The TLS Podcast

Caryl Emerson on Tolstoy’s art, ideas and life, and the extent to which these came together; Benjamin Markovits returns to a treasured childhood book: The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook; Eve Babitz – a “fizzy”, “fabulous” chronicler of 1960s and 70s Los Angeles – is mid revival. Megan Marz fills us in.Lives and Deaths: Essential stories by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Boris DralyukLeo Tolstoy: A very short introduction by Liza KnappLeo Tolstoy by Andrei ZorinThe Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook by Gary GygaxI Used To Be Charming: The rest of Eve Babitz, edited by Sara J. KramerHollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the secret history of L.A., by Lili Anolik Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lucy Dallas reports on theories, developments and disputes in the world of science fiction; Lawrence Douglas adds crucial historical context – stretching back to the Middle Ages, in fact – to the current US presidential impeachment; the poet Hannah Sullivan emerges from Princeton University Library with fresh insight into T. S. Eliot's love letters   The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula Le GuinThe Expanse, Volumes 1–8, by James S. A. Corey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did Byron have an eating disorder? Mummy issues? Daddy issues? Does it matter? Emily A. Bernhard Jackson joins us to discuss; Stanley Donwood, the artist and designer of Radiohead's record covers, makes the case for this most democratic of artforms; Keith Miller on the work of the designer and architect Charlotte Perriand, a high-minded high modernist whose life spanned the whole of the twentieth centuryThe Private Life of Lord Byron by Antony PeattieCharlotte Perriand: Complete works, by Jacques Barsac Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Muriel Zagha reviews Marriage Story and considers a few other deserving/undeserving films either lauded or ignored by this year's awards panels; a clip from an interview with Francesca Wade, the author of Square Haunting: Five women, freedom and London between the wars (you'll find the full interview in your podcast feed); this month marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anne Brontë, the sister whose reputation has been slowest to blossom but who, according to Samantha Ellis, was the most radical and modern of them all Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Between 1916 and 1940, Mecklenburgh Square was home to the poet and novelist HD, the detective novelist Dorothy Sayers, the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison, the historian and activist Eileen Power, and, finally, Virginia Woolf, who saw it reduced to rubble. Francesca Wade, the author of 'Square Haunting: Five women, freedom and London between the wars', talks to Thea Lenarduzzi about what drew the women to this small pocket of Bloomsbury. Read an exclusive extract from 'Square Haunting' in this week's TLS, in print and online. 'Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on how to read' is available to purchase via the TLS website.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sanam Maher looks at how Muslim women are viewed in the West; Claire Lowdon finds puzzles and philosophy but no pleasure in J. M. Coetzee's recent work; Alan Jenkins explains the significance of the recently opened archive of T. S. Eliot's letters; Jeffrey Wainwright reads his poem "If all this did begin"BooksFrom Victims to Suspects: Muslim women since 9/11 by Shakira HusseinIt’s Not About the Burqa: Muslim women on faith, feminism, sexuality and race, edited by Mariam KhanThe Death of Jesus by J. M. Coetzee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sam Graydon grapples with quantum physics and the subatomic world; Elaine Showalter considers the 'startlingly racy, contradictory, emblematic' E. Nesbit, the 'first modern writer for children'; Which out-of-print books should be back in circulation and why? Roz Dineen presents the results of a TLS symposium BooksSix Impossible Things: The ‘quanta of solace’ and the mysteries of the subatomic world, by John GribbinEinstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The search for what lies beyond the quantum, by Lee SmolinThe Life and Loves of E. Nesbit: Author of ‘The Railway Children’, by Eleanor FitzsimonsThe Extraordinary Life of E. Nesbit: Author of ‘Five Children and It’ and ‘The Railway Children’, by Elisabeth Galvin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TLS editors gather to consider some of the decade’s major cultural shifts and events, with specialist insights from Mary Beard on academia, Beejay Silcox on fiction and Zoe Williams on gender  Go to the-tls.co.uk for the full twelve-page retrospective.For the competition, Barbican membership Terms and Conditions can be found here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/join-support/membership#faqs. The competition closes December 31, 2019. Good luck. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A newly discovered, pseudonymously signed mock-letter to the editor of 'The Lady’s Magazine' in 1823 tells the story of a wannabe writer who is visited by the "gentle spirit of Miss Austen". Not only might the letter offer new information on what Austen might actually have been like, says Devoney Looser, it is also the first piece of Jane Austen-inspired fan fiction; Anna Picard discusses the poet Anne Boyer’s memoir of modern illness and considers the intersections of literature and cancer; Jonathan Lynn shares memories of adventures with his cousin Oliver SacksFor more on the Jane Austen story, go to www.the-tls.co.uk'The Undying: Pain, vulnerability, mortality, medicine, art, time, dreams, data, exhaustion, cancer, and care' by Anne Boyer Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Norma Clarke considers the third and final volume of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher; having spent the past twenty years reporting on Russia, Owen Matthews tries to put his finger on why Vladimir Putin may prove to be one of the most successful political leaders of our eraBooksThe Code of Putinism by Brian Taylor Putin’s World: Russia against the West and with the rest by Angela Stent The Putin System: An opposing view by Grigory YavlinskyKremlin Winter: Russia and the second coming of Vladimir Putin by Robert ServiceThe Return of the Russian Leviathan by Sergei Medvedev, translated by Stephen DalzielWe Need To Talk about Putin: How the West gets him wrong by Mark GaleottiDealing with the Russians by Andrew MonaghanPutin v. the People: The perilous politics of a divided Russia by Samuel A. Greene and Graeme B. RobertsonRussia’s Crony Capitalism: The path from market economy to kleptocracy by Anders Åslund Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.