, he was executed at the Mississippi State Pen...

Finding art in lockdown from 2020-06-10T23:00

What art have we been enjoying in lockdown? What are we most missing? And what is the future of art institutions? The TLS's arts editor Lucy Dallas joins us to discuss; Edith Hall tells us about...

Slave driver, the table is turn from 2020-06-03T23:00

Colin Grant on several hundred years of Jamaican excellence and dysfunction; fifty years since the death of E. M. Forster, Michael Caines considers Forster’s legacy as a novelist and critic; the...

How to be alone from 2020-05-27T23:00

The poet and novelist Adam Foulds on the evolution of loneliness and its traditionally privileged cousin, solitude; Sam Leith on thrills, spills and racism in Willard Price’s children’s  Listen

Townies and gownies from 2020-05-20T23:00

Hirsh Sawhney files a lockdown dispatch from New Haven, Connecticut, the uneasy home of Yale University; Arin Keeble talks us through the tricksy, rewarding and under-known work of Percival Ever...

‘How does it smell?’ from 2020-05-13T23:00

The TLS’s philosophy editor Tim Crane guides us through a selection of reviews and essays from this week’s issue, including on the future of AI and what Thomas Hobbes, Susan Sontag, Montaigne an...

Grotesquely good from 2020-05-06T23:00

Ian Buruma on the twentieth-century Italian writer Curzio Malaparte, a fascist and a fabulist with a hunger for war and a remarkable way of capturing it; Sue Stuart-Smith on gardening in th...

Easy as ABC? from 2020-04-29T23:00

James Waddell on the disorderly history of alphabetic order; Beejay Silcox, who fled Cairo for Western Australia as the coronavirus spread, tells a tale of star-crossed lovers; Jordan ...

Godzilla, the plague, etc from 2020-04-22T23:00

Lawrence Douglas, in Massachusetts, on the presidential past, present and future of Donald Trump; Irina Dumitrescu, in Germany, on books as escape (attempt) and reading the plague into plague-fr...

‘It’s not him, it’s us’ from 2020-04-15T23:00

William Shakespeare, the writer who – above all others, perhaps – keeps giving and giving. Michael Caines takes us through the latest research, theories and discoveries (or not, as the case may ...

Introducing: Stories of our times from 2020-04-13T23:00

Today an edition of our new daily podcast - Stories of our times. Our new free daily news podcast takes you to the heart of the stories that matter, with exclusive access and reporting. Publishe...

‘A very peculiar telegram’ from 2020-04-08T23:00

Ellen Crowell investigates an early-twentieth-century tale of doomed lesbian romance, decadent cryptography, morphine-induced suicide and more; Richard Smyth on the joys of bird-watching during loc...

The kangaroo curve from 2020-04-01T23:00

A recovering Alexander van Tulleken shares some thoughts on the British response to Covid-19; What cultural things are people doing to pass the time in isolation? We asked a selection of our writer...

Tweets, memes and the smell of masculine from 2020-03-26T00:00

Samuel Graydon reviews two new albums, by the folk troubadour Sam Lee and indie rock band Cornershop, both of which offer innovative and intelligent musical perspectives on modern England; the T...

Tales of a century from 2020-03-20T17:58:40

Tim Parks talks us through the lockdown from Milan; A. N. Wilson explains the Prayer Book Controversy of the 1920s, and why it's a bit like Brexit; and Anna Girling looks back on the - failed - ...

Passion projects from 2020-03-12T00:00

Frances Wilson gets implausibly angry about the hypocrisy of Patrick O’Brian; Michèle Roberts makes the case for the forgotten author of the nineteenth century, George Sand; Miranda Seymour turn...

Absolutely worth the hype from 2020-03-05T00:00

Edmund Gordon discusses whether Hilary Mantel's final Cromwell novel lives up to its billing - and whether, at 900-odd pages, it is the right length; Muriel Zagha looks at the female gaze in Fre...

The Mirror & the Light – an extract from Hilary Mantel's new novel from 2020-02-27T11:41:08

This week the TLS is running an extract from The Mirror & the Light, the long-awaited third and final volume of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell novels. In 1538 Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy ...

West Side Storyless from 2020-02-27T11:35:44

James Shapiro, the author of Shakespeare in a Divided America, discusses the history of West Side Story, the most popular and successful Shakespeare musical of all time, and Ivo van Ho...

Vanilla sex in Pompeii from 2020-02-20T00:00

Rebecca Langlands on lessons learnt in the only known ancient Roman brothel; Caroline Moorehead reviews Elena Ferrante's latest novel; Rory Waterman reads a new poem, "Defences" ("'Crikey!' you ...

Can't go on. Go on. from 2020-02-13T00:00

Is it the best of times or the worst of times to be a satirist? Madeleine Brettingham, a writer on the BBC's News Quiz, joins us to discuss; Toby Lichtig on a new production of Endgame and the c...

Anne Enright – a reading from Actress from 2020-02-13T00:00

The Irish novelist reads an extract from her new novel, published in this week's TLS, in print, app and online 

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Bringing Tolstoy down from 2020-02-06T00:00

Caryl Emerson on Tolstoy’s art, ideas and life, and the extent to which these came together; Benjamin Markovits returns to a treasured childhood book: The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player'...

Carrier bag or stick? from 2020-01-30T00:00

Lucy Dallas reports on theories, developments and disputes in the world of science fiction; Lawrence Douglas adds crucial historical context – stretching back to the Middle Ages, in fact – ...

Byron's oddness from 2020-01-23T00:00

Did Byron have an eating disorder? Mummy issues? Daddy issues? Does it matter? Emily A. Bernhard Jackson joins us to discuss; Stanley Donwood, the artist and designer of Radiohead's re...

Huge stars in a minor key from 2020-01-16T00:00

Muriel Zagha reviews Marriage Story and considers a few other deserving/undeserving films either lauded or ignored by this year's awards panels; a clip from an interview with Fr...

Bonus episode: Five women, one radical address from 2020-01-16T00:00

Between 1916 and 1940, Mecklenburgh Square was home to the poet and novelist HD, the detective novelist Dorothy Sayers, the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison, the historian and activist Eileen Po...

Seen and not heard? from 2020-01-09T00:00

Sanam Maher looks at how Muslim women are viewed in the West; Claire Lowdon finds puzzles and philosophy but no pleasure in J. M. Coetzee's recent work; Alan Jenkins explains the significan...

Apples and oranges in space from 2020-01-02T00:00

Sam Graydon grapples with quantum physics and the subatomic world; Elaine Showalter considers the 'startlingly racy, contradictory, emblematic' E. Nesbit, the 'first modern writer for children';...

The decade that was from 2019-12-19T00:00

TLS editors gather to consider some of the decade’s major cultural shifts and events, with specialist insights from Mary Beard on academia, Beejay Silcox on fiction and Zoe Williams on gend...

