London Review Bookshop Podcast

‘There are very few writers with as clear and thrilling a love for the stuff of language as Eley Williams’, writes Jon McGregor. Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good revels in the same inventiveness and experimentation that made her debut collection of short stories, Attrib. and Other Stories, so beloved; courtroom artists, childhood crushes, scholarly annotators and editors of canned laughter take their place in a joyful panoply exploring the nature of relationships both intimate and transient. Williams was in conversation with So Mayer, author of Truth & Dare (Cipher Press).

Published to coincide with the poet’s 85th birthday, Ash Keys (Jonathan Cape) presents a new selection of Longley’s finest works. Born in Belfast in 1939, his verse inhabits the landscapes Ireland’s west, at the same time occupying a space within a distinctly European tradition, ranging freely across the continent's histories, tragedies and triumphs. ’One of the most perfect poets alive,’ writes Sebastian Barry. ‘There is something in his work both ancient and modern. I read him as I might check the sky for stars.’Michael Longley was joined for this reading and discussion by fellow poet Declan Ryan, whose most recent collection Crisis Actor is published by Faber.Get the book: https://lrb.me/ashkeyspodFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.m/eventspod

Strange Relations (Sceptre) explores the crisis in mid-century masculinity through the lives and works of four bisexual writers who fought to express and embody alternate possibilities. The nonfiction debut of Forward Prize-shortlisted poet Ralf Webb, it considers the ways in which Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, John Cheever and James Baldwin, resisted damaging contemporary expectations around gender and sexuality. Will Tosh has described it as ‘wise, humane, hopeful and exquisitely written’. Webb was in conversation with Philippa Snow, author of Which As You Know Means Violence: On Self-Injury as Art and Entertainment (Repeater) and, most recently, Trophy Lives: On the Celebrity as an Art Object (MACK).

Juliet Jacques is one of the most electrifying short fiction writers working in the UK today; The Woman in the Portrait (Cipher) collects her published and unpublished fiction, work which Agata Pyzik has described as a ‘large canvas on which the pattern for a utopian socialist queer life might be inscribed’.Jacques was joined in conversation by the writer and art critic Orit Gat.Get the book: https://lrb.me/jacquesportaitpodFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod

Aimé Césaire’s masterpiece of exile and homecoming, Return to my Native Land – beautifully translated by John Berger – is now a Penguin Classic. To celebrate, Jason Allen-Paisant (who has written the introduction for the new edition) and Colin Grant discuss the poem. Allen-Paisant’s most recent poetry collection, Self-Portrait as Othello (Carcanet), won both the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection; Colin Grant is director of WritersMosaic, a division of the Royal Literary Fund, his most recent book is a memoir, I’m Black So You Don’t Have to Be (Jonathan Cape).

Poets Ella Frears and Will Burns were at the shop to read from and talk about their new collections. Ella’s Goodlord, from Rough Trade Books, takes the form of a long, lyrical email to an estate agent, interrogating our obsession with ‘property’ with Frears’ characteristic humour and sharpness, while Will’s Natural Burial Ground (Corsair) is the second collection from a writer Max Porter has described as ‘a soulful English poet of the kind we don’t make enough of’.

In her latest semi-autobiographical novel Playboy (Tuskar Rock, translated by Holly James), leading French writer Constance Debré describes how a woman, at the age of 43, abandons her apartment, her marriage and her successful legal career to lead a new life as an out lesbian and a writer. In a series of short, sharp vignettes the narrator describes a series of meetings with lovers, with her father and with her son and ex-husband, exploding heteronormative assumptions about what it means to be queer in a straight world. Debré was joined in conversation about her work by writer and critic Alice Blackhurst.Get Playboy: https://lrb.me/debrepodFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod

Throughout its history feminism has had a troubled relationship with policing, torn between seeking its protection and attacking its ingrained sexist bias. In Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? (Verso) Leah Cowan cuts a trenchant path through the debate, reminding us of the vibrant and creative alternatives envisioned by those who have long known the truth: the police aren't feminist, and the law does not keep women safe. She discusses the issue with feminist writer and scholar Lola Olufemi.