by London Review of Books
<p>Close Readings is a new multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to some episodes for free here, and extracts from our ongoing subscriber-only series.</p><br><p><u>How To Subscribe</u></p><p>In Apple Podcasts, click 'subscribe' at the top of this podcast feed to unlock the full episodes.</p><p>Or for other podcast apps, sign up here: <a href="https://lrb.me/closereadings" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/closereadings</a></p><br><p>RUNNING IN 2025:</p><br><p>'Conversations in Philosophy' with Jonathan Rée and James Wood</p><p>'Fiction and the Fantastic' with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis</p><p>'Love and Death' with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford</p><p>'Novel Approaches' with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guests</p><br><p>ALSO INCLUDED IN THE CLOSE READINGS SUBSCRIPTION:</p><br><p>'Among the Ancients' with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones</p><p>'Medieval Beginnings' with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley</p><p>'The Long and Short' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry</p><p>'Modern-ish Poets: Series 1' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry</p><p>'Among the Ancients II' with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones</p><p>'On Satire' with Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell</p><p>'Human Conditions' with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards</p><p>'Political Poems' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry</p><p>'Medieval LOLs' with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley</p><br><p>Get in touch: [email protected]</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
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April 14, 2025
<p>The confessional poets of the mid-20th century considered themselves a ‘doomed’ generation, with a cohesive identity and destiny. Their intertwining personal lives were laid bare in their work, and Robert Lowell, John Berryman and Elizabeth Bishop returned repeatedly to the elegy to commemorate old friends and settle old scores.In this episode, Mark and Seamus turn to elegies for poets by poets, tracing the intricate connections between them. Lowell, Berryman and Bishop’s work was offset by a deep commitment to the literary tradition, and Mark and Seamus identify their shared influences and anxieties.</p><br><p>Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:</p><br><p>Directly in Apple Podcasts: <a href="https://lrb.me/applecrld" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/applecrld</a></p><p>In other podcast apps: <a href="https://lrb.me/closereadingsld" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/closereadingsld</a></p><br><p>Find further reading in the LRB:