Haunted by Miss Austen from 2019-12-12T00:00

A newly discovered, pseudonymously signed mock-letter to the editor of 'The Lady’s Magazine' in 1823 tells the story of a wannabe writer who is visited by the "gentle spirit of Miss Austen". Not...

The Iron Lady and the judo politician from 2019-12-05T00:00

Norma Clarke considers the third and final volume of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher; having spent the past twenty years reporting on Russia, Owen Matthews tries to put his finger...

Books of the Year, 2019 from 2019-11-28T00:00

It's that time again... TLS contributors and editors share recommendations from a year of reading

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Two phat ladies from 2019-11-21T00:00

“Apart from capitalism itself, is there any cultural and economic manifestation in the world today as ubiquitous, powerful and globalized as football?” John Foot assesses two new studies of the ...

Elizabeth Strout – an interview from 2019-11-21T00:00

Just over ten years since introducing readers to a frustrated maths teacher called Oliver Kitteridge, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout reprises the character in a new novel, ‘Ol...

How to read from 2019-11-14T00:00

TLS editors talk about Virginia Woolf's writing for the TLS, as we publish a collection of the reviews she wrote for us over a period of thirty years; on the eve of George Eliot's bicentenn...

Cold War machinations from 2019-11-07T00:00

Sarah Lonsdale recounts how writers became enmeshed in national struggles; Jane Yager tells the surprising story of DIY punk in the DDR; we talk to Robert Potts about the pleasures of reading Jo...

Morals and mysteries from 2019-10-31T00:00

Michael Caines reports on an unprecedented gathering of work by William Hogarth, “replete with a bitter exuberance, folly finely observed and sin satirized”; “Sometimes a dark and stor...

Magazine love from 2019-10-23T23:00

Having asked a selection of writers to nominate their favourite magazines/journals, for a symposium in this week’s TLS, we pick through the results; as Granta turns forty, Alex Clark dives int...

Bernardine Evaristo – winner of the 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction from 2019-10-17T14:20:33

Bernardine Evaristo speaks to the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig about her novel 'Girl, Woman, Other'

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David Greig – revisiting 'Solaris' from 2019-10-17T09:27:28

Having been staged in Edinburgh and Melbourne, David Greig's adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 'Solaris' is now at the Hammersmith Lyric Theatre in London. The TLS's Arts editor Luc...

Prize controversies from 2019-10-16T23:00

As the Nobel in Literature and the Booker Prize break the rules, split opinion, and (probably) boost sales of a few books, a bunch of TLS editors share their thoughts on the whole endeavour of priz...

How to grow a human from 2019-10-09T23:00

In this bonus edition of the podcast, William Collins have taken over the feed to play a new episode of their podcast, Ideas Matter. In this exclusive extract, science writer Phillip Ball talks ...

Patronizing writers of colour from 2019-10-09T23:00

As #PublishingSoWhite continues to shame publishers into diversifying their lists, Colin Grant discusses some of the anxieties and complexities beneath the surface; Andrew Motion on why he keeps...

Scavenger of eternal truths from 2019-10-02T23:00

Was the 1960s a good decade for Norman Mailer? Thomas Meaney reconsiders the work; Henry Hitchings on Auberon Waugh, anarcho-snob and master of the "vituperative arts"; Toby Licht...

Unsettled by Sontag from 2019-09-25T23:00

Elaine Showalter on the “avid, ardent, driven, generous, narcissistic, Olympian, obtuse, maddening, sometimes loveable but not very likeable” Susan Sontag; Patrice Higonnet goes in search o...

The recipe for superstardom from 2019-09-18T23:00

"When future historians study these troubled times, they will marvel at the relentless rise of sea levels, strongman politics and Kardashians." So says Irina Dumitrescu, who joins us to discuss ...

Is it too late? from 2019-09-11T23:00

The future of the planet is in question this week, or at least, humanity's place on it, as Gabrielle Walker discusses possible solutions to climate change and why we don't need to panic - yet - ...

What do the kids say? from 2019-09-04T23:00

We turn to children's and YA literature in this week's episode, with Rozalind Dineen and Toby Lichtig presenting new releases (as reviewed by a selection of young readers), as well as discussing...

'We should all be interested in pigeons...' from 2019-08-21T23:00

What kind of son was Philip Larkin? The TLS's poetry editor Alan Jenkins finds insight in some of the 4,000-odd letters and postcards the poet sent home to his "Mop" and "Pop"; Helen M...

The most expensive mystery of all from 2019-08-14T23:00

The whereabouts of the "Salvator Mundi", the most costly artwork in the world, are still uncertain, as is its attribution to Leonardo da Vinci. Federico Varese, best known for his studies of the...

How to be modern: conspiracy theory, free will and the avant-garde from 2019-08-07T23:00

Jill Lepore traces the history of conspiracy theories and the conditions that allow them to thrive; Tim Crane talks us through whether we have free will or not, and why it is still a problem; Mi...

‘We don’t know what he has, we don’t know what he’s done with it’ from 2019-07-31T23:00

Following the discovery of a strange book, Sarah Green revises the story of the late nineteenth-century poet Lionel Johnson, whose legacy was distorted in the 1950s by a criminal with a taste fo...

Nature for sale from 2019-07-24T23:00

Nick Groom ponders the fate of the beleaguered British countryside and shares new theories about the economics of the natural world; En Liang Khong takes us through the increasingly global pheno...

Unromancing the Romantics from 2019-07-17T23:00

"The sociable side of nineteenth-century musical life is not acknowledged as often as it should be..." – Laura Tunbridge discusses the interconnected, complicated and often contradictory myths a...

Loving Iris Murdoch from 2019-07-10T23:00

It’s the centenary of the birth of Iris Murdoch, the novelist-philosopher who dominated the literary pages for much of the twentieth century. Where do we stand on her now? Michael Caines ...

Who reads John Updike? from 2019-07-03T23:00

Do the kids – in these times of identity politics – still read Updike? The answer is “probably not”. But should they? Claire Lowdon makes the case; Toby Lichtig discusses Chelsea Manning, t...

Talk to the hands from 2019-06-26T23:00

Thea Lenarduzzi on the cultural history of gesture and body language; What is Chaucer to us today? When did he become known as the "Father of English poetry", and what did he get up to when he w...

Summer Books 2019 from 2019-06-19T23:00

TLS contributors – including David Baddiel, Mary Beard, Paul Muldoon and Elizabeth Lowry – give their seasonal reading recommendations; TLS editors wreak havoc and suggest their own. (Visit  Listen

Russian greats and fictional eats from 2019-06-12T23:00

A "new" ending to a Nabokov novel and the unregarded first volume of Vasily Grossman's epic, the "Soviet War and Peace"; Rebecca Reich guides us through these and the question of w...

