London Review Bookshop Podcast

Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché collaborate on a dazzling science fiction debut. They discuss the genesis of the book, exploring characters and collaboration, and the portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters. They talk about writing as a subversive act and the power of love in imagining the future.

Caret continues the adventures of the irrepressible John Cromer, begun in Pilcrow (2008) and continued in Cedilla (2011) – part of Adam Mars-Jones’ ‘semi-infinite’ novel series, praised by one reviewer as ‘a genuine, almost miraculous oddity’. Mars-Jones was in conversation with the journalist and critic Leo Robson.Buy Caret: lrb.me/caretpodMore events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades, feminist artists have confronted the problem of how to tell the truth about their experiences as bodies. Queer bodies, sick bodies, racialised bodies, female bodies, what is their language, what are the materials we need to transcribe it?Exploring the ways in which feminist artists have taken up this challenge, Lauren Elkin's Art Monsters is a landmark intervention in how we think about art and the body, calling attention to a radical heritage of feminist work that not only reacts against patriarchy but redefines its own aesthetic aims.Elkin talks about it with Vanessa Peterson, Associate Editor, frieze magazine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A holistic and revealing account of the inspirations, passions and practices of one of the country’s foremost contemporary artists, Art is Magic finds Jeremy Deller reflecting on the entirety of his career, his life and his art. Deller was joined in conversation with writer Michael Bracewell, author of Unfinished Business.Find more events at the London Review Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodBuy a copy of Art is Magic: lrb.me/dellerpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Tessa Hadley’s new collection, After the Funeral (Jonathan Cape), small events have huge consequences. As psychologically astute as they are emotionally dense, these stories illuminate the enduring conflicts between responsibility and freedom, power and desire, convention and subversion, reality and dreams. Hadley was in conversation with Geoff Dyer.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Four Faber poets will join us to read from their recent collections.Describing Declan Ryan's long-awaited debut, Crisis Actor, Liz Berry called it ‘elegant and heartaching’. Maggie Millner‘s Couplets, also a debut, is a novel in verse, a unique repurposing of the 18th century rhyming couplet into a thrilling story of queer desire. Hannah Sullivan’s follow-up to her T.S. Eliot Prize-winning Three Poems, Was it For This, also consists of three long poems, on subjects ranging from London and the Grenfell fire to new motherhood. The title poem of Nick Laird’s new collection, Up Late, won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. Terrance Hayes has characterised his work as containing 'a truth-telling that’s political, existential, and above all, emotional'.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Olivia Laing, Ken Worpole and Jon Day discuss Colin Ward and David Crouch's 1988 classic of social and oral history The Allotment, long out of print but finally reissued by the indefatigable Little Toller Books.Upcoming events at the bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two of Britain’s most exciting short story writers joined in conversation to celebrate the release of their highly-acclaimed debuts in paperback. Faber author Jem Calder and Edge Hill Prize winner Saba Sams read from and discussed their stories with Tom Conaghan, publisher of Scratch Books.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodBuy Reward System: lrb.me/rewardsystemBuy Send Nudes: lrb.me/sendnudes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meat Love, the latest book-length essay by Amber Husain (following on from 2021’s Replace Me), explores how meat-eating has become irretrievably enmeshed with capitalist desire, in what Sophie Lewis has described as ‘an exquisitely-crafted little hand grenade lobbed at the gentrification of the carnivorous mind’.She is in conversation with Rebecca May Johnson, whose Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen (Pushkin, 2022) touches on many of the same revolutionary themes. Johnson is an essayist and critic, and senior editor at the online magazine Vittles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melodrama, biography, cold war thriller, drug memoir, essay in fragments, mystery – ​Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors is cult critic Ian Penman’s long awaited first original book, a kaleidoscopic study of the late West German film maker Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982). Written quickly under a self-imposed deadline in the spirit of Fassbinder himself, who would often get films made in a matter of weeks or months, ​Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors presents the filmmaker as a pivotal figure in the late 1970s moment between late modernism and the advent of postmodernism and the digital revolution. Penman was joined in conversation by Adam Mars-Jones.Buy a copy of Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors: lrb.me/fassbinderFind more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.