London Review Bookshop Podcast

In Spring, the third instalment of her seasonal quartet, Ali Smith continues her unique investigation into our country’s past present and future, uniting Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times and a woman trapped in modern times by means of an extended riff on Shakespeare’s least read and most troubling play Pericles. The second book in the series Winter was described by Stephanie Merritt as ‘luminously beautiful.’ She read from its sequel, and discussed it with author and critic Erica Wagner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We hosted the shortlisted authors for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2019 in an evening of readings at the London Review Bookshop. Rewarding the most exciting and interesting literature published by small presses in the UK and Ireland, the Republic of Consciousness Prize has previously been awarded to John Keene (Counternarratives, Fitzcarraldo Editions) and Eley Williams (Attrib. and other stories, Influx Press). This year’s shortlist of six is: Daša Drndić for Doppelgänger, (Istros), Will Eaves for Murmur (CB Editions), Wendy Erskine for Sweet Home (Stinging Fly), Anthony Joseph for Kitch (Peepal Tree), Chris McCabe for Dedalus (Henningham Family Press) and Alex Pheby for Lucia (Galley Beggar). Sadly, Daša Drndić died last year, but was represented at the readings by her publisher and translator. See the full shortlist here. The readings were introduced by the prize’s founder, Neil Griffiths. The Republic of Consciousness Prize was set up in 2017, and is given yearly to a book published by a small press in the UK & Ireland. It is the only prize that awards money to both the publisher and the author of the winning title. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tessa Hadley's new novel Late in the Day (Jonathan Cape) addresses loss, friendship and lives unmoored. Hilary Mantel says, ‘The lives of two close-knit couples are irrevocably changed by an untimely death in the latest novel from Tessa Hadley, the acclaimed novelist and short story master who ‘recruits admirers with every book’.' Hadley was in conversation with Alex Clark of the Guardian. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Dreams of Leaving and Remaining (Verso), novelist, journalist, essayist and contributing editor to the LRB James Meek anatomises the fractured body of our nation as it approaches one of the most momentous junctures in its post-war history. In a series of frontline reports and interviews from every corner of the island, he talks to remainers, leavers, undecideds and don’t-cares. He was in conversation about his discoveries with Chris Bickerton, Reader in Modern European Politics at the University of Cambridge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chloe Aridjis’s third novel Sea Monsters (Chatto), set in Mexico in the late 1980s, describes the elopement of Mexico City schoolgirl with a boy she barely knows, in search of freedom, independence and rather more oddly, a troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs who have recently escaped from a Soviet travelling circus. Aridjis was at the shop to read from and talk about her new book, described by Garth Greenwell as ‘mesmerizing, revelatory … a profound and poetic tool for navigating our shared world.’ Aridjis was in conversation with Juliet Jacques. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Édouard Louis, one of France’s most acclaimed young writers, shot to international fame with his first novel, the semi-autobiographical End of Eddy. His latest book Who Killed My Father (Harvill Secker) revisits many of the same locations and subjects — poverty, homophobia and social exclusion — in non-fictional essay form, and is a powerful polemic exploring the bonds, often persistent even when apparently sundered, between parent and child. He discussed his work with Kerry Hudson, a novelist and journalist whose own work, notably in her first novel Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma and in her forthcoming non-fiction work Lowborn, also investigates with wit and candour the outer and inner lives of the often neglected working class. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fiona Benson’s Vertigo & Ghost (Jonathan Cape), the follow-up to her award-winning 2014 debut Bright Travellers, is one of the most hotly-anticipated poetry collections of 2019. Its harrowing central sequence is a retelling of Greek myth, depicting Zeus as a serial rapist; other poems, including the Forward-shortlisted ‘Ruins’, engage with depression, female sexuality and early motherhood. Fiona was in conversation with Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under (Jonathan Cape), shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Things fall apart when empires crumble. Rediscovery of past glories is attempted again and again, until eventually those living in what was once the heart of the empire become reconciled with their fate. Many of the British are not yet reconciled. A major cause of Brexit was a stoked-up fear of immigrants, but Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire (Biteback Publishing) argues that at its heart the rhetoric of Brexit was the playing out of older school curricula that had been dominated by empire. Brexit was led by people, almost all men, who mostly had fond memories of something that never was as great as they believed it to be. Co-authors Danny Dorling and Sally Tomlinson were in conversation. The conversation was chaired by writer and researcher Maya Goodfellow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First published by Irish independent Tramp Press, Emilie Pine’s Notes to Self became a phenomenal word-of-mouth bestseller. Now picked up on this side of the water by Hamish Hamilton, Pine’s debut collection of autobiographical essays is a poignant, radically honest and fiercely intelligent account of the pains and joys of living as a woman in the 21st Century. She was in conversation with Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Lanchester’s new novel, The Wall, is a Kafkaesque nightmare whose richly-imagined world is very different from our own and yet all too familiar. Like 2012’s Capital (recently made into a TV series starring Toby Jones), Lanchester speaks to our contemporary preoccupations with an unnerving exactness. Keith Miller, reviewing Capital, noted that, ‘like Balzac, Lanchester has the brains to relate the particular to the general; the ruthlessness to make bad things happen to good people; the steadiness of hand to draw unpalatable conclusions’. Lanchester was in conversation with Daniel Soar, editor at the LRB. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.