Freedom, Books, Flowers & The Moon

Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Mark Glanville to mark the centenary of the birth of Paul Celan, probably the most important post-war German-language poet, by revisiting the early poems in light of his later transformation; and Margaret Drabble considers the literature of urban walking, via the fiction of G. K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells and other metropolitan ramblers.Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The collected earlier poetry: A bilingual edition, translated by Pierre JorisMicroliths They Are, Little Stones: Posthumous prose, translated by Pierre JorisUnder the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan, by Jean Daive, translated by Rosmarie WaldropThe Walker: On finding and losing yourself in the modern city, by Matthew Beaumont  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by two TLS editors, David Horspool and Toby Lichtig, to discuss books that have sustained and stimulated over the past twelve months, as selected by sixty-five writers from around the world; and we discuss the controversy surrounding a long-awaited statue of – or "for" – Mary Wollstonecraft.Read the TLS's Books of the Year feature here [https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/books-of-the-year-2020/]   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As Remembrance Day approaches, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Éadaoín Lynch to remember fully and truthfully the relationship between the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon; and the TLS's sports editor David Horspool talks us through a couple of books on professional game playing, including a football memoir of obsession and crucial omissions by Arsène Wenger.My Life in Red and White by Arsène WengerThis Sporting Life: Sport and liberty in England, 1760–1960 by Robert Colls  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Lucy Scholes to revisit the work of the master of terror Shirley Jackson and review the new film Shirley (“about as far from a traditional biopic as you can get”); and Jane Darcy grapples with the neither quite Romantic nor quite Victorian Thomas De Quincey, whose life-writing paved the way for the autobiografiction to come Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker (various cinemas / Hulu)Thomas De Quincey: Selected writings, edited by Robert Morrison   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In a special bonus podcast we bring you an episode of Stories of our times that we think you might enjoy.The Times's chief music critic, Richard Morrison muses over whether a combination of the coronavirus, environmental concerns and the MeToo movement will be the end of the 'maestro' - the classical music conductor - as we know it. Guest: Richard Morrison, Times chief culture critic and music writer. Host: David Aaronovitch.Clips used: Metropolitan Opera, Aurora Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, The Hendon Band YouTube Channel, ABC News, Washington Post, NBC News.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The critic and novelist Elizabeth Lowry joins Thea Lenarduzzi and Toby Lichtig to discuss the Italian Baroque master Artemisia Gentileschi, the subject of a major exhibition at the National Gallery in London, a painter whose Life is as dramatic and moving as her art; and Toby reviews new fiction steeped in dread, paranoia and failure, including a short work by Don DeLillo and the debut novel from the Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman Artemisia – National Gallery, London, until January 24, 2021 The Silence by Don DeLilloAntkind by Charlie KaufmanReality: And other stories by John LanchesterWhy Visit America by Matthew Baker  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From a ballet stream to Homer's wine-dark sea. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the historian and critic Judith Flanders to review the return of dance with new offerings from the Akram Khan Company and the Royal Ballet, and the novelist and poet Will Eaves returns to the Odyssey to explore the nature of memory. Back on Stage – The Royal Ballet, available online until November 8thThe Silent Burn Project – Akram Khan CompanyMichael Clark: Cosmic Dancer – Barbican, until January 2021, then at the V&A Dundee  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From a carvery lunch in Howards End to emotional Eurocrats. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Norma Clarke to discuss the role in literary creation of food and its increasingly fraught means of production, and Russell Williams reports on the bookshops of Paris during lockdown and reviews the new novel by a totemic figure in French literature, Jean-Philippe Toussaint.The Literature of Food: An introduction from 1830 to present by Nicola HumbleFarm to Form: Modernist literature and ecologies of food in the British Empire by Jessica MartellRead My Plate: The literature of food by Deborah R. GeisThe Cambridge Companion to Literature and Food, edited by J. Michelle CoghlanLes Émotions by Jean-Philippe Toussaint  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From Ovid to the "Black Spartacus". Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the TLS's classics editor Mary Beard to pick apart the story of "seduction", ancient and modern, the poet Fiona Benson reads her latest work, and the TLS's history editor David Horspool explores two accounts of America's domestic slave trade and a new biography of Toussaint Louverture.Strange Antics: A history of seduction by Clement KnoxWilliams’ Gang: A notorious slave trader and his cargo of Black convicts by Jeff Forret Sweet Taste of Liberty: A true story of slavery and restitution in America by W. Caleb McDanielBlack Spartacus: The epic life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From Poirot on the River Nile to Verdi's take on the infamous Scottish play. Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas talk to writer Laura Thompson about the work of Agatha Christie and how she managed to move with the times, and Professor Larry Wolff joins us from Florence to discuss the tentative return of live opera in Italy with Verdi's Macbeth at the Parma Verdi Festival.