Ethical economics from 2019-06-05T23:00

If capitalism is broken, can it be fixed? And can it save the environment? Joseph E. Stiglitz discusses; as we mark seventy-five years since the D-Day landings, William Boyd consi...

Weighty matters from 2019-05-29T23:00

Anna Katharina Schaffner on the cultural history of fat and fat phobia; the TLS's travel editor Catharine Morris on why Paris will always be disappointing, the solitude of open spaces, and the p...

Celestial Bodies – winner of the 2019 Man Booker International prize for fiction from 2019-05-29T23:00

The Omani novelist Jokha al-Harthi and the translator Marilyn Booth won this year's Man Booker International prize for fiction in translation, for the novel Celestial Bodies, an account of thr...

Victoria at 200 from 2019-05-22T23:00

To mark the bicentenary of Queen Victoria's birth, the TLS's history editor David Horspool guides us through all manner of Victorian matters, including the Widow of Windsor's mastery of soft pow...

Knowing laughter from 2019-05-15T23:00

The comedian and writer Helen Lederer joins us to discuss gender and comedy and the new Comedy Women In Print Prize; Lucy Dallas considers a clutch of novels in which animals might offer a ...

Journey to the centre of the earth from 2019-05-08T23:00

Robert Macfarlane joins us to discuss our "peculiar times", the memory of ice, and the world beneath out feet; Margie Orford brings our attention to South Africa at a crucial moment in its histo...

To infinities – and beyond from 2019-05-01T23:00

As Avengers: Endgame is released, Roz Kaveney sweeps us through the shifting cast of superheroes and, latterly, heroines that populate the Marvel Universe, considers the evolving politics of the...

The life-writing issue from 2019-04-24T23:00

Ruth Scurr on the master biographer Robert A. Caro, whose subjects include Robert Moses, Lyndon B. Johnson and, now, himself; Dmitri Levitin talks us through Diogenes Laertius'  Listen

Ian McEwan – an interview from 2019-04-17T23:00

The novelist discusses his new book Machines Like Me with the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig

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Forgotten, not gone from 2019-03-21T00:00

Carol Tavris considers new approaches to the old problem of old age (and the newer problem of old old age); as secularism wanes on the global scale, Rupert Shortt considers whether religion does...

Dave Eggers: The violations start with us from 2019-03-14T00:00

“What we often forget in the daily drumbeat of abuses by the dominant tech companies is our complicity in these abuses, and in the fundamental and unsettling ways the internet has changed every ...

O, the Edward Gorey of it all from 2019-03-14T00:00

Phil Baker guides us through the morbid, wistful and yet immensely charming world of the writer and illustrator Edward Gorey; Frances Wilson weighs the pleasures and pains of letter an...

A nose is a nose is a nose… from 2019-03-07T00:00

David Coward celebrates the 400th anniversary of the birth of Cyrano de Bergerac, whose radical thought has long been obscured by his protuberant nose; Muriel Zagha on Molière, France’s mos...

Unsilenced voices from 2019-02-28T00:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas

Toby Lichtig comes in to talk the wide scope of Jewish culture, the “lachrymose” theory of history and why it is Arthur Miller time once more. Roz Dinee...

Zadie Smith, in conversation from 2019-02-21T00:00

A conversation between the novelist and essayist Zadie Smith and the journalist Carolina, recorded at Hay Festival Cartagena in Colombia earlier this month. The full Hay Festival archive can be acc...

Half glitzy, half dowdy from 2019-02-21T00:00

The writer and comedian Charlie Higson, half of the team behind The Fast Show, on the curious history of comedy written and performed by pairs; the novelist Margaret Drabble consi...

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: the inaugural Gabriel García Márquez lecture from 2019-02-14T00:01

A recording of the inaugural Gabriel García Marquez lecture given this February by the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, at Hay Festival Cartagena in Colombia. The full Hay Festival archive can be...

Narratives of sexual assault from 2019-02-14T00:00

As the MeToo movement continues to focus our attentions on questions around abuse, consent and justice, Rebecca Watson joins us to discuss the various and prolonged impacts of sexual assault, an...

How Macron went wrong from 2019-02-07T00:00

Eighteen months after Emmanuel Macron rode a wave of optimism to the Élysée Palace, the French are rioting and the President's approval ratings are desperately low – Sudhir Hazareesingh tells ...

‘American Standard’, a new poem by Paul Muldoon from 2019-01-31T10:00

Read by Lisa Dwan. Full text available at the-tls.co.uk

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Everything points north from 2019-01-31T00:00

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 ...

Reddit's new religions from 2019-01-24T00:00

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...

Egos and experiments from 2019-01-17T00:00

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 consid...

Finer points of murder from 2019-01-10T00:00

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 i...

Icons familiar and unfamiliar from 2019-01-03T00:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas

Lara 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 G...

Mary Beard's 'Introduction to the Odyssey' – a bonus episode from 2018-12-27T00:00

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 ...

Highlights from 2018 – a bonus episode from 2018-12-27T00:00

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...

Arts of the Year 2018 from 2018-12-20T00:00

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....

Ode to the orca from 2018-12-13T00:00

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 ...

Who on earth was William Gilbert? from 2018-12-06T00:00

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 c...

Our problem with cows from 2018-11-29T00:00

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&n...

The best books of 2018 from 2018-11-22T00:00

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 ...

Is it accurate to call Donald Trump a fascist? from 2018-11-15T00:00

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...

WW1: Remembering / forgetting from 2018-11-08T00:01

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 slaugh...

Remembering Peterloo from 2018-11-01T00:00

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 w...

BONUS: Must read – must buy? from 2018-10-24T23:01

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, acad...

1844, remember the date... from 2018-10-24T23:00

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 egalitaria...

Ever-enigmatic Leonardo da Vinci from 2018-10-17T23:00

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&nb...

An Odyssey for everyone from 2018-10-10T23:00

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, Jam...

Radical Cheltenham and a poem from Paul Muldoon from 2018-10-03T23:00

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 salutar...

Diarmaid MacCulloch on Thomas Cromwell from 2018-09-26T23:01

In this bonus episode, the TLS's History editor David Horspool discusses Thomas Cromwell with Diarmaid MacCulloch, the author of a new, definitive biography.

from 2018-09-26T23:00

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 ...

Henry James in LA from 2018-09-19T23:00

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 A...

On booze and art from 2018-09-12T23:00:16

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 a...

Philip Larkin, beyond the grave from 2018-09-05T23:01

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 chil...

Too smart for our own good from 2018-08-22T23:00

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-solvin...

Same old gags from 2018-08-15T23:00

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 p...

Turn on, tune in, drop out? from 2018-08-08T23:00

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 di...

Mind and memory from 2018-08-01T23:00

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 a...

Emily Brontë's wuthering wilds from 2018-07-25T23:00

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...

Women, in and out of control from 2018-07-18T23:00

“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&nbs...

