London Review Bookshop Podcast

Wallace Shawn talks to Gareth Evans about his new collection of essays. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Abolish The Family, leading feminist critic Sophie Lewis asks us to imagine a world without families. She traces the history of family abolitionism, before introducing us to the groundbreaking politics of radical feminists and gay liberationists that have called for a society organised without the family at its core.Lewis was joined by Lola Olufemi, author of Experiments In Imagining Otherwise.Find more events at the Bookshop website: https://lrb.me/eventspodSubscribe to Close Readings: https://lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vigdis Hjorth’s latest novel Is Mother Dead (translated by Charlotte Barslund; Verso) is a characteristic blend of thriller, metafiction, meditation on art, motherhood, belonging and surveillance. She cites as influences Brecht and Céline. Others have compared her to Kafka and Thomas Bernhard, but in truth, she is quite unique. Hjorth was in conversation with writer and broadcaster, Shahidha Bari.Find more events on the Bookshop website: https://lrb.me/eventspodSubscribe to Close Readings: https://lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chantal Mouffe is one of the world’s leading left thinkers on power and populism. In her latest book, she proposes the creation of a broad coalition of movements under the banner of a Green Democratic Revolution to confront the impending ecological crisis.Mouffe was joined in conversation with James Schneider, co-founder of Momentum and author of Our Bloc: How We Win.Find more events at the Bookshop website: https://lrb.me/eventspodSubscribe to Close Readings: https://lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A storyteller, mythologist and poet, Martin Shaw’s latest collection, s t a g c u l t (Hazel Press, 2022) lifts a lantern to a kind of haunting we can’t quite exorcise, or don’t wish to. Shaw was joined in conversation by Claire Armitstead, associate culture editor at the Guardian and presenter of their weekly books podcast.Buy a copy of s t a g c u l t from the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/stagcultFind more events at the website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the spring of 2020 Lara Feigel found herself locked down with her partner, her two children and the works of D.H. Lawrence. In Look! We Have Come Through! (Bloomsbury) she blends biography, autobiography and literary criticism in a way familiar to readers of Free Woman, her book about Doris Lessing.Feigel was joined in conversation about Lawrence and her own rediscovery of him with author Lauren Elkin.Buy a copy of Look! We Have Come Through!: https://lrb.me/lawrencefeigelFind upcoming events at the Bookshop website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Perdendosi: an instruction, typically at the end of a piece, for musicians to gradually diminish in volume, tempo and tone, to the point of disappearance. Photographer Norman McBeath uses the term to describe the way his images of fallen leaves portray how they lose colour and volume, turning from living things into something like parchment. During lockdown, McBeath’s images were a constant companion to artist and writer Edmund de Waal, who responds to them here with a series of texts evoking change, decay and transformation, a unique collaboration beautifully documented in a new book from Hazel Press.McBeath and de Waal are in conversation with Alexandra Harris, Professor of English at Birmingham University and author of Weatherland and Romantic Moderns. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows was published in 1922 and is only now beginning to receive its due. The collection stands alongside the better-known masterpieces of that year in its distillation of the spirit of the age and its outsize influence.Writer, researcher, and LRB contributor Kevin Okoth joined poet Raymond Antrobus and author Paul Mendez to discuss McKay's extraordinary life and work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his fifth novel The Last White Man (Hamish Hamilton) Mohsin Hamid continues his exploration of cultural and racial displacement, commenced so brilliantly with Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Exit West. In what has been described as a contemporary remoulding of Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ a man awakes one morning to find that his skin has turned dark. Hamid was in conversation with Jo Hamya, author of Three Rooms (Vintage). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dawn Foster, chronicler of austerity Britain and leading voice from the housing crisis, passed away last year aged 34. Foster, author of Lean Out (Repeater, 2016) and LRB contributor, was a working class feminist who rose to prominence as a newspaper columnist and broadcast commentator; she was a fearless champion for those at the sharp end. In the week of the Queen's funeral, friends and colleagues discussed her life and legacy: K Biswas, critic and director of Resonance FM and On Road Media; James Butler, LRB contributing editor and co-founder of Novara Media; Lynsey Hanley, broadcaster and author; and Gary Younge, author and sociology professor at the University of Manchester.Read Dawn Foster's work in the LRB: lrb.me/dawnfosterFind more Bookshop events via the website: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.