Erin Maglaque talks to Thomas Jones about abortion in 16th-century Italy, the stories of women who experienced it, how it was investigated, and why attitudes to pregnancy 400 years ago were in some ways preferable to those now.Find more LRB pieces by Erin Maglaque here: lrb.me/erinmaglaquepodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew O‘Hagan reads his review of Sea State by Tabitha Lasley, a portrait of the oil rig industry, those who work in it, and a journalist‘s intensely close relationship with her subject.Read the review here: https://lrb.me/seastatepodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Colin Burrow talks to Thomas Jones about the work of Ursula Le Guin. They discuss the way she brought anthropology into speculative fiction, her explorations of power and moral responsibility in the Earthsea books, and what it was like for Burrow growing up with another writer of fantasy and speculative fiction: his mother, Diana Wynne Jones.Find Burrow's piece on Le Guin and more here: https://lrb.me/ursulaleguinpodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hazel Carby talks to Adam Shatz about the increasing nationalisation of racial histories, and the way African-American studies in the United States have been influenced by ideas of American exceptionalism. She argues instead for a broader, global view of race and African culture.Carby explores these ideas in her review of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents: https://lrb.me/hazelcarbypodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Wood talks to Thomas Jones about Beethoven, drawing on his review of three recent books on the composer. They discuss some of the apparently immovable Beethoven mythologies – the keyboard pedagogy, the heroic glower, the many appropriations of the 9th Symphony – and the blend of Viennese tradition and radical invention which characterises his music, particularly the piano sonatas, from the ethereal melodic sweetness of The Tempest to the terrifying, thumping trills of the Hammerklavier.Read James Wood's piece here: https://lrb.me/beethovenpodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20bPieces and recordings featured in this episode:5th Symphony: Berlin Philharmonic / Furtwängler (1954)3rd Symphony: Berlin Philharmonic / Furtwängler (1952)Piano Sonata No. 29 (‘Hammerklavier’): Barenboim (1984)Piano Sonata No. 29 (‘Hammerklavier’): Solomon (1952)Piano Sonata No. 17 (‘The Tempest’): Gould (1960)9th Symphony: Beyreuth Festival Orchestra / Furtwängler (1951)Piano Sonata No. 7: Horowitz (1959)Piano Sonata No. 26 (‘Les Adieux’): Kempff (1951)Piano Sonata No. 31: Hess (1953) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Lanchester reads his review of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes.Read the piece here: lrb.me/neanderthalspodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Diane Williams reads nine of her (very) short stories published in the LRB, the most recent, ‘Tassel Rue’, from our Christmas issue.Find these stories and more, as well as a conversation between Williams and Lara Pawson from the London Review Bookshop, on our website: https://lrb.me/dianewilliamspodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Jones reads his homage to Maradona, with help from some 1980s commentators.Read the piece here: https://lrb.me/maradonapodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rupert Beale talks to Thomas Jones about the new Sars-CoV-2 vaccines, how the mRNA technology works, why social distancing still matters, and why he’s worried about Christmas. (The conversation was recorded before the publication of the AstraZeneca/Oxford trial data.)Subscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ange Mlinko talks to Joanne O’Leary about the work of Denise Riley, following the publication last year of Riley’s Selected Poems: 1976-2016 and her essay Time Lived, without Its Flow. They look in particular at Riley’s celebrated poem ‘A Part Song’, a long elegy for her adult son, Jacob, who died from undiagnosed cardiomyopathy in 2008. ‘A Part Song’ was published first in the LRB in 2012 and won the Forward Prize for best poem in that year, and this discussion features extracts of Riley reading from the poem.Click here for more by Ange Mlinko and Denise RileyThis episode of the LRB Podcast is supported by The Week magazine. To try your first 6 issues of The Week for free, visit theweek.co.uk/offer and enter offer code LONDONSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.