Ode to Lee Child – a bonus episode from 2018-07-11T23:00

Sam Leith, the books editor of the Spectator, and Stig Abell discuss their mutual appreciation of the crime novels of Lee Child.

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Summer Books 2018 from 2018-07-11T23:00

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 ...

Notes on 50 years of the Man Booker Prize from 2018-07-04T23:00

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 ...

An interview with Tim Winton – a bonus episode from 2018-06-27T23:01:31

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 excl...

The wildness of Muriel Spark from 2018-06-27T23:00

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. Tolk...

Russia's blood games from 2018-06-20T23:00

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 o...

Changing your mind and opening the doors from 2018-06-13T23:01

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 ...

Rules of law from 2018-06-13T23:00

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 judici...

Jesmyn Ward’s lyrical fiction - a bonus episode from 2018-06-07T11:00

Jesmyn Ward’s most recent novel Sing, Unburied Sing won the National Book Award in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year. In this bonus episod...

Those are pearls . . . and Michael Jackson's performative drama from 2018-06-06T23:00

We explore the complex, brutal, swaggering history of pearls and those who found, traded and wore them, with Kathryn Hughes. Sam Byers talks about the self-authored creation that was Mich...

Philip Roth and the translatable from 2018-05-30T23:00

Philip Roth, who died last week aged eighty-five, has left behind a vast literary canon and a complicated legacy. But is there more to this great American novelist than just sordid sex? Ben Mark...

The making of me from 2018-05-25T19:43:45

We’re joined by the novelist Margaret Drabble, whose books have for decades chronicled the difficult path to selfhood, particularly for women, and the actor and writer Robert Webb, whose recent mem...

Roman emperors and football managers from 2018-05-16T23:00

The world is being slowly poisoned, the environment destroyed. Why don’t we care about such an apocalypse more? Clare Saxby joins us to discuss; Mary Beard considers the cultural legacy of ...

BONUS: Madeline Miller on Circe from 2018-05-09T23:01

Lucy Dallas is joined by Madeline Miller to discuss her new book, Circe.

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Mothers and millennials from 2018-05-09T23:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas

Real-life millennial Samuel Earle pops in to consider the status of young people in an unequal society, keeping avocado references to a minimum; Ruth Scurr ...

Carlo Rovelli's time – a special episode from 2018-05-02T23:01

In popular science books, including 'Seven Brief Lessons on Physics' and 'Reality Is Not What It Seems', the Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli has studied the phenomen...

Why does everyone hate Nixon? from 2018-05-02T23:00

How do we account for Richard Nixon's stubborn unpopularity? Sure, he was a liar and a crook, but that has not stopped the rehabilitation of many a politician – as a new biography appears Barton...

The risky art of cartooning from 2018-04-25T23:00

Martin Rowson, cartoonist for the Guardian and elsewhere, joins us to discuss caricature as political hit-job; the TLS's Arts editor Lucy Dallas considers the jolly japes and...

Culture clash from 2018-04-18T23:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. Lionel Shriver castigates the arrogant British for snootiness over American English; David Coward tells the story of Simon Leys, "the man who did for Mao" and who c...

Empathy: for better, for worse from 2018-04-11T23:00:15

Are we hard-wired to feel other people’s pain? And if so, is it necessarily a good thing? Andrew Scull has reviewed three new books on empathy and joins us to tell us more; Charles Dickens'...

The New Elizabethans from 2018-04-04T23:00:05

Who are the most exciting novelists from the British Isles currently working? In a spirit of mischief, the TLS asked 200 notable names in the publishing industry (editors, agents, publish...

Hyper-liberalism and the 6,000th TLS from 2018-03-28T23:01

The political philosopher John Gray discusses the failures of liberalism; as the TLS publishes its 6,000th issue, Ruth Scurr delves into the back issues to explore how the paper has changed, a...

Everyone's a winner – a bonus episode from 2018-03-28T23:00

Literary prizes come in more shapes and sizes than ever before: we have prizes that echo the Man Booker, and prizes that set out not to be the Man Booker; we have prizes for first novels, second no...

On the consciousness of cows from 2018-03-22T00:00

Science reporter Jennie Erin Smith joins us to discuss our desire, or evolutionary compulsion, to delve into the minds of other animals, from cows and penguins to the dismally misunderstood hyena; ...

Ada Lovelace: tech prophet and trophy wife from 2018-03-15T00:00

Miranda Seymour reveals the peculiar circumstances surrounding the marriage of Lord Byron's daughter and his super-fan, William King; just how seriously should we be taking the Virtual Reality revo...

Writers and their mothers from 2018-03-08T00:00:31

Dale Salwak, the editor of a new collection of essays, tells us why he wanted to probe this most complicated of relationships, while Judy Carver, the daughter of William Golding – he of&n...

Jewishness: seriously funny from 2018-03-01T00:00

David Baddiel – comedian and, as per his Twitter profile, Jew – joins us to discuss whether Jewishness is inherently funny; as Italians prepare to elect their next prime minister (an unenviable cho...

Prickly, profound Isaac Newton from 2018-02-22T00:00

Just how odd was Isaac Newton? Quite, it turns out, because as well as being one of history’s greatest mathematicians, he was also an alchemist and a millenarian, happily wallowing in con...

Fiona Mozley and Lisa McInerney – at Hay Festival, Cartagena from 2018-02-21T23:59

This special episode – a live recording of an event at Hay Festival, in Cartagena, Colombia, earlier this year – features a discussion with two novelists: Fiona Mozley, whose Booker-shortlisted nov...

Can things only get better? from 2018-02-15T00:00

The "ape bumfodder" of one man (Philip Larkin) is another man's treasure – Susan Irvine makes the case for the relevance of Old English literature in the modern world (and leaves us with a bea...

Mothers of #MeToo from 2018-02-08T00:01

Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi are joined in the studio by political commentator Zoe Williams to discuss the future of Corbynism, Brexit, Lexit, and British politics more broadly; and, to mark the ...

Gregory Norminton, an interview from 2018-02-08T00:00

TLS editor Michael Caines meets Gregory Norminton, the author of a collection of aphorisms, two translations of classic French books for children, two collections of short stories and four novels –...

The 'real' Jane Eyre from 2018-02-01T00:00

Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi are joined by Kathryn Hughes, to discuss whether and where Charlotte Brontë meets Jane Eyre; Katharine Craik looks back on Shakespeare's mysterious, and 'weirdly...

Having a nice day from 2018-01-25T00:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. We are joined by Maren Meinhardt to discuss the unrequited love, and painful experiments on frogs, of Prussian polymath Alexander von Humboldt; Ruth Scurr asse...

Language lolz from 2018-01-18T00:00

Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi are joined in the studio by Daisy Dunn to discuss the history of the written word (yes, all of it), from the Chinese invention of paper in 100 BC to the advent of a n...

