Tweets, memes and the smell of masculine
Samuel Graydon reviews two new albums, by the folk troubadour Sam Lee and indie rock band Cornershop, both of which offer innovative and intelligent musical perspectives on modern England; the TLS’s a...
26 Mars 202053min
Tales of a century
Tim Parks talks us through the lockdown from Milan; A. N. Wilson explains the Prayer Book Controversy of the 1920s, and why it's a bit like Brexit; and Anna Girling looks back on the - failed - poetic...
20 Mars 202051min
Passion projects
Frances Wilson gets implausibly angry about the hypocrisy of Patrick O’Brian; Michèle Roberts makes the case for the forgotten author of the nineteenth century, George Sand; Miranda Seymour turns lite...
12 Mars 202055min
Absolutely worth the hype
Edmund Gordon discusses whether Hilary Mantel's final Cromwell novel lives up to its billing - and whether, at 900-odd pages, it is the right length; Muriel Zagha looks at the female gaze in French ci...
5 Mars 202049min
The Mirror & the Light – an extract from Hilary Mantel's new novel
This week the TLS is running an extract from The Mirror & the Light, the long-awaited third and final volume of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell novels. In 1538 Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, questi...
27 Feb 202025min
West Side Storyless
James Shapiro, the author of Shakespeare in a Divided America, discusses the history of West Side Story, the most popular and successful Shakespeare musical of all time, and Ivo van Hove's flawed Broa...
27 Feb 202049min
Vanilla sex in Pompeii
Rebecca Langlands on lessons learnt in the only known ancient Roman brothel; Caroline Moorehead reviews Elena Ferrante's latest novel; Rory Waterman reads a new poem, "Defences" ("'Crikey!' you say. '...
20 Feb 202046min
Can't go on. Go on.
Is it the best of times or the worst of times to be a satirist? Madeleine Brettingham, a writer on the BBC's News Quiz, joins us to discuss; Toby Lichtig on a new production of Endgame and the constra...
13 Feb 202049min
