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London Review Bookshop Podcast
Preti Taneja & Lola Olufemi: Aftermath
On 29 November 2019 Usman Khan murdered Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt at Fishmongers’ Hall in London. Recently released from prison after serving a sentence for terrorism-related offences, Khan was attending an event to mark the anniversary of a writing course he had attended while in prison. Novelist Preti Taneja had been one of his tutors.
In Aftermath (And Other Stories), described by Nikesh Shukla as ‘a masterclass work of literary brilliance’, Taneja has created from the horrific events of that day a searing lament, interrogating the language of terror, trauma and grief, a powerful indictment of the prison system and an equally powerful plea for its abolition. She was in conversation with Lola Olufemi, author of Feminism, Interrupted and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise.
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Laleh Khalili & James Butler: The Corporeal Life of Seafaring
59:21Laleh 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: Collected Poems
44:07Fleur 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/adcockpodHolly Pester & Nathalie Olah: The Lodgers
01:04:55Holly Pester discusses her debut novel, The Lodgers, with Nathalie Olah.Rachael Allen & Lucy Mercer: God Complex
51:51‘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/eventspodLara Pawson & Jennifer Hodgson: Spent Light
52:48Lara Pawson discusses her new book Spent Light with Jennifer Hodgson.Find out more about London Review Bookshop events: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/Paul Muldoon: Howdie-Skelp
01:07:13Paul Muldoon reads from and talks about his collection Howdie-Skelp.Find out more about London Review Bookshop events: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/eventsAdam Phillips & Hermione Lee: On Giving Up
52:06‘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/givinguppodLavinia Greenlaw & Jennifer Higgie: The Vast Extent
54:48Lavinia 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/thevastextentpodSeán Hewitt & Sarah Perry: Rapture’s Road
52:46Seán Hewitt’s new poetry collection Rapture’s Road follows hard on the heels of Tongues of Fire – the winner of the 2021 Laurel Prize – and the bestselling memoir All Down Darkness Wide. Like its predecessors, the collection confronts dark and difficult subject matter in startlingly beautiful lyric language, ‘exquisitely calm’ in the words of Max Porter. Hewitt read from the collection and was in conversation with Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth, whose long-awaited new novel Enlightenment is coming out in May.