Close Readings

London Review of Books

Episodes

Mentioned books

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Mar 23, 2026 • 24min

London Revisited: The Medieval Capital

Matthew Davies, professor of medieval urban history at Birkbeck, sketches London’s rise from post‑Roman ruins to a bustling medieval capital. He explores early Christian foundations, the rediscovery of Lundenwic and river trade, Viking impacts, Alfred’s refortification and the shifting royal and civic roles that shaped the city’s growth.
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8 snips
Mar 16, 2026 • 16min

Narrative Poems: ‘Paradise Lost’ (Book 9) by John Milton

A deep dive into Milton’s blend of genres as he stages the fall of Adam and Eve. They trace shifts from pastoral to Shakespearean tragedy and explore Satan’s ambiguous, seductive rhetoric. The conversation highlights Milton’s reinvention of epic heroism, his playful use of motifs like taste, and the poem’s lasting influence on Romantic and Gothic imagery.
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Mar 9, 2026 • 15min

Nature in Crisis: ‘Blue Machine’ by Helen Czerski

A lively conversation about a book that reimagines the ocean as a vast planetary engine converting light and heat into motion. They trace energy flows, currents and layered seas that sustain life. Historical stories and scientific reportage bring marine physics and biology to life. They also debate whether fresh ways of seeing the ocean can shift public policy.
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11 snips
Mar 2, 2026 • 20min

Who’s afraid of realism? ‘Notes from Underground’ by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Adam Thirlwell, novelist and critic known for sharp fiction and witty criticism, joins to unpack Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. They trace the novella’s radical form and psychological intensity. Conversation covers Dostoevsky’s anti-realist tactics, his life-shaping mock execution and Siberian exile, and his fraught encounters with Hegel and the Crystal Palace.
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Feb 23, 2026 • 19min

London Revisited: Mosaics, Archers and a Walled Garden

Dominic Perring, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at UCL and author of London in the Roman World, guides a tour of Roman London’s rise and slow decline. He explores a catastrophic Hadrianic fire and lavish post-fire townhouses. He discusses trade links with Gaul and the Rhine, a mysterious bronze archer from Cheapside, and why the London Wall transformed the city into a walled garden.
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Feb 16, 2026 • 19min

Narrative Poems: 'Venus and Adonis' and 'The Rape of Lucrece' by William Shakespeare

A deep dive into how Shakespeare rewrites Ovid with surprising twists. They explore the comic mismatch of a lustful goddess and an unwilling youth. The conversation traces Shakespeare’s early virtuosity, his courtly style, and unsettling shifts into grief and premeditated evil. Close readings compare poetic technique, narrative choices, and how tone moves from playfulness to chilling darkness.
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6 snips
Feb 9, 2026 • 16min

Nature in Crisis: ‘The Light Eaters’ by Zoë Schlanger

Scientists report plants that sense, signal and respond in unexpected ways. The conversation highlights research suggesting complex plant behaviour and rapid movements. The book’s popular-science storytelling and the author’s turn from climate dread to botanical wonder are explored. Historical origins of photosynthesis and surprising plant abilities get attention.
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8 snips
Feb 2, 2026 • 10min

Who’s afraid of realism? ‘Madame Bovary’ by Gustave Flaubert (part two)

A close look at pivotal scenes leading to Emma Bovary’s downfall and the satirical machinery that drives them. Analysis of seduction, manipulative rhetoric, and shifting romantic partners. Exploration of repetitive rendezvous, mounting debts, and the grotesque interplay of science and faith at death. Final ironies show provincial life continuing unchanged.
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Jan 26, 2026 • 23min

London Revisited: Roman Beginnings

Dominic Perring, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at UCL and author, offers specialist analysis of early Roman London. He discusses the founding date and Roman military origins. He explores London Bridge as the city’s organizing feature. He highlights archaeological methods like dendrochronology and the Bloomberg writing tablets that reveal everyday life.
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Jan 19, 2026 • 17min

Narrative Poems: 'Hero and Leander' by Christopher Marlowe

'Hero and Leander' was published in 1598, and anyone who came across it in a stationer’s shop in Elizabethan London would have known that its author was dead, killed in a brawl in Deptford in 1593. Christopher Marlowe’s sensational life as playwright and spy is matched by the wit, sophistication and eroticism of his eccentric retelling of Ovid’s myth, based on a sixth-century version by Musaeus. Seamus and Mark begin their new series by looking at the playful but often troubling treatment of desire in a poem that contains one of the most explicit depictions of sex in English poetry. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applesignupnp Other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/scsignupnp Further reading in the LRB: Michael Dobson on the life of Marlowe https://lrb.me/np1marlowe1 Hilary Mantel on the murder of Marlowe: https://lrb.me/np1marlowe2 Charles Nicholl on Faustus: https://lrb.me/np1marlowe3

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