London Review Bookshop Podcast

Within the British music scene, recent years have borne witness to underground genres emerging from the inner cities, going on to become some of the most popular music in the nation. In Where We Come From, journalist Aniefiok Ekpoudom travels the country to explore the dawn, boom and subsequent blossoming of UK rap and grime. Taking us from the heart of south London to the West Midlands and South Wales, he explores how a history of migration and an enduring spirit of resistance have shaped the current realities of these linked communities and the music they produce. These sounds have become vessels for the marginalised, carrying Black and working-class stories into the light. Ekpoudom was joined in conversation with Gary Younge, journalist and author of Dispatches from the Diaspora.Buy the book: https://lrb.me/ekpoudompodFind more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod

Laleh Khalili’s new book The Corporeal Life of Seafaring (Mack) draws on her own experiences to describe with care and imagination the material and physical realities of contemporary commerce at sea, detailing (in the words of Steve Edwards) ‘the labouring bodies – hands, legs, and eyes; flesh and soul; suffering and solidarity – that make the world go round. In the process, the connections and divisions of the world economy come into view.’ Khalili was in conversation with LRB contributing editor James Butler, the co-founder of Novara Media.

Fleur Adcock’s sly, laconic poems have been delighting audiences since her 1964 debut The Eye of the Hurricane. Her Collected Poems draws together the work of sixty years; as Fiona Sampson writes, ‘Informality and immediacy are good ways to remake a world; and Adcock’s style has not dated in the half-century since her debut.’ Adcock was joined in conversation at the Bookshop with her publisher, Neil Astley, and read from her Collected Poems.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodBuy Fleur Adcock’s Collected Poems: lrb.me/adcockpod

Holly Pester discusses her debut novel, The Lodgers, with Nathalie Olah.

‘Here is a wasteland / of parched aesthetics / patched up with modern tubes’ – Rachael Allen’s long-awaited second collection, God Complex, is a long narrative poem describing the breakdown of a relationship against a backdrop of environmental degradation and toxicity. In this episode, she reads from the collection and was joined in conversation with the poet Lucy Mercer, whose first collection is Emblem (Prototype, 2022).Buy God Complex: lrb.me/godcomplexpodFind more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod

Lara Pawson discusses her new book Spent Light with Jennifer Hodgson.Find out more about London Review Bookshop events: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/

Paul Muldoon reads from and talks about his collection Howdie-Skelp.Find out more about London Review Bookshop events: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/events

‘Our history of giving up – that is to say, our attitude towards it, our obsession with it, our disavowal of its significance – may be a clue to something we should really call our histories and not our selves’, wrote Adam Phillips in a 2022 LRB piece, ‘On Giving Up’. Now developed and expanded into a book of the same title, Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up, and helps us to address the central question: what must we give up in order to feel more alive? Phillips was joined in conversation by Dame Hermione Lee.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodBuy On Giving Up: lrb.me/givinguppod

Lavinia Greenlaw’s new book The Vast Extent is a collection of ‘exploded essays’, about light and image, sight and the unseen, covering wide territories with the scientific precision and ease of access which characterises her poetry. She was joined by Jennifer Higgie, author of The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodGet The Vast Extent: lrb.me/thevastextentpod