The TLS Podcast

Phil Baker guides us through the morbid, wistful and yet immensely charming world of the writer and illustrator Edward Gorey; Frances Wilson weighs the pleasures and pains of letter and email writing; Ian Sansom on the struggle to be funnyBooksBorn To Be Posthumous: The eccentric life and mysterious genius of Edward Gorey, by Mark DeryWhat a Hazard a Letter Is: The strange destiny of the unsent letter, by Caroline AtkinsWritten In History: Letters that changed the world, by Simon Sebag MontefioreIn Their Own Words: Volume 2: More letters from historyWit's End: What wit is, how it works, and why we need it, by James GearyMessing About In Quotes: A little Oxford dictionary of humorous quotations, compiled by Gyles Brandreth Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Coward celebrates the 400th anniversary of the birth of Cyrano de Bergerac, whose radical thought has long been obscured by his protuberant nose; Muriel Zagha on Molière, France’s most famous playwright, and a bold new adaptation of Tartuffe; finally, a poem by Stephen Knight: “Rail Replacement Bus Service” (sigh) Molière’s ‘Tartuffe’, a new version by John Donnelly, at the National Theatre, London Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With Stig Abell and Lucy DallasToby Lichtig comes in to talk the wide scope of Jewish culture, the “lachrymose” theory of history and why it is Arthur Miller time once more. Roz Dineen deals with porn, pile-ons and goop podcasts. And we call Thea when she is “working from home” to check in on her new dog. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The writer and comedian Charlie Higson, half of the team behind The Fast Show, on the curious history of comedy written and performed by pairs; the novelist Margaret Drabble considers the dizzying new releases from the estate of Anthony Burgess, the man Philip Larkin once called “the Batman of contemporary letters”  TextsStan & Ollie, directed by Jon S. Baird Morecambe & Wise: 50 years of sunshine, by Gary MorecambeThe Double Act: A history of British comedy duos, by Andrew RobertsSoupy Twists!: The full, official story of the sophisticated silliness of Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie, by Jem RobertsBeard’s Roman Women by Anthony Burgess, edited by Graham FosterPuma by Anthony Burgess, edited by Paul WakeThe Black Prince by Adam RobertsObscenity and the Arts, a talk by Anthony Burgess, edited by Johnny Walsh Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A conversation between the novelist and essayist Zadie Smith and the journalist Carolina, recorded at Hay Festival Cartagena in Colombia earlier this month. The full Hay Festival archive can be accessed by subscribing to Hay Player online at hayfestival.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A recording of the inaugural Gabriel García Marquez lecture given this February by the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, at Hay Festival Cartagena in Colombia. The full Hay Festival archive can be accessed by subscribing to Hay Player online at hayfestival.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the MeToo movement continues to focus our attentions on questions around abuse, consent and justice, Rebecca Watson joins us to discuss the various and prolonged impacts of sexual assault, and the warping effect of trauma on narrative; the TLS’s French editor Adrian Tahourdin considers the inexorable rise of “le globish” (by which English words supplant, or pervert, French ones), and presents the diverse and challenging books in contention for this year’s Society of Author’s Translation Prizes BooksNot That Bad: Dispatches from rape culture, edited by Roxane GayA False Report: A true story by T. Christian Miller and Ken ArmstrongOn Rape by Germaine Greer The President’s Gardens by Muhsin al-Ramli, translated by Luke Leafgren Seeing Red by Lina Meruane, translated by Megan McDowellKruso by Lutz Seiler, translated by Tess Lewis  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eighteen months after Emmanuel Macron rode a wave of optimism to the Élysée Palace, the French are rioting and the President's approval ratings are desperately low – Sudhir Hazareesingh tells us what went wrong; James O'Brien reflects on another week of Brexit bafflement; Laura Freeman introduces the "Hungry Novel", a sub-genre of the post-war British novel in which writers, subsisting on meagre rations of stodge and tinned goods, channelled their appetites into their prose Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Read by Lisa Dwan. Full text available at the-tls.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Catherine Taylor on bookish goings on in the north of England, from her family’s bookshop in Sheffield to the Northern Fiction Alliance of small presses; Diarmaid Ferriter considers the fraught matter of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland; Fríða Ísberg on the spectre of war in Icelandic film and fiction BooksThe Border: The legacy of a century of Anglo-Irish politics by Diarmaid FerriterHotel Silence (Ör) by Auður Ava ÓlafsdóttirWoman at War, directed by Benedikt ErlingssonSection 6 of “American Standard”, a new poem by Paul Muldoon published in this week’s TLS; read by Lisa Dwan (full recording available as a separate podcast episode) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.