The TLS Podcast

It’s the centenary of the birth of Iris Murdoch, the novelist-philosopher who dominated the literary pages for much of the twentieth century. Where do we stand on her now? Michael Caines and Frances Wilson discuss; This was the week that the US women’s football team won the World Cup. Devoney Looser, the roller derby queen of academia, enjoys “a brief opportunity to revel in America’s better strengths”.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Do the kids – in these times of identity politics – still read Updike? The answer is “probably not”. But should they? Claire Lowdon makes the case; Toby Lichtig discusses Chelsea Manning, the US Army data analyst turned whistle-blower, and a new documentary on her life; Eric Rauchway considers the prevalence of pro-Nazi feeling and policy in 1940s America and beyond   Novels 1959–1965: The Poorhouse Fair, Rabbit, Run, The Centaur, Of the Farm, by John Updike (Library of America) XY Chelsea, directed by Tim Travers Hawkins Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s supporters in the United States, by Bradley Hart The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a village caught in between, by Michael Dobbs  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Thea Lenarduzzi on the cultural history of gesture and body language; What is Chaucer to us today? When did he become known as the "Father of English poetry", and what did he get up to when he was not writing rude and memorable poetry? Julia Boffey explains; the Stonewall uprising in New York is remembered as a pivotal moment in LGBTQ rights – fifty years on, Hugh Ryan revisits the history  Books Dictionary of Gestures: Expressive comportments and movements in use around the world by François Caradec Silent History: Body language and nonverbal identity, 1860–1914, by Peter K. Andersson The Stonewall Riots: A documentary history, edited by Marc Stein The Stonewall Reader, edited by the New York Public Library Pride: Photographs after Stonewall by Fred W. McDarrah Love and Resistance: Out of the closet into the Stonewall era, edited by Jason Baumann  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

TLS contributors – including David Baddiel, Mary Beard, Paul Muldoon and Elizabeth Lowry – give their seasonal reading recommendations; TLS editors wreak havoc and suggest their own. (Visit the-tls.co.uk to read the summer books feature in full.)  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A "new" ending to a Nabokov novel and the unregarded first volume of Vasily Grossman's epic, the "Soviet War and Peace"; Rebecca Reich guides us through these and the question of whether the West is paranoid about Russia or vice versa; Laura Freeman joins us to talk about dinner with the Durrells and pond life sandwiches. Books Stalingrad: A novel by Vasily Grossman Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century by Alexandra Popoff Plots against Russia by Eliot Borenstein The Russia Anxiety by Mark B. Smith Dining with the Durrells by David Shimwell  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If capitalism is broken, can it be fixed? And can it save the environment? Joseph E. Stiglitz discusses; as we mark seventy-five years since the D-Day landings, William Boyd considers a brilliant new "worm's-eye view" of historical events; a decade after leaving academia for the "wilderness of writing", Stephen Marche returns to report on the troubled field of the humanities The Future of Capitalism: Facing the new anxieties by Paul Collier Capitalism: The future of an illusion by Fred L. Block Money and Government: A challenge to mainstream economics by Robert Skidelsky Normandy ’44: D-Day and the battle for France by James Holland  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Anna Katharina Schaffner on the cultural history of fat and fat phobia; the TLS's travel editor Catharine Morris on why Paris will always be disappointing, the solitude of open spaces, and the problem with "Victor" the archetypal travel writer; an extract from the 2019 Man Booker International prize-winning Celestial Bodies by Jokha al-Harthi, read by the novel's translator Marilyn Booth  Books Fat: A cultural history of the stuff of life by Christopher E. Forth The Truth About Fat by Anthony Warner Fearing the Black Body: The racial origins of fat phobia by Sabrina Strings We’ll Never Have Paris, edited by Andrew Gallix The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich Heida: A shepherd at the edge of the world by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir and Heiða Ásgeirsdóttír, translated by Philip Roughton Where the Hornbeam Grows: A journey in search of a garden by Beth Lynch The Cambridge History of Travel Writing, edited by Nandini Das and Tim Youngs Celestial Bodies by Jokha al-Harthi, translated by Marilyn Booth  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Omani novelist Jokha al-Harthi and the translator Marilyn Booth won this year's Man Booker International prize for fiction in translation, for the novel Celestial Bodies, an account of three sisters living in the village of al-Awafi in an Oman on the brink of change. A couple of days after the announcement, at Waterstones book shop in Piccadilly, the winners spoke to the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak about the novel, Arabic culture and modernisation, translation, and women’s wisdom.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