Was Jesus a Buddhist? Well, no... from 2018-01-11T00:00

Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi are joined in the studio by Marcel Theroux to discuss why a mysterious nineteenth-century Russian writer-explorer may have forged a tale about Jesus in India; th...

The Problem We All Still Live With from 2018-01-04T00:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. We are joined by Patricia Williams, to discuss how black girls are silenced, marginalised and abused within American society, an ongoing tragedy with its origins in...

Highlights from 2017 from 2017-12-27T00:00

A special end-of-year edition of the podcast, with highlights, including: Sudhir Hazareesingh came on thew show back in March, ahead of the French election, to share his thoughts on ...

Arts of the Year 2017 from 2017-12-21T00:00

Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi are joined in the studio by TLS Arts editor Lucy Dallas and Fiction editor Toby Lichtig to discuss the best (and worst) arts events of 2017.

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A woman's 'Odyssey' from 2017-11-09T00:00

We're joined this week by the TLS's Classics editor Mary Beard to discuss Emily Wilson's new translation of the Odyssey – the first ever by a woman – as well as other issues...

A brand-new London theatre from 2017-11-02T00:00

With Toby Lichtig and Lucy Dallas – London has a brand-new theatre: the Bridge, the latest venture by Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr, based in Southwark and dedicated to original writing. And it st...

Kathy Acker's guts from 2017-10-25T23:00

Georgina Colby joins us in the studio to discuss our growing recognition of the punk writer Kathy Acker, an experimental late-modernist; Alev Scott on 'Weinsteining' in publishing and what we shoul...

Matthew Arnold's good-bad poetry from 2017-10-18T23:01

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – The Mexican-born novelist Valeria Luiselli joins us to discuss her new book, Tell Me How It Ends: An essay in 40 questions, about America's role in an ongoing ...

Valeria Luiselli on the US immigration crisis from 2017-10-18T23:00

The Mexican-born novelist Valeria Luiselli joins us to discuss her new book, Tell Me How It Ends: An essay in 40 questions, about America's role - and her own - in an ongoing immigration crisi...

Heavy with odours from 2017-10-11T23:00

Joining Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas this week: Muriel Zagha, to discuss the redolent funk of French cinema; and James O'Brien, to summarise the rancid political mess of Great Britain. Meanwhile, Sam...

Authors of injustice from 2017-10-04T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – As a new anthology of stories brings the thrills-and-chills of genre writing to bear on the experiences of the "wrongfully convicted", the author and essayist...

Good, bad and loud feminist writing from 2017-09-27T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – "For every competent feminist book”, Camille Paglia wrote in 1995, “there are twenty others shot through with inaccuracies, distortions, and propaganda.” Charl...

Free Speech vs Safe Space: the Great Campus Divide from 2017-09-27T22:59

A bonus episode: Stig Abell hosts a debate at the Brooklyn Literary Festival in which the New Yorker's Jelani Cobb, the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg and Pen America's Suzanne Nossel consider w...

Samuel Beckett's turtle-neck, etc from 2017-09-20T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Would you take fashion advice from Beckett? Was John Updike an early advocate of "norm-core"? We're joined in the studio by Laura Freeman to discuss a new bo...

Matters poetical from 2017-09-13T23:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas - we are in the studio with Ian Thomson discussing the unlikely collaboration between a Neo Dadaist and Dante; we talk to Mark Ford about Weldon Kees, the American p...

Peter Brook at work from 2017-09-13T22:59

In this bonus episode, visionary director Peter Brook talks about his life in the theatre – and explains why Shakespeare is like a skyscraper

See ...

The world's most mysterious manuscript from 2017-09-05T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – The meaning of the 15th-century Voynich manuscript – a strange compendium of undecipherable signs, astrological symbols and pictures of nude bathing women – ...

Pop science and Punjabi epics from 2017-08-30T23:00

With Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas – Alexander van Tulleken on what makes popular science books – including Neil deGrasse Tyson's Astrophysics for People in a Hurry – so popular, and is there a h...

Peak bullshit from 2017-08-16T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – We're joined in the studio by Sam Leith, Literary editor of the Spectator and self-professed rhetoric geek, discusses the problem of fake news in a post-truth...

India's broken legacy from 2017-08-09T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Novelist Neel Mukherjee discusses the vexed state of Modern India and the legacy of Partition 70 years on; Frances Wilson considers a problematic clutch of bo...

Ian Nairn, route master from 2017-08-02T23:00

With Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig. The TLS critic David Collard explores the idiosyncratic worlds of Ian Nairn – architectural critic, psychogeographer, “a cross between Anthony Burgess and Tony Ha...

Trump and the great car crisis from 2017-07-26T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Former US Government consultant Edward Luttwak explains how the rising cost of cars in the US lies behind Donald Trump's election, and why the Democrats' susta...

Jane Austen at 200 from 2017-07-19T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – We're joined in the studio by Claire Harman, author of Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen conquered the world, to discuss the life and legacy of this perhaps most-l...

'Let me be clear...' from 2017-07-12T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi: Politicians – Theresa May foremost among them – always begin their obfuscations and delusional self-justifications by pretending to offer clarity. Journalist Ja...

Robert Frost's aggression from 2017-07-05T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi: David Bromwich dips into the newly published letters, spanning 1920–8, of Robert Frost, the farmer-cum-teacher-cum-giant of American poetry who believed that a ...

'Who shall we kill today?' from 2017-06-28T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – 'Few people are aware that every week the White House indulges in Terror Tuesday, where the US President personally approves people for death without any legal...

What to read this summer: an almost-legendary TLS special edition from 2017-06-21T23:00

Every year we ask a selection of TLS contributors what they'll be reading with those extra hours of daylight. In this episode, we're joined by Fiction editor Toby Lichtig and Arts editor Lucy Dalla...

The summer of shrug from 2017-06-14T23:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. We discuss the election that nobody won and (almost) nobody predicted; varnishing day at the Royal Academy's summer exhibition; and the dubious merits of 1967's Su...

Embarrassing questions from 2017-06-07T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Distinguished social psychologist Carol Tavris discusses whether we are seeing the end of definition by gender and whether there is any benefit in trying to tr...

Football and the modern Middle East from 2017-05-31T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – TLS Politics editor Toby Lichtig speaks to Assaf Gavron, author of a fascinating essay on the role of football in the politics of the Middle East, and runs us ...

Is consciousness a thing? from 2017-05-24T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – TLS Philosophy editor Tim Crane grapples with the mind-body problem and "what it means to be the kind of creatures we are", plus the year that brightened Nietz...

How to get rid of your spouse from 2017-05-17T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Michel Foucault was so fascinated by lettres de cachet – pre-Revolutionary requests made by citizens to the lieutenant of police calling for the imprisonment w...

