London Review Bookshop Podcast

Patricia Lockwood, the acclaimed American poet, novelist and memoirist, joins poet Raymond Antrobus to explore Agate Head / Stone Soup. They discuss Sylvia Plath, surreal humor, metalsmithing, geological time, childhood, illness, family consent and the strange energy of poems. Lockwood also considers Austen, snooker, hyperphantasia, artistic obsession and why writers should keep their work gloriously lumpy.

Jeremy Lee’s smoked eel sandwich became a London sensation when it was introduced at Soho’s Quo Vadis, where Lee is chef proprietor and, amongst other things, led Jay Rayner to call him ‘a rare phenomena in the London food world; a chap everyone agrees is a good thing.’ Now his second cookbook Kitchening (4th Estate) continues his exploration of the two most important things in great cooking: simplicity and deliciousness. Jeremy discussed his philosophy of food with one of the country’s leading food writers Bee Wilson, author of, most recently, The Heart-Shaped Tin (4th Estate). You can buy a copy of Kitchening from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lavinia Greenlaw, poet, novelist and essayist, joins Mark Wallinger, a conceptual artist exploring identity and belief. They examine why poetry can be difficult, how friction and uncertainty fuel creativity, and the tension between meaningful complexity and empty obscurity. They discuss memory, form, artistic courage, structure, simplicity, and the hidden labor behind work that feels effortless.

Triage (Allen Lane), Claudia Rankine’s new book, is an unclassifiable piece of writing, blending narrative, criticism and lyricism to create something capable of facing ‘the collective devastation of the present’ (in Saidiya Hartman’s words). Two friends meet in an art gallery after decades of silence: we eavesdrop on their conversation, memories and enduring friendship. Rankine was in conversation with Victoria Adukwei Bulley, whose debut collection Quiet (Faber, 2023) won the Rathbones Folio Poetry Prize. You can buy a copy of Triage from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Transitions, the latest title in MACK’s ‘Discourse’ series writers Sita Balani and Jay Bernard, guided by Stuart Hall’s notion of ‘conjuncture’, draw on literature, social theory, and lived experience to offer an urgent account of our fractured present. Their dialogue takes in Britain’s colonial past, the advent of AI and the legacy of extractive capitalism to ask the urgent question: what does it mean to be human in a political culture determined to devalue the Humanities? Their conversation is chaired by Sana Goyal, editor of Wasafiri. More from the Bookshop: Discover our author of the month, book of the week and more: ⁠https://lrb.me/bkshppod⁠ From the LRB: Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subsbkshppod Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crbkshppod LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksbkshppod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storebkshppod Get in touch: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In How to Be Well, journalist and essayist Amy Larocca takes on the behemoth which is the contemporary ‘wellness’ industry, in prose which Joanna Rakoff has described as a ‘magical synthesis of crackerjack reporting, incisive cultural commentary, and, most importantly, elegant, self-reflective memoir’. From active charcoal toothpaste to green juice enemas, Larocca explores the science and history of various controversial treatments, to reckon with the 3.7-trillion dollar industry’s profits and promises. Larocca was in conversation at the Bookshop with journalist and literary critic Gaby Wood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Haitian-American scholar Edna Bonhomme, now based in Berlin, is well placed to unpick what it means to be Black at home and abroad. In Tending to Our Wounds, part memoir, part history, part polemic, she unlearns the lies that she was told about slavery and colonialism, and charts a breathtaking course between the individual and the collective, between past and future, and between oppression and resistance. She was in conversation with Lola Olufemi, author of Feminism for the World, Feminism Interrupted and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise. You can buy a copy of Tending to Our Wounds from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sophie Robinson, poet and author of Prairie Oyster, and Oluwaseun Olayiwola, poet, critic and choreographer, join Sarah Howe and Sandeep Parmar to explore how poetry writes sex. They discuss explicit language, queer desire, bodily mess, consent, secrecy and power. Readings from Robinson and Olayiwola open into conversations about rhythm, spirituality, performance and the body’s place in contemporary poetry.

Holly Pester’s Cafés (Fitzcarraldo) continues the trajectory which, since her debut Comic Timing, has made her one of the most exciting poets writing. An elegy for lost communal space, and a stylish political intervention, Francesca Wade has described Cafés as embodying ‘a public space or a place to hide; to meet friends and strangers or to be alone; Pester's brilliance builds this cafe up and invites us in to linger’. Pester was in conversation with Luke Roberts, lecturer at King’s College London, co-director of the small press Distance No Object, and author of (most recently) Bad Omens (Book Works). You can buy a copy of Cafés from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shortly after the pandemic lockdown Sara Baume came across a painting in a pop-up exhibition in a renovated West Cork shed. Fascinated by it, she became determined to make the painter’s acquaintance – although a native of North Dakota the artist Mollie Douthit was now living and working in rural Ireland. Bonded by a common love of nature and a commitment to their respective artistic practices, they began to meet regularly, to talk, to eat and to swim. What would it be like, Baume wondered, to write a book in the style of Mollie’s painting? Opening Night is the result. She was in conversation with Emily LaBarge, author of Dog Days. You can buy a copy of Opening Night from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices