The LRB Podcast

This week on the LRB Podcast, a free episode from one of our Close Readings series. For their final conversation Among the Ancients, Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones turn to the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Said by Machiavelli to be the last of the ‘five good emperors’ who ruled Rome for most of the second century CE, Marcus oversaw devastating wars on the frontiers, a deadly plague and economic turmoil. The writings known in English as The Meditations, and in Latin as ‘to himself’, were composed in Greek in the last decade of Marcus’ life. They reveal his preoccupation with illness, growing old, death and posthumous reputation, as he urges himself not to be troubled by such transient things. Subscribe to Close Readings for 2025... https://lrb.me/audio ...or give your loved ones a Close Readings subscription: https://lrb.me/audiogifts Further reading in the LRB: Mary Beard: Was he quite ordinary? https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n14/mary-beard/was-he-quite-ordinary Emily Wilson: I have gorgeous hair https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n11/emily-wilson/i-have-gorgeous-hair Shadi Bartsch: Dying to Make a Point https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n22/shadi-bartsch/dying-to-make-a-point M.F. Burnyeat: Excuses for Madness https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n20/m.f.-burnyeat/excuses-for-madness Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wynne Godley was by turns a professional oboist, a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, an economist at the Treasury and a director of the Royal Opera House. Yet at thirty he found himself ‘living through an artificial self’ and turned to psychoanalysis for help. Masud Khan was a protégé of D.W. Winnicott and at one point the darling of British psychoanalysis. He was also sadistic, manipulative and a shameless self-promoter. In this unforgettable piece from 2001, Godley describes his baffling and disastrous sessions with Khan. Read by Duncan Wilkins. Find the original piece and further reading at the episode page: https://lrb.me/godleypod Give your loved one a Close Readings subscription or audiobook for Christmas: https://lrb.me/audiogifts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ghassan Abu-Sittah and Muhammad Shehada join Adam Shatz to describe what life was like in Gaza in the months and years leading up to the Hamas attack on Israel last October, and to discuss the experiences of Gazans during Israel’s subsequent – and ongoing – devastation of the territory. More in the LRB: Adam Shatz: Israel's Descent https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n12/adam-shatz/israel-s-descent Pankaj Mishra: The Shoah after Gaza https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n06/pankaj-mishra/the-shoah-after-gaza Also available to watch: https://youtu.be/_w3Pe00I_Ro Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Elvis’s only child, Lisa Marie Presley was burdened from birth with extraordinary, largely unwanted fame. Before her death in 2023, she spent years as tabloid fodder, less for her sporadic music career than for her highly publicised relationships with Michael Jackson, Nicolas Cage and Scientology. In a recent review of her posthumous memoir, Jessica Olin celebrates Lisa Marie’s resilience and charisma in the face of ruthless publicity. Jessica joins Tom to discuss Lisa Marie’s ambivalent relationship with fame, and how a new generation are encountering the Presley family saga through her daughter, Riley Keough. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/lisamariepod Sponsored Links: Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk To learn more about financial support for professional writers, visit the Royal Literary Fund here: https://www.rlf.org.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Davies joins Tom to assess the efforts of the new Labour government in tackling the UK's many economic challenges. They consider whether Rachel Reeves’s first budget, with its substantial tax rises, can do anything more than arrest the decline of the public finances, and what Keir Starmer hopes to achieve with his public overtures to the likes of Google and BlackRock. Will their technocratic style of government be able to survive the pressures of populist politics, or is their long-term thinking simply too long-term to bring election-winning improvements to people’s everyday lives? Read William Davies's piece: https://lrb.me/davies4622pod More audio from the LRB: Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Meek talks to Tom about his latest report from Ukraine, where he spent time in Kharkiv and Kupiansk in the east of the country. In Kharkiv, he found a population living in fear not only of the Russian glide bombs falling daily on the city, but also of the increasingly ruthless activity of the Ukrainian military recruitment office, desperate to secure fresh troops to resist Russia's advances. James and Tom discuss the current state of the conflict, what a Trump presidency might mean for US policy and whether Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles could make any difference to the progress of the war. Read James's latest report from Ukraine: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/james-meek/nobody-wants-to-hear-this Sponsored Link: Get 10% off creative writing courses at NCW Academy in 2025 with code LRB10: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/academy/ More audio from the LRB: Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adam Shatz is joined by Jamelle Bouie and Deborah Friedell to pick through the results and implications