States of the nations from 2017-05-10T23:00

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas. Sudhir Hazareesingh gives his analysis of the French election and the rise of Macron; Toby Lichtig (sic) helps us tackle genre fiction, including our tips for the g...

#1. If This Is A Man – a live reading of Primo Levi's memoir of Auschwitz from 2017-05-03T23:00

On April 30, at London's Southbank Centre, an extraordinary cast of readers – including Philippe Sands, Tom Stoppard, Niklas Frank, whose father was Adolf Hitler's lawyer, and Susan Pollack, who su...

Rousseau and the me me me memoir from 2017-05-03T22:59

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Frances Wilson on how Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions of 1789 laid the foundations for the messy modern memoir; TLS commissioning editor Mika Ross-Southall...

How comics got serious from 2017-04-26T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – The graphic artist Nicola Streeten discusses two new exhibitions, in Paris and London, linking comics to trauma theory, radical politics and feminism; Alexande...

Primo Levi speaks from 2017-04-19T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Philippe Sands discusses his forthcoming project which assembles an international cast of actors, writers, musicians and politicians to read Primo Levi's semin...

Beers with James Baldwin from 2017-04-12T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – TLS editor James Campbell, Baldwin's biographer and friend, on the writer's complex presence and legacy on and off screen; Michael Rosen on the "disappearance"...

Poets, cannibals and philosophers from 2017-04-05T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Rory Waterman on the "uses" of poetry and Stephen Burt's admirable, if rather vexing, new collection The Poem is You: 60 contemporary American poems and how to...

Not so still lives from 2017-03-29T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Libby Purves on the stranger-than-fiction life of Aimée Crocker, a nineteenth-century heiress with proto-PC views and an affection for boa constrictors; Gabrie...

Isherwood, from Weimar Berlin to Hollywood from 2017-03-23T00:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Henry K. Miller on the cinematic progress of Christopher Isherwood, a novelist who wanted nothing more than to be a filmmaker; Lamorna Ash on All This Panic, a...

A new French Revolution? from 2017-03-16T07:30

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Sudhir Hazareesingh on the seemingly unstoppable rise of Emmanuel Macron, the only politician now standing between the far-Right Marine Le Pen and the French p...

Fragments of the American Dream from 2017-03-09T00:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – In these science fictional times, Jonathan Barnes considers the importance of sci-fi, plus a new sequel to H. G. Wells's satirical masterpiece The War of the W...

George Saunders on 'Lincoln in the Bardo' from 2017-03-08T23:56

In this bonus programme, TLS fiction editor Toby Lichtig interviews George Saunders about his first novel, 'Lincoln in the Bardo'.

See from 2017-03-02T09:45:42

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – D. J. Taylor on the bookish sensibilities of Paul Weller's post-punk romanticism (including a bizarre medley of Orwell's 1984 and Wind in the Willows); Stephen...

Anthony Burgess at 100 from 2017-02-22T21:40:52

With Stig Abell and Thea LenarduzziPaul Howard brings us an unpublished Burgess essay on an untranslatable poet; J. Michael Lennon links the writing of Joan Didion with Trump's America; and Simon A...

Writing The Russian Revolution from 2017-02-15T21:00:03

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Caryl Emerson on poetry and prose forged in the immediacy of the Russian Revolution of 1917; Phil Baker considers the strange split legacy of British writer Co...

Cowgirls, Hockney, and how to write a bestseller from 2017-02-08T23:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Gerri Kimber on the role of women in the rise of the Western (plus the notorious case of Mrs Clem); as Tate Britain unveils the most extensive David Hockney re...

The age of mass incarceration from 2017-02-02T00:30

Clive Stafford Smith, lawyer and campaigner against miscarriages of justice, joins us in the studio to discuss his time defending death-row prisoners in Guantánamo and elsewhere, the "integrity" of...

March on from 2017-01-26T00:10

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Paul Collier on the new "hard" pragmatism and the future of capitalism; Michael Chabon discusses his invigorating new novel, Moonglow; Mary Beard on women in a...

Reboots and reputations from 2017-01-19T01:00

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Devoney "Stone Cold Jane Austen" Looser on the slew of Jane Austen reincarnations (and why it's nothing to worry about); David Wheatley on the long-awaited fin...

Bad sex, 'the Malala effect', layers of place from 2017-01-11T21:50:24

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Eimear McBride on the dark side of bad sex writing and why a new anthology is nothing to be snickered at; Diana Darke on the stories of two young women who hav...

Chilling, glitzy and dark from 2017-01-05T00:10

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Andrew Scull on the deeply unsettling – and surprisingly recent – history of lobotomy, and the sorry tale of Patient H. M.; Lisa Hilton on the sometimes mystif...

The many faces of King’s Cross from 2017-01-02T06:00

A recording from the TLS’s 2016 London Lit Weekend at King’s Place, London: Historians Simon Bradley and Rosemary Ashton and the architect Paul Williams (of Stanton Williams Architects) discuss the...

A monster success from 2016-12-30T06:00

A recording from the TLS’s 2016 London Lit Weekend at King’s Place, London: 2016 was the 200th anniversary of a dark and stormy night with an extraordinary literary legacy: Frankenstein. Frances Wi...

From book to box and beyond from 2016-12-26T06:00

A recording from the TLS’s 2016 London Lit Weekend at King’s Place, London: Cinema and television are brimming with literary adaptations. But how does the page translate to the screen? To discuss t...

Overrated/Underrated from 2016-12-23T12:01

A recording from the TLS’s 2016 London Lit Weekend at King’s Place, London: Overrated/Underrated, a favourite TLS game in which a panel of critics (David Collard, Alex Clark and Michael Caines) sel...

Brexit, bubbles, and the best arts of 2016 from 2016-12-21T22:44:27

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – James O'Brien on Brexit and the battle for Britain's soul; a (rather idiosyncratic) round-up of the best arts of 2016 with Arts editor Lucy Dallas; finally, in...

God, sex and the arts / science divide from 2016-12-15T01:47:38

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Rupert Shortt on why Christianity has been more help than hindrance to social and intellectual progress; Fiction editor Toby Lichtig meets Emily Witt to discus...

Defiance, good death and Mexico from 2016-12-07T20:57:58

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Frances Wilson on the eccentric life of Lady Anne Barnard, loved by men and bad girls alike; Michael Caines on death and women, and indeed, dead women, on the ...

Controlled violence from 2016-11-30T21:37:52

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi: – Jennifer Howard on the threats and thrills of the internet: what price for online freedom?; Rebecca Lemov considers the neurological effects of torture, plus ...

Books of the Year from 2016-11-23T20:47:35

Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi are joined by Fiction editor Toby Lichtig and Arts editor Lucy Dallas to discuss their favourite books of 2016, plus the titles they guiltily haven't read (yet), old ...

