London Review Bookshop Podcast

Helen Macdonald and Tim Dee came to the Bookshop to talk about birds, and about writing about birds. Radio producer Tim Dee propelled himself into the front rank of British nature writing in 2009 with his remarkable birdwatching memoir The Running Sky, followed in 2013 by Four Fields. Helen Macdonald, writer, poet, naturalist, conservationist, historian and some-time falconer, has recently published H is for Hawk which recounts how, under the literary tutelage of T.H. White and in part as a strategy for overcoming personal grief, she acquired and trained a goshawk of her own. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the world commemorates the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War historian Douglas Newton recounts the hidden history of Britain’s decision to enter the conflict. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, including the private papers and correspondence of leading politicians of the time, Newton pays particular attention to the widespread and vehement opposition to the war, both inside parliament and in the country at large, and reveals how Asquith, Edward Grey and Winston Churchill colluded, against the wishes and instincts of many of their parliamentary colleagues, to bring the country into the war, by any means necessary. Douglas Newton was in conversation with Christopher Clark, author of The Sleepwalkers, on 4 August, the hundredth anniversary of Britain's declaration of war on Germany. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nigel Smith, currently Professor of Ancient and Modern Literature at Princeton, was in conversation about the thought, literature and legacy of the Ranters with Sir Stephen Sedley, formerly a judge in the Court of Appeal, frequent contributor to the LRB and an acknowledged authority on the history of English radicalism. Folk singer Leon Rosselson performed two of his songs at the event: 'Abiezer Coppe' and 'The Diggers'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Best known in Britain for her award-winning novel Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels is also an acclaimed poet. Her latest collection, Correspondences, shortlisted for the 2014 Griffin Prize, is an extraordinary and utterly sui generis collaboration with painter Bernice Eisenstein. In a unique, accordion-style format, Michaels’s resonant book-length poem, a historical and personal elegy, unfolds on one side of the book’s pages. On the other, and in unison, Bernice Eisenstein's haunting portraits depict the 20th century writers and thinkers the poem summons: Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs, W.G. Sebald, Anna Akhmatova, Primo Levi and others, each accompanied by quotations that illuminate the deeper connections among them. Anne Michaels joined us for an evening of readings and discussion in conversation with Gareth Evans, publisher of Railtracks, Michaels’s meditative dialogue with John Berger, produced in association with the bookshop in 2011. With thanks to Ledbury Poetry Festival. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Geoff Dyer’s latest book Another Great Day at Sea (Visual Editions), illustrated with the photographs of Chris Steele-Perkins, recounts daily life aboard an American aircraft carrier the USS George H. W. Bush, on which Dyer spent time as a kind of writer in residence. Philip Hoare wrote of it in the Guardian: ‘This is beautiful writing. It is urgent, funny, utterly in-the-moment and achingly honest. … Like the captain, like the crew, like the ship, Dyer's superb book constantly reiterates its excellence. It virtually stands to attention on its own.’ Geoff Dyer came to the Bookshop to speak about the project with Chris Mitchell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leslie Jamison’s essays deal with illness, art, running, loss, the female body and everything else besides. She joined us at the shop to discuss her work with the author Olivia Laing. The conversation touched on artificial sweeteners, the essay as a form and the difficulties of writing about pain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

'The first thing you find out in any textbook about maps is that they don't work. There's no such thing as a good map.'What is a map? And what is a map’s relation to the real world? In Mapping it Out: An Alternative Atlas of Contemporary Cartographies (Thames and Hudson) a stellar cast of modern artists, architects, scientists and theorists, including Yoko Ono, Mona Hatoum, Tim Berners-Lee, Anish Kapoor and Damien Hirst, reimagine, vertiginously, the visual techniques we use for representing space, time and reality. Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator, art critic and the originator of the project, joined us at the Bookshop in conversation with the novelist Tom McCarthy, who provided the introduction to the book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Film-maker, graphic designer, animator, cartoonist, photographer, internet and new media pioneer, installationist, novelist, critic, publisher – the French artist Chris Marker, who died in 2012 on the day of his 91st birthday, was as versatile as he was prolific. He is best known for his film masterpieces Sans Soleil and La Jetée (the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys) but his influence has been felt, perhaps even more keenly since his death, in almost every field of artistic endeavour. In an evening of readings, screenings and discussion, Chris Darke, critic and co-curator of the first retrospective of Chris Marker’s work across all media, was in conversation with the acclaimed cultural commentator and essayist Brian Dillon about Marker’s writing in all forms, from little known novels and short stories through essays and critical pieces to his outstanding film scripts. The evening was hosted by Gareth Evans, Film Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery. The event was presented with thanks to, and in association with, the Whitechapel Gallery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Almost a century after Einstein first proposed it, the full ramifications of the General Theory of Relativity are still being debated. Pedro Ferreira is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and his new book The Perfect Theory brings to life both the science and the scientific controversies which have surrounded the General Theory since its conception. Pedro was at the Bookshop in conversation with Marcus du Sautoy, who wrote of him: ‘You couldn't ask for a better guide to the outer reaches of the universe and the inner workings of the minds of those who've navigated it.’ Their discussion ranged over the origins and implications of the theory - from black holes to time travel - and explored where research into general relativity might take us in the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Siri Hustvedt’s latest novel The Blazing World (Sceptre) artist Harriet Burden, consumed by fury at the lack of recognition she has received from the New York art establishment, embarks on an experiment: she hides her identity behind three male fronts who exhibit her work as their own, to universal acclaim. ‘All intellectual endeavours’ Burden herself remarks pugnaciously at the novel’s opening ‘fare better in the mind of the crowd when the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work … it can locate a cock and a pair of balls.’ Siri Hustvedt was joined in conversation by the art critic Sarah Thornton, author of Seven Days in the Art World. The pair discussed the book's themes of art, gender bias and subterfuge, lighting upon neuroscience, the nature of celebrity and wine-tasting along the way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.