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Toby Lichtig talks us through this year's Booker shortlisted novels, plus a couple of others, and Lucy Dallas reports on the French scene (where real life and fiction blur...); finally, we explore the situation in Israel and Palestine from three rather different perspectives.An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defence Forces made a nation by Haim Bresheeth-Zabner The Conflict over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine campus debate by Kenneth S. SternThe new peace? – Israel’s unexpected ray of light by Ari Shavit – www.the-TLS.co.uk  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 1405, Christine de Pisan took up the pen in defense of her maligned sex, imagining a 'City of Ladies' in which the most virtuous female leaders of history might be preserved from the distortions of misogyny. Six hundred years later, with Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine the Great as her guides, the novelist and historian Lisa Hilton revisits the City to shake the foundations of the way we write about power  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Throughout August, we are revisiting our books roundups from previous years, and today we’re returning to last year’s suggestions. In 2019, our contributor Diana Darke said in the paper: "A lot of things need saving this summer – tangible things like bees, Notre-Dame, water … and intangible things like democracy, humanitarian ideals, community". Among the many subjects under discussion here are Oulipo, impeachment, and climate change. We’ll be back with new weekly episodes from September 10th. Until then, head to the website – the-tls.co.uk – to keep up with the weekly magazine.     See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Throughout August, we are revisiting our books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance to catch up on books you might have missed. Today we are sauntering back to the summer of 2018, and an episode in which we learnt which books our contributors – including Bernardine Evaristo, Claire Lowdon and Carlo Rovelli – were looking forward to. We’ll be back with new weekly episodes from September 10th. Until then, head to the website – the-tls.co.uk – to keep up with the weekly magazine.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Throughout August, we are revisiting books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance once again to hear recommendations from our writers and editors, on subjects like Marcel Proust’s letters, tech-ensnared science fiction and Euripides. In this episode, from 2017, there is also an interview with that year’s Man Booker International Prize Winner, David Grossman, and his translator Jessica Cohen. We’ll be back with new weekly episodes from September 10th. Until then, head to the website – the-tls.co.uk – to keep up with the weekly magazine.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Throughout August, we are revisiting books roundups from previous years, to give you a chance to catch up on all that good stuff. Today we’re skipping back to 2016’s books of the year recommendations. We’ll be back with new weekly episodes from September 10th. Until then, head to the website – the-tls.co.uk – to keep up with the weekly magazine.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Gabrielle Walker talks us through three unhelpful attitudes to global warming, as exemplified in the Michael Moore-produced film Planet of the Humans; Sudhir Hazareesingh discusses the complex relationship between charisma and celebrity in the age of Revolution (spoiler: it helps to have a horse)Planet of the Humans - YouTubeMen on Horseback by David Bell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What style of life did an ancient Roman emperor lead? How did he actually spend his time? Mary Beard fills us in; Frances Wilson on literary couples (and their pet names) and what they can, and can’t, tell us about marriage; Mika Ross-Southall on how gentrification works and who it works for The Emperor in the Roman World by Fergus MillarLiterary Couples and 20th-Century Life Writing: Narrative and intimacy by Janine UtellParallel Lives: Five Victorian marriages by Phyllis RoseNewcomers: Gentrification and its discontents by Matthew L. SchuermanUs Versus Them: Race, crime, and gentrification in Chicago neighborhoods by Jan DoeringThe Aesthetics of Neighborhood Change, edited by Lisa Berglund and Siobhan GregoryAlpha City: How London was captured by the super-rich, by Rowland Atkinson  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Geoff Dyer on why Larry McMurtry’s novel Lonesome Dove was one of the most memorable reading experiences of his life (a taster from his essay: “There was no book and no reader. There was just this world, this huge landscape and its magnificently peopled emptiness”); In April 1939, the black contralto Marian Anderson stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial and performed to a crowd of 75,000 people. Carol J. Oja sheds light on the twists and turns behind a moment when the history of Civil Rights intersected with that of classical music. Read more at the-tls.co.uk  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Min Wild on recent attempts to get to grips with that most slippery of beasts, the history of the novel (expect a lively cast, including Frances Burney, Daniel Defoe, Laurence Sterne and Jane Porter); Declan Ryan on where writing overlaps with boxing and the story of the eighteenth-century boxer Daniel Mendoza, known as The Fighting Jew, who made of the sport an art form BooksWithout the Novel: Romance and the history of prose fiction by Scott BlackRevising the Eighteenth-Century Novel: Authorship from manuscript to print by Hilary HavensPublic Vows: Fictions of marriage in the English Enlightenment by Melissa J. GanzBorn Yesterday: Inexperience and the early realist novel by Stephanie Insley HershinowCaptain Singleton by Daniel Defoe, edited by Manushag PowellTristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, edited by Judith HawleyThaddeus Of Warsaw by Jane Porter, edited by Thomas McLean and Ruth Knezevich  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.