Lionel Shriver: "Terror as recreation" from 2016-11-18T15:08:18

Catharine Morris, at the 2016 Singapore Writers Festival, interviews the American novelist and journalist Lionel Shriver about Trump, Brexit and her unsettling new novel, The Mandibles. Find out mo...

The life in the work from 2016-11-16T22:55:29

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Seamus Perry on the difficult, "spiritually dyspeptic" life and work of D. H. Lawrence; Ruth Scurr on two new books by Elena Ferrante, and the struggle over he...

Against nature from 2016-11-09T19:30:22

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas:Mary Beard shares her experience of election night in America; Mark Bostridge discusses Queen Victoria and the stinginess of the Royal Archive; and Nick Groom makes ...

Violence and poetry from 2016-11-03T00:01:11

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – our History editor David Horspool on the (uniquely?) violent English and seven centuries' worth of pacification; Mark Hutchinson on the lesser-known modernist ...

Halloween story special from 2016-10-28T15:41:45

With Stig Abell, Thea Lenarduzzi and Michael Caines.Three extracts of spooky stories for Halloween. Stig reads from Dracula by Bram Stoker; Thea from Mr Jones by Edith Wharton; and Michael from Two...

Shades of censorship from 2016-10-26T16:27:28

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Elaine Showalter on how extreme misogyny turned Clinton vs Trump into woman vs man; Jonathan Barnes on the long shadow of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'; Houman Barek...

Ali Smith on Autumn from 2016-10-21T15:23:24

Toby Lichtig talks to Ali Smith about her new novel, Autumn; plus, an exclusive extract read by the author. Find out more: the-tls.co.uk

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Life, writing and life-writing from 2016-10-19T21:05:40

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Ruth Scurr on Beryl Bainbridge's life, love and works; Jessica Loudis on two memoirs, of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel; ruthless and high-minded or likea...

The mythical Lévi-Strauss from 2016-10-12T20:18:10

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Adam Kuper on French structuralist and hoarder of myths Claude Lévi-Strauss; Joe Paul Kroll on what happened when a slightly belligerent group of eminent Germa...

A lecture by Terry Eagleton from 2016-10-07T10:12:10

Terry Eagleton gives the Theos annual lecture, on the not un-problematic, not un-high-stakes, and not un-incendiary twin matters of The Death of God and the War on Terror. Find our more: www.the-tl...

Duck or Rabbit? from 2016-10-05T22:40:03

With Stig Abel and Thea Lenarduzzi: Tim Crane guides us through our philosophy special edition (including on how the brain works); Lisa Hilton helps to recover the voices of Parisian wartime women;...

Rose Tremain at the Wimbledon Bookfest from 2016-10-03T21:06:47

The novelist in conversation, with Michael Caines, about her latest novel, The Gustav Sonata, and forty years as a published author.www.the-tls.co.uk

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Hardy's London & the modern Middle East from 2016-09-21T22:11:28

With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Mark Ford on Thomas Hardy's unlikely London romance; Hirsh Sawhney on Aravind Adiga's captivating new novel and his messy portrait of India; to tie in with a s...

Ideas of Englishness from 2016-09-14T20:38:37

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas.Including Ferdinand Mount on what defines England and its inhabitants;David Horspool on responses to Hitler and his ideas; and Mika Ross-Southall on Nick Cave's sava...

Beginnings of life and the end of the NHS from 2016-09-07T21:24:12

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas.Raymond Tallis on the ongoing threat to the NHS; Bee Wilson on descriptions of pregnancy and childbirth; and Marjorie Perloff on seeing O.J. Simpson as Othello.
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Clare Lowdon on Safran Foer's great big dazzling novel from 2016-08-31T16:36:05

With Stig Abell and Lucy Dallas: Clare Lowdon on Safran Foer's great big dazzling novel; Mary Beard on what makes Classics relevant; and Can Dundar on being imprisoned by the Turkish state for tell...

Eimear McBride on The Lesser Bohemians from 2016-08-23T15:51:09

Toby Lichtig from The TLS chats to author Eimear McBride about her latest novel, The Lesser Bohemians. Find out more: the-tls.co.uk

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The view from Istanbul from 2016-07-20T21:32:23

The TLS podcast, with Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – this week: why eat meat?; how political was Shakespeare, and does it matter?; the ethics of dust at the Houses of Parliament; a report from Ta...

Richard Ford on Donald Trump from 2016-07-13T16:54:58

The TLS podcast, with Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – this week: the complexities of modern Irish history; the ups and downs of historical fiction; Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Richard Ford gets ...

Tim Parks on translating Leopardi from 2016-07-06T21:18:42

The TLS podcast, with Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – this week featuring: Tim Parks on reviving and translating Giacomo Leopardi; Pamela Haag on America's surprisingly modern love affair with gun...

Mary Beard on referenda from 2016-06-29T18:04:20

Books, culture and more from the TLS podcast, with Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – this week featuring: Athelstan – Britain's forgotten king; Mary Beard on the ancient precedent of our very modern...

Fiction and the refugee crisis from 2016-06-22T21:03:26

Books, culture and more from the TLS podcast – this week featuring: responses to the refugee crisis, political and literary; the new Tate in London; Turkey's secular spaces; and a poem by Stephen K...

Svetlana Alexievich and the Russian-Soviet soul from 2016-06-06T10:53:17

Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, gives the Elliott Lecture at St Antony's College Oxford, taking as her subject "The history of the Russian-Soviet soul".

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Tessa Hadley and Sarah Hall in conversation from 2016-06-01T21:21:27

Michael Caines talks to two authors who have been shortlisted for the 2016 South Bank Sky Arts Awards.Find out more: www.the-tls.co.uk

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Utopia – Then and Now (live from Kings Place) from 2016-05-27T10:15:46

Matthew Beaumont, Michael Caines, Chloe Houston and Nicole Pohl discuss Thomas More's Utopia, first published 500 years ago in 1516, and utopianism in its many and varied forms.Find out more: www.t...

Gerard Manley Hopkins from 2016-05-17T19:19:31

Alan Jenkins introduces and reads a selection of the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

See from 2016-05-16T12:21:22

Adrian Tahourdin and Mika Ross-Southall dip their toes in Casanova's celebrated memoirs.Find out more: www.the-tis.co.uk

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Robert Browning's Poetic Characters from 2016-04-28T17:23:02

Sam Graydon looks at the poet Robert Browning, exploring the major role he played in the development of the dramatic monologue, with a selection of readings from his works.

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Utopia at 500 from 2016-04-20T09:10:27

Michael Caines and Lucy Dallas take a tour of Thomas More's imaginary commonwealth, where private property has been abolished and reason rules all.

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Being Jewish, being American from 2016-04-15T08:41:03

Toby Lichtig talks to Morris Dickstein about the ever-evolving relationship between Judaism and American literature.

