The TLS Podcast

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Lucy Hughes-Hallett to discuss two books about Mussolini’s Italy, and train buff extraordinaire Andrew Martin gets on board with a history of British Rail.‘Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism’ by John Foot’Mussolini Also Did a Lot of Good: The Spread of Historical Amnesia’ by Francesco Filippi‘British Rail: A New History’ by Christian WolmarProduced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Tom Seymour Evans to head for the beaches of Fire Island, and the TLS’s French editor Russell Williams surveys the country’s philosophical and political landscape, past and present.‘Fire Island: Love, loss and liberation in an American paradise’ by Jack Parlett’The French Mind: 400 years of romance, revolution and renewal’ by Peter Watson‘France: An adventure history’ by Graham RobbProduced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by TLS classics editor Mary Beard to find out what the Romans brought back from their holidays, and novelist Edward Docx is roused to righteous fury over the parlous state of the House of Commons.‘Destinations in Mind: Portraying Places on the Roman empire’s souvenirs’ by Kimberly Cassibry’Souvenirs and the Experience of Empire in Ancient Rome’ by Maggie L. Popkin‘Held in Contempt: What’s wrong with the House of Commons?’ by Hannah White Produced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lucy Dallas is joined by Kathryn Sutherland to tuck into the three o'clock dinners of Joseph Johnson, publisher and friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, Joseph Priestley, Henry Fuseli, Williams Blake and Wordsworth, and many more great minds of that era. And Boyd Tonkin explains that Napoleon's conqueror, the "Iron Duke" of Wellington, had a great and unexpected gift for friendship - with women.'Dinner with Joseph Johnson' by Daisy Hay'Wellington, women and friendship' at Apsley House, London, until October 30Produced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Joe Moran to explore the strange world of precognition, and Elizabeth Lowry is bowled over by the iconoclastic work of South African multimedia artist William Kentridge. Plus great news for Terry Pratchett fans, as an all-star cast records his much-loved Discworld series.'The Premonitions Bureau’ by Sam Knight‘SYBIL’ by William KentridgeProduced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Carol Tavris to discuss two wide-ranging works of biology that cast fascinating light on our understanding of sexual behaviour and gender identity throughout the animal and human world. And James Waddell explores a “bibliobiography” by a Shakespeare scholar that digs deep into centuries of books and their readers - from “shelfies” to book burning to the historical precedent for Jilly Cooper’s Riders.'Different: Gender through the eyes of a primatologist’ by Frans de Waal‘Bitch: A revolutionary guide to sex, evolution and the female animal’ by Lucy Cooke‘Portable Magic: A history of books and their readers’ by Emma SmithProduced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Nat Segnit to discuss the long reach of the gambling industry and the music of chance, and Kevin Brazil brings to life a dystopian novel from 1977.‘Jackpot: How Gambling Conquered Britain’ by Rob Davies‘Might Bite: The Secret Life of a Gambling Addict’ by Patrick Foster, with Will Macpherson‘Big Snake Little Snake: An Inquiry into Risk’ by DBC Pierre’They’ by Kay DickProduced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Dinah Birch to discuss Elizabeth Finch, the new novel by Julian Barnes, and find themselves in a world of charismatic teachers and forgotten Roman emperors. Also, the sports historian David Goldblatt explores a global survey of sport through the ages from the ancient Chinese game of cuju to the glories of Bristol Rovers.‘Elizabeth Finch’ by Julian Barnes‘Games People Played: A Global History of Sport’ by Wray VamplewProduced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lucy Dallas and Alex Clark are joined by Emma Clery, specialist in 18th and 19th-century literature and author of Jane Austen: The Banker’s Sister, to discuss what Austen’s juvenilia and unpublished works tell us about the writer - will we find, as some critics have suggested, a far less restrained and irreverent novelist than we might expect? And Catherine Taylor, who is writing a memoir of her Sheffield upbringing, explores two accounts of growing up in the north of England.‘Jane Austen, Early and Late’ by Freya Johnston‘Lady Susan, Sanditon and The Watsons: Unfinished Fictions and Other Writings by Jane Austen' edited by Kathryn Sutherland‘My Own Worst Enemy: Scenes of a Childhood’ by Robert Edric‘No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader’ by Mark HodkinsonProduced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Cal Flyn, the author of 'Islands of Abandonment: Life in the post-human landscape’, to venture into the 'extreme north' – part place, part concept – where sparsely populated landscapes have long offered a blank canvas on which to project hopes, dreams and neuroses; the critic En Liang Khong considers Ai Weiwei’s artistic rebellion against the Chinese state, situating its roots in the artist's early years and relationship with his father'Extreme North: A cultural history' by Bernd Brunner, translated by Jefferson Chase‘1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: The story of two lives, one nation, and a century of art under tyranny’ by Ai WeiWeiProduced by Sophia Franklin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.