London Review Bookshop Podcast

Since their last appearance at the LRB Bookshop, the poets of New Poetries V have been busy: five debut collections (and one forthcoming), prestigious awards, general excitement. Reunited at last, Tara Bergin, OIi Hazzard, Helen Tookey, Rory Waterman, Julith Jedamus and Lucy Tunstall read from their new volumes, in an evening that marked out the territory for the next generation of British poetry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adam Foulds’s latest novel, In The Wolf’s Mouth (Jonathan Cape), expands on the themes of violence, conflict and the distortions of history that have characterised his work since 2007’s The Broken Word. Set in Sicily as the Second World War moves into its endgame, the novel is a vivid study of the moral compromises and historical elisions forced on us by war and its aftermath. Adam was in conversation with Andrew Motion, the former poet laureate, whose most recent book is Silver: Return to Treasure Island (Vintage). Daniel Marc Janes reviewed this event for Litro Magazine: 'Though Foulds treats questions of humans’ capacity for violence[...] it would be wrong, Motion suggests, to overlook the quiet optimism of works such as The Broken Word and In the Wolf’s Mouth. These works are concerned not just with violence but with reconstruction.' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s memoir A Sense of Direction is an account of three pilgrimages – the Camino de Santiago, a tour of Buddhist temples on the island of Shikoku, and a journey to the tomb of a Hasidic Rabbi in the Ukraine – undertaken in the wake of a family crisis. Gideon was at the shop to talk about pilgrimage, writing and reconciliation with Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? and Christian Lorentzen, senior editor at the London Review of Books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author Derek Jarman died on 19 February 1994. To mark the 20th anniversary of his death, we hosted an evening of readings and discussion. Our focus was a very little-known but crucial part of Jarman’s work, his poetry, and in particular the volume 'A Finger in the Fishes Mouth', unavailable for over 40 years and now reprinted in facsimile by the estimable Test Centre. Derek's partner Keith Collins and his biographer Tony Peake were joined by Ali Smith and Sophie Mayer to consider the poetic in Derek's oeuvre and to read from the collection. In the spirit of collaboration for which Derek was renowned, the reading was also offered to the audience, so that the whole collection was heard on this most poignant of anniversaries. The evening was hosted by Gareth Evans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Philip Hoare and Jessica Sarah Rinland discuss whales at the London Review Bookshop. They touch on historical human-whale relationships, encounters with sperm whales, and the captivating tale of a captured whale. The podcast explores the multifaceted aspects of whale culture, industry, history, and conservation, revealing the complexities of Ahab's connection with the whale in Moby Dick.

'The past is a mosaic; we make it out of present materials.'Jonathan Lethem’s latest book Dissident Gardens (Cape) tells, in a ‘torrent of potent voices, searing ironies, popculture allusions, and tragicomic complexities’ the story of three generations of a radical New York family, at the same time painting a vivid portrait of the American Century. Jonathan Lethem was in conversation with Benjamin Markovits, author of A Quiet Adjustment and named by Granta as one of their Best Young British Novelists of 2013. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Self was at the shop to discuss the work of Guy Debord, and in particular The Society of the Spectacle, a 1967 work which offered an eerily accurate prediction of our mediated, image-saturated times. Self's introduction to the new Notting Hill edition beathes fresh life into the original 1970 translation. He writes: 'Never before has Debord’s work seemed quite as relevant as it does now, in the permanent present that he so accurately foretold. Open it, read it, be amazed ...’ Self was joined in discussion by film-maker Patrick Keiller, whose recent book The View from the Train explores the cities and landscapes of modern Britain. The event was chaired by Matthew Beaumont, Senior Lecturer at UCL and editor of Restless Cities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a year that might well see the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom, one of our foremost historians of national identity provides an analysis of the various Acts of Union that have until now more or less held the country together. In her latest book Acts of Union, Acts of Disunion (Profile), published to coincide with a 15-part Radio 4 series, she draws on art, architecture and literature as well as political history to ask what Britishness has meant in the past, what it means now, and what it might mean in the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his second collaboration with landscape photographer Jason Orton, Ken Worpole – ‘for many years one of the shrewdest and sharpest observers of the English social landscape’ ('The Independent') – examines the shifting perspective of England’s landscape aesthetic in the latter half of the 20th century, away from the rural interior towards the more disrupted landscapes of East Anglia and the Thames estuary. Listen to Ken Worpole in conversation about 'The New English Landscape' (Field Station) and its implications for landscape architecture, topography and psychogeography with author Rachel Lichtenstein and chaired by Gareth Evans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In American Smoke (Hamish Hamilton), the third part of a loose trilogy of topographical ruminations that began with Hackney: That Rose-red Empire and Ghost Milk, Iain Sinclair follows the traces of the writers of the American Beat generation – Kerouac, Burroughs, Charles Olson, Gary Snyder, Malcolm Lowry and more – in a journey that takes in the Old West, Mexico, volcanoes, murder, and a good deal else besides. He was at the shop to talk about the book with writer, editor and curator Gareth Evans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.