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Oscar Wilde and the Chatterton myth from 2016-03-07T16:20:19

Mika Ross-Southall and Michael Caines look at the enduring appeal of Thomas Chatterton, an icon of thwarted Romantic genius, and how he became a figure of especial importance for Oscar Wilde.
...

Henry James in the TLS from 2016-03-02T19:07:25

To mark the centenary of Henry James's death, Catharine Morris and Michael Caines trace the course of his work as it was discussed in his lifetime – and as some of it appeared in the TLS itself. Listen

Mary Beard from 2016-02-02T13:27:17

On the 10th anniversary of her blog, A Don's Life, The TLS' Classics Editor Mary Beard joins Rozalind Dineen to discuss its success. Find out more: www.the-tls.co.uk

from 2016-01-21T16:10:09

Michael Caines and Catharine Morris celebrate the bicentenary of Jane Austen's magnificent novel and its quixotic heroine.Find out more: www.the-tls.co.uk

from 2016-01-11T13:34:12

A selection of poems by Aphra Behn, John Milton, Alexander Pope and the Earl of Rochester.Read by Michael Caines, Mika Ross-Southall and Alan Jenkins.

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Vertigo from 2015-12-09T14:33:32

Vertigo special: Toby Lichtig of The TLS introduces David Collard who compares Alfred Hitchcock's film interpretation to the original novel.The film was recently voted 'the best of all time' by 846...

Douglas Oliver: a poetic vision of the body politic from 2015-09-18T15:21:22

Michael Caines looks back to Douglas Oliver's long poem The Infant and the Pearl, first published in 1985 – a poetic vision of the contemporary political scene, among other things, cast in the moul...

J.H. Prynne: an examination of imagery from 2015-09-09T13:11

We discuss a poem by J.H. Prynne called To Pollen, from 2006, which conducts its own examination of the uses and misuses of images and stories of suffering.Read by Robert Potts.Find out more: www.t...

Summer Holidays from 2015-08-12T12:57:01

“August for the people and their favourite islands”, said W.H. Auden in 1935, with the Isle of Wight in mind. Now people’s favourite islands are more likely to be Majorca or Mykonos, but the lure o...

Cycling: tour de force from 2015-07-23T08:27:03

David Horspool and Lucy Dallas take an in-depth look at the world of cycling literature. Find out more: www.the-tls.co.uk

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John Fletcher from 2015-07-03T12:51:45

In the latest episode of TLS Voices, Mika Ross-Southall and Michael Caines consider Shakespeare's collaborator John Fletcher – a major English dramatist whose work, paradoxically, is largely neglec...

Christine Brooke-Rose from 2015-06-26T10:36

In the latest episode of TLS Voices, Michael Caines, Natalie Ferris and Mika Ross-Southall explore the experimental work of Christine Brooke-Rose.

...

Waterloo from 2015-06-18T09:01:10

In the latest episode of TLS Voices, Adrian Tahourdin goes to Waterloo.Find out more: www.the-tls.co.uk

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Ruth Scurr discusses John Aubrey and the art of writing biography from 2015-02-25T11:37:49

Ruth Scurr talks about her unconventional approach to writing a biography of John Aubrey, the seventeenth-century biographer most famous for Brief Lives.In discussion with Mika Ross-Southall from t...

Robert Herrick and John Evelyn from 2015-01-21T14:07:46

Michael Caines reads a selection of verses by the seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick, as well as a remarkable and little-known elegy by the diarist John Evelyn.Find out more: www.the-tls.co.uk...

Ariel poems from 2014-12-16T14:42:31

Alan Jenkins reads a selection of Ariel poems by, among others, Thomas Hardy, Walter de la Mare and T. S. Eliot, from Faber's Christmas pamphlet seriesFind out more: www.the-tls.co.uk

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T. E. Hulme from 2014-11-19T11:38:29

Welcome to TLS Voices Deputy Editor Alan Jenkins considers the work of T. E. Hulme.Find out more: www.the-tls.co.uk

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Ivor Gurney from 2014-11-05T16:24:51

TLS VoicesMichael Caines considers the work of the war poet Ivor Gurney, and reads a selection from his work, including the previously unpublished poems "The Women at Work" and "The Vow of Life".Fi...

Gabriel-Ernest by Saki from 2014-10-30T09:58:59

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.The TLS turns to the dark side, finding stories within stories, eyes in the dark, guilty consciences and beasts in the woods – tales...

The Eyes by Edith Wharton from 2014-10-27T13:07:29

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.The TLS turns to the dark side, finding stories within stories, eyes in the dark, guilty consciences and beasts in the woods – tales...

There was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard by M.R. James from 2014-10-23T08:30:42

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.The TLS turns to the dark side, finding stories within stories, eyes in the dark, guilty consciences and beasts in the woods – tal...

Laurie Lee with Ronald Blythe from 2014-09-18T15:48:45

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Poet, novelist and screenwriter Laurie Lee is discussed with further contribution from fellow writer, Ronald Blythe.Introduced by Mi...

David Collard discusses Flametti by Hugo Ball from 2014-08-13T14:08:46

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Regular TLS contributor David Collard discusses Hugo Ball's Dadaist novel Flametti.Introduced by Toby LichtigFind out more: www.the-...

Clive James from 2014-08-06T15:30:49

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Clive James reads a selection of poems first published in The TLS.Sentenced To LifeRounded With A SleepHolding CourtMy Father Before...

Mary Beard talks Medea at The National Theatre from 2014-07-30T14:24:16

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Mary Beard discusses the recent production of Medea by Euripides, in a new version by Ben Power, at The National Theatre.Introduced ...

Edward Thomas from 2014-06-25T15:19:35

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Alan Jenkins reads a selection of poems from Edward Thomas.In addition, Rozalind Dineen reads a passage taken from Helen Thomas' mem...

Summer Books - Alex Clark on The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector from 2014-06-18T00:00

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Alex Clark tells us why she's looking forward to The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector and reads an extract from the book.Find o...

Summer Books - Frances Wilson on What You Want by Constantine Phipps from 2014-06-15T00:00

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Frances Wilson tells us why she's looking forward to What You Want by Constantine Phipps and reads an extract from the book.Find out...

Summer Books - Lidija Haas on The Interior Circuit by Francisco Goldman from 2014-06-13T00:00

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Lidija Haas tells us why she's looking forward to The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle by Francisco Goldman and reads an ex...

Summer Books - Mary Beard on Augustus by John Williams from 2014-06-11T00:00

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Mary Beard tells us why she's looking forward to Augustus by John Williams and reads an extract from the book.Find out more: www.the...

Cavafy from 2014-05-28T09:05:03

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Alan Jenkins reads a selection of poems from Constantine P. Cavafy.Find out more: http://www.the-tls.co.uk

from 2014-04-22T17:33:20

The Times Literary Supplement - an occasional series of readings.Alan Jenkins reads a selection of Shakespeare's Sonnets.

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