of Trump’s victory. The US has a booming economy of high wages and nearly full employment, yet economic discontent, particularly around inflation, has been one of the more popular explanations for the election result. As well as considering the importance of inflation, Jamelle and Deborah look at what went wrong with the Harris campaign’s big bet on abortion rights, why Republican-voting women say they feel safer under Trump and why the Democrats’ insistence that democracy was on the ballot failed to resonate with many voters. Read Adam Tooze on the Democrats' defeat in the LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/adam-tooze/the-democrats-defeat Read Deborah Friedell on J.D. Vance https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/deborah-friedell/short-cuts Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Gregor Mendel published the results of his experiments on pea plants in 1866 he initiated a fierce debate about the nature of heredity and genetic determinism that continues today. The battle lines were drawn in England in the late 19th century by William Bateson, who believed in fixed genetic inheritance, and W.F.R. Weldon, who argued that Mendel’s experiments revealed far more variation than Bateson and his supporters acknowledged. In this episode Lorraine Daston joins Tom to chart the development of these arguments, described in a new book by Gregory Radick, through scientific and cultural discourse over the past 150 years, and consider why the history of science has a tendency to track such controversies in antagonistic terms, often to the detriment of the science itself. Read Lorraine's piece: https://lrb.me/dastonpod Sponsored links: Use the code ’LRB’ to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb Close Readings Sing up to the LRB's Close Readings podcast: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/crpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On budget day, Tom Johnson joins Malin Hay to discuss the revolution in numeracy and use of numbers in Early Modern England, from the black and white squares of the ‘reckoning cloth’ to logarithmic calculating machines, as described in a new book by Jessica Marie Otis. How did the English go from seeing arithmetic as the province of tradespeople and craftsmen to valuing maths as an educational discipline? Tom and Malin consider the importance of the move from Roman to Arabic numerals in this ‘quantitative transformation’ and the uses and abuses of statistics in the period. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/earlymodernmaths Sponsored links: Use the code ’LRB’ to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb To find out about financial support for professional writers visit the Royal Literary Fund here: https://www.rlf.org.uk/ Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the latest issue of the LRB, Jeremy Harding reviews How to Write about Africa, a posthumous collection of essays and stories by Binyavanga Wainaina, one of postcolonial Africa’s great anglophone satirists. Jeremy joins Tom to talk about Wainaina’s life and work, including the title essay and his ambivalent response to its popularity (‘I went viral,’ he later said, ‘I became spam’); his reporting from South Sudan; the ‘lost chapter’ from his memoir in which he imagines coming out to his parents; and his account of travelling to Senegal to interview the musician Youssou N'Dour, a piece that Harding describes as both ‘beautifully done’ and ‘extremely funny’. Find further reading and external links on the episode page: https://lrb.me/wainainapod Sponsored links: Use the code ’LRB’ to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk See Hansel and Gretel at the Royal Opera House: https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/hansel-and-gretel-details Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his third conversation looking at the crisis in the Middle East, Adam talks to Mohamad Bazzi about Israel’s expansion of its war into Lebanon and the recent assassinations of Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah. They discuss the factors behind Israel’s unprecedented aggression and why, as in Gaza, it’s able to operate without restraint, not least from the Biden administration. Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and a professor of journalism at New York University. Read Adam Shatz on the death of Nasrallah in the latest LRB. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/adam-shatz/after-nasrallah Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second of three conversations about the crisis in the Middle East, recorded shortly before the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was reported, Yezid Sayigh talks to Adam Shatz about why he sees Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October as an inflection point both for the Palestinian movement and global history. Sayigh believes that the attacks reflected an erosion of Palestinian leadership, as well as a moral and strategic crisis. Only a new vision of Palestinian liberation, rooted in progressive ideals rather than in the ethno-religious project of Hamas, he argues, can lead to genuine Palestinian freedom and sovereignty. Yezid Sayigh is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Read Adam Shatz on the death of Nasrallah in the latest LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/adam-shatz/after-nasrallah Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first of three episodes on the crisis in the Middle East, Adam Shatz is joined by Mairav Zonszein and Amjad Iraqi to discuss the experiences of Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel. While the Netanyahu government is opposed by many Israeli Jews, and increasing numbers have left the country, support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon remains high because few can imagine an alternative. