London Review Bookshop Podcast

New York's 92nd Street Y has been a home to the voices of literature for 80 years, hosting in its famed Reading Series the greatest literary artists of the 20th century and recording for posterity their appearances as part of its vast audio archive. Featuring Colm Tóibín on Elizabeth Bishop and Rachel Cusk on Katherine Anne Porter, the Writers on Recordings series invites contemporary authors to discuss the legendary voices that have meant the most to them. Each conversation features rare archival recordings and is led by Bernard Schwartz, who produces 92Y's Reading Series as director of its Unterberg Poetry Center. Now in its third year, the series is produced in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sheila Rowbotham’s many books, in history, politics, feminist theory and biography, have established her firmly at the forefront of both the women’s movement and of libertarian socialism. Perhaps the most personal of them though is Promise of a Dream, first published by Penguin in 2000 and now available again in a new edition from Verso. Frank, beautifully written, funny and moving, it is a coming of age story that takes us from Leeds to Oxford via the Sorbonne, and a stirring account of awakening political consciousness during the 1960s. Professor Rowbotham read from her work, and was in conversation with Lynne Segal, Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck College and author, most recently, of Radical Happiness and Making Trouble. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her latest work Guestbook: Ghost Stories (Particular Books) Leanne Shapton, through a series of stories and vignettes, encounters the uncanny. Are our experiences of ghosts and the unworldly mere fantasies of the mind, or are they solid evidence of the supernatural? In a book designed, curated and illustrated by Shapton herself, she provides some, but by no means all of the answers. Toronto-born Shapton rose to literary prominence with her genre-defying Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, published by Bloomsbury in 2009. Her subsequent works, including Was She Pretty?, Swimming Studies and Toys Talking, have continued to baffle those readers and booksellers who like to know exactly which shelf to put a book on. She was in conversation with novelist and critic Adam Thirlwell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Keenan’s For the Good Times (Faber), set in Belfast during The Troubles, pursues four friends battling for an identity in a neighbourhood harangued by violence and religious intensity. The book highlights the complexity of believing in a cause whilst indulging in the spoils of amoral days. Keenan’s second novel is an urgent and experimental follow up to This is Memorial Device (Faber). Keenan was in conversation with artist and musician, Bill Drummond. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her first book Dressed (Jonathan Cape), Shahidha Bari explores the hidden memories, meanings and ideas which are wrapped up in our clothes; themes of privacy, freedom, love and objectification are treated garment by garment. Bari was in conversation with Marina Warner, whose most recent book is Forms of Enchantment (Thames & Hudson). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen back to an evening of readings and discussion from three outstanding poets, Mary Jean Chan, Will Harris and Sarah Howe. ------ Mary Jean Chan's first full length collection Flèche is published by Faber this July. Her debut pamphlet, A Hurry of English, was selected as the 2018 Poetry Book Society Summer Pamphlet Choice. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic, editor of Oxford Poetry and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Oxford Brookes University. Will Harris is the author of the essay Mixed-Race Superman, published in the UK by Peninsula Press and in an expanded edition in the US by Melville House. His debut poetry collection, RENDANG, is forthcoming from Granta in 2020. Sarah Howe is a British poet, academic and editor. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. She is a Lecturer in Poetry at King’s College London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To mark the publication of Niven Govinden’s This Brutal House (Dialogue Books), we hosted a round table discussion about LGBTQI+ literature and culture, and the contributions it might make to the current, somewhat torrid, political climate. Our participants were Niven Govinden, Amelia Abraham author of Queer Intentions (Picador) and Isabel Waidner, editor of Liberating the Canon: An Anthology of Innovative Literature and author of We Are Made of Diamond Stuff (both Dostoyevsky Wannabe). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An evening of discussion and poetry readings with poets Kayo Chingonyi, Bhanu Kapil, Ilya Kaminsky and New York Times book critic Parul Sehgal. This lively event brings together eminent poets, critics and editors for a public panel discussion on diversity and the current state of poetry reviewing culture in the UK and the US, followed by poetry readings from Kayo Chingonyi and Bhanu Kapil. The panel event featured a transatlantic discussion of race and poetry reviewing with Ilya Kaminsky, Kayo Chingonyi and Parul Sehgal, chaired by Sandeep Parmar and introduced by Sarah Howe. This event also launched the 2019 report on ‘The State of Poetry and Poetry Criticism’ compiled by Dave Coates and supported by Ledbury Emerging Poetry Critics and the University of Liverpool’s Centre for New and International Writing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicola Barker discusses T.S. Eliot, with reference to his appearances at New York’s 92nd Street Y, with the 92Y’s Reading Series producer Bernard Schwartz. The 92Y has been a home to the voices of literature for 80 years, hosting in its famed Reading Series the greatest literary artists of the 20th century and recording for posterity their appearances as part of its vast audio archive. The ‘Writers on Recordings’ event series invites contemporary authors to discuss the legendary voices that have meant the most to them. Each conversation features rare archival recordings and is led by Bernard Schwartz, who produces 92Y's Reading Series as director of its Unterberg Poetry Center. The series is produced in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y and Queen Mary University of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Full Surrogacy Now (Verso), Sophie Lewis takes on the surrogacy industry – worth over one billion dollars a year in the USA alone, and famously exploitative – with a unique and explosive argument: we need more surrogacy, not less! Lewis argues that the needs and protection of surrogates should be put front and centre, that we should ‘overthrow, in short, the notion of the “family”’. Donna Haraway has described the book as ‘the serious radical cry for full gestational justice I long for.’ Lewis was in conversation with Joanna Biggs, assistant editor at the LRB and author of All Day Long: A Portrait of Britain at Work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.