The TLS Podcast

Keith Miller joins us to discuss everybody's favourite Renaissance man; the TLS's Fiction editor Toby Lichtig meets Anna Burns, the winner of the 2018 Man Booker Prize for her novel Milkman; this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, meanwhile, remains suspended following charges of serious sexual misconduct and cronyism – Richard Orange reports on the mess that has engulfed the Swedish AcademyBooksLiving with Leonardo: Fifty years of sanity and insanity in the art world and beyond by Martin Kemp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mary Beard reflects on the peculiarities of Homer's best-loved, many-sided epic; Neel Mukherjee on the scandalous survival of the Indian caste system; following the recent party conferences, James O'Brien offers a wry overview of Britain's political messBooks: The Measure of Homer: The ancient reception of the Iliad and the Odyssey by Richard HunterAnts Among Elephants: An untouchable family and the making of modern India by Sujatha GidlaHow To Be Right ... in a World Gone Wrong by James O'Brien Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Caines joins us to discuss female liberation in genteel Cheltenham; we look ahead to an Odyssey extravaganza, with Ted Hodgkinson from the Southbank centre; Paul Muldoon brings a salutary note of optimism to US politics and history with his new poem "With Joseph Brant in Canajoharie"BooksVotes for Women: Cheltenham and the Cotswolds by Sue JonesThe Odyssey translated by Emily WilsonSelected Poems 1968-2014 by Paul Muldoon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode, the TLS's History editor David Horspool discusses Thomas Cromwell with Diarmaid MacCulloch, the author of a new, definitive biography. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lorna Scott Fox joins us to discuss the fiftieth anniversary of Mexico's Tlatelolco of 1968, a travesty still shrouded in obfuscation; the TLS's History editor David Horspool discusses Thomas Cromwell with Diarmaid MacCulloch, the author of a new, definitive biography; and finally, Rozalind Dineen offers a round-up of interesting new podcastsBooks and podcasts discussedMéxico 68: The students, the President and the CIA by Sergio AguayoThomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCullochThe Teachers Pet (The Australian)West Cork (Audible)The Ratline (BBC)In Our Time (BBC Radio 4) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Philip Horne and Frances Wilson join us to discuss Henry James, the not-always masterly Master who gave us novels as apparently divergent as Washington Square, with its clear, tight prose, The Ambassadors (prone to accidents of publication) and The Golden Bowl, which spills pleasures of an altogether more sinuous nature; plus, details of a little-known trip James took to California, which – unexpectedly, perhaps –“completely bowled” him over  BooksGenerous Mistakes: Incidents of error in Henry James by Michael Anesko The Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James: The Ambassadors; Edited by Nicola Bradbury. The Portrait of a Lady; Edited by Michael Anesko. The Jolly Corner and Other Tales, 1903–1910; Edited by N. H. Reeve (Michael Anesko, Tamara L. Follini, Philip Horne and Adrian Poole, general editors) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Roz Dineen on the time-stained image of the artist-addict, The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, and whether “stories about getting better [can] ever be as compelling as stories about falling apart"; "David Foster Wallace would send me letters and I wouldn’t answer them. He would send works in progress with forlorn notes. 'You’re under no obligation to read or to pretend you’ve read the enclosed,' he wrote on one piece. I didn’t." – David Streitfeld recalls being David Foster Wallace's "worst friend"BooksThe Recovering by Leslie JamisonIn The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close encounters with addiction by Gabor Maté   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew Motion discusses the life, work and curious afterlife of his friend and "subject" Philip Larkin; Imogen Russell Williams has written an essay on diversity (or the lack of it) in children's books and offers some recommendations; Zoe Williams gives her verdict on the very British political tradition that is Prime Minister’s QuestionsBooksPhilip Larkin: A writer's life by Andrew Motion (1993; reissued September 2018)  The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo  Square by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen  I Am Thunder by Muhammad KhanKnights and Bikes by Gabrielle KentYou’re Safe With Me by Chitra Soundar and Poonam MistryKnights and Bikes by Gabrielle KentYou’re Safe With Me by Chitra Soundar and Poonam Mistry(For all the books discussed by Imogen Russell Williams, go to the-tls.co.uk)Punch and Judy Politics: An insider’s guide to Prime Minister’s questions by Tom Hamilton and Ayesha Hazarika Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carl Miller, the author of The Death of the Gods, which deals with how power works and who holds it in the digital age, sheds light on how algorithms, originally devised as simple problem-solving devices, have become so complicated that no one, not even their creators, can control them; Kristen Roupenian points out the problem with an “unfailingly enthusiastic” compendium of twentieth-century female intellectuals (including Dorothy Parker and Joan Didion): who is left out and why?; eighty-odd years ago, Zora Neale Hurston, now best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, interviewed Kossola O-Lo-Loo-Ay, the last known survivor of the Atlantic Slave Trade. As her book is finally published, Colin Grant joins us to tell us more Books The Death of the Gods: The new global power grab by Carl Miller Sharp: The women who made an art of having an opinion by Michelle Dean Barracoon: The story of the last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the course of his long literary career, Samuel Johnson reviewed only one novel. Who was it by? None other than the "preposterously confident” Charlotte Lennox, a force in eighteenth-century prose and a model for Jane Austen – Min Wild tells us more; What happens if you ask a literary critic to watch top-grossing (pun intended) Hollywood comedies from the past three decades? Robert Douglas-Fairhurst explains how comedy reflects broader culture and anxieties; How are women treated in film and television? Is there cause for celebration? Alice Wadsworth joins us in the studio to discuss.BooksCharlotte Lennox: An independent mind by Susan Carlile Stealing the Show: How women are revolutionizing television by Joy Press Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive portrayals in speculative film and TV by Diana Adesola Mafe  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.