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, who have long suffered restrictions on their democratic rights, the escalating crisis has intensified that discrimination, while stirring a deep sense of fear regarding their future. Mairav and Amjad talk to Adam about the tensions in Israeli society, not least between the government and military, and why Netanyahu has shown so little interest in the lives of the hostages still held by Hamas. Mairav Zonszein is a journalist and Senior Israel Analyst with Crisis Group. Amjad Iraqi is an editor at +972 Magazine and an associate fellow with Chatham House's MENA programme. Read Adam Shatz on the death of Nasrallah: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/adam-shatz/after-nasrallah Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘The department store is dying,’ Rosemary Hill wrote recently in the LRB, reviewing an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris on the origins of the grands magasins. She joins Tom to talk about their 19th and 20th-century heyday as cathedrals of consumerism as well as places where women could spend time away from home, and away from men, safely and respectably. She also recalls the Christmas she worked in the toy department at Selfridges, demonstrating wind-up bath toys. Sponsored links: Use the code ’LRB’ to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk See Maddaddam at the Royal Opera House: https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/maddaddam-details Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry established that the fire on 14 June 2017, which killed 72 people, was the ‘culmination of decades of failure’. Every death was avoidable, and every death was the result of choices made by corporations, individuals and elected officials. James Butler, who writes about the report and its findings in the current issue of the LRB, joins Tom to discuss the causes and consequences of the fire and whether those responsible will be brought to justice. Read James's piece: https://lrb.me/butlergrenfell Sponsored links: Use the code 'LRB' to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb To find out about financial support for professional writers visit the Royal Literary Fund here: https://www.rlf.org.uk/ Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In November 2022, archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Philadelphia, two hours south of Cairo, discovered a clump of papyri in a shallow grave. On one of them were written nearly a hundred lines from two lost plays by Euripides. Robert Cioffi, who has been working with the same team on a new archaeological mission, joins Tom to discuss the find, the precarious transmission of ancient manuscripts, and the time he tried to make papyrus in his kitchen. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/euripidespod Sponsored links: Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Singing, acting, directing, writing: Barbra Streisand always insisted on doing it her way. Malin Hay, who recently reviewed Streisand’s 992-page autobiography, joins Tom to discuss her performances on stage and screen, her prodigious voice and why her best movie may be one where she doesn’t sing at all. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/barbrapod Malin’s Streisand playlist: https://lrb.me/barbraplaylist Sponsored links: Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jane Ellen Harrison was Britain’s first female career academic, a maverick public intellectual burdened with the label ‘the cleverest woman in England’. Her quips and quirks became legendary, but many of those anecdotes were promulgated by Harrison herself. Mary Beard joins Tom to discuss Harrison’s legacy, the challenges in writing her life and the careful cultivation of her voice. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/jeharrisonpod Sponsored Links: The Kluge Prize: https://loc.gov/kluge Toronto University Press: https://utorontopress.com/ LRB Audio Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiopod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is a chapter from Complicated Women by Bee Wilson, a new LRB audiobook, based on pieces first published in the London Review of Books. Wilson explores the lives of ten figures, from Lola Montez to Vivienne Westwood, who challenged the limitations imposed on women in dramatically different ways. In this free chapter, she describes the ways that Edith Piaf’s life and art embodied the needs of her public, and how she became a symbol of postwar French resilience. Podcast listeners can get 20% off using the code POD20 at checkout. Buy the audiobook here and listen in your preferred podcast app: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, a chapter from a new LRB audiobook, Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre by Jonathan Rée. This collection of ten biographical pieces, read by Rée, describes the lives of some of most influential thinkers of the past four hundred years and the radical and sometimes bizarre ideas that emerged from them. The audiobook also includes an introductory conversation between Rée and Thomas Jones, host of the LRB Podcast. In this free chapter, Rée looks at the life of Jean-Paul Sartre up to the publication of his first major philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, in 1943. Podcast listeners can get 20% off using the code POD20 at checkout. Buy the audiobook here and listen in your preferred podcast app: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.