To mark the bicentenary of Queen Victoria's birth, the TLS's history editor David Horspool guides us through all manner of Victorian matters, including the Widow of Windsor's mastery of soft power, how different things might have been had she been born a boy, how the Victorians amused themselves, and the Rebecca Riots; we also have a symposium in this week's paper, asking writers and thinkers – including Steven Pinker and Bernardine Evaristo – to tell us about the important books from their childhoods. To discuss this – and to share our own youthful reading – we're joined in the studio by a [insert collective noun here] of TLS editors  Go to www.the-tls.co.uk/ to read a selection of articles from our Victorian special issue, and much more. Our symposium was prompted by an initiative – Books To Inspire – launched by Hay Festival Wales, aiming to compile a crowd-sourced list of titles to inspire the next generation. Find out more at hayfestival.com  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The comedian and writer Helen Lederer joins us to discuss gender and comedy and the new Comedy Women In Print Prize; Lucy Dallas considers a clutch of novels in which animals might offer a little respite from human company; the TLS’s philosophy editor Tim Crane guides us through the riches of this week’s philosophy issue, including how the advent of biological immortality might augur “the greatest inequality experienced in all human history” and what happened when Michel Foucault took LSD in Death Valley   To Leave with the Reindeer by Olivia Rosenthal, translated by Sophie Lewis Animalia by Jean-Baptiste del Amo, translated by Frank Wynne The Animal Gazer by Edgardo Franzosini, translated by Michael F. Moore “The last mortals: why we are especially unfortunate to die, when our near-descendants could be immortal", by Regini Rini – see this week’s TLS (in print and online) Foucault in California: A true story, wherein the great French philosopher drops acid in the Valley of Death by Simeon Wade  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Robert Macfarlane joins us to discuss our "peculiar times", the memory of ice, and the world beneath out feet; Margie Orford brings our attention to South Africa at a crucial moment in its history, twenty-five years since the first democratic election and as another makes its mark; Nicola Shulman offers a new theory about race in Disney's original Dumbo, from 1941 Underland: A deep time journey by Robert Macfarlane The Café de Move-on Blues: In search of the new South Africa by Christopher Hope  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As Avengers: Endgame is released, Roz Kaveney sweeps us through the shifting cast of superheroes and, latterly, heroines that populate the Marvel Universe, considers the evolving politics of the comic-book film, and answers the question on (some) people's lips: "but why...?"; Imogen Russell Williams's introduces some of the best writing on LGBTQ themes for children and young adults Avengers: Endgame  Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse Julian Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love Aalfred and Aalbert by Morag Hood  Death in the Spotlight by Robin Stevens  Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) by L. C. Rosen Proud: Stories, poetry and art on the theme of pride, compiled by Juno Dawson  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ruth Scurr on the master biographer Robert A. Caro, whose subjects include Robert Moses, Lyndon B. Johnson and, now, himself; Dmitri Levitin talks us through Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, an eccentric and often inaccurate guide to early thinkers; Why bother with literary criticism? Whither this generation's Lionel Trilling? Michael LaPointe joins us to discuss Working: Researching, interviewing, writing by Robert A. Caro American Audacity: In defense of literary daring by William Giraldi Hater: On the virtues of utter disagreeability by John Semley Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius, translated by Pamela Mensch  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The novelist discusses his new book Machines Like Me with the TLS's fiction editor Toby Lichtig  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There is only one author to whom the TLS devotes an issue every year: William Shakespeare. Michael Caines talks us through the latest theories, research and reviews; Ian McEwan discusses his new novel, Machines Like Me   ‘Still a giddy neighbour’ – Shakespeare’s parish in the 1590s, by Geoffrey Marsh, the TLS The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage: Cultures of interpretation in Renaissance England, edited by Thomas Fulton and Kristen Poole Believing in Shakespeare: Studies in longing, by Claire McEachern Religious Conversion in Early Modern English Drama, by Lieke Stelling What Blest Genius?: The Jubilee that made Shakespeare, by Andrew McConnell Stott Shakespeare’s Rise to Cultural Prominence: Politics, print and alteration, 1642–1700, by Emma Depledge Shakespeare: The theatre of our world, by Peter Conrad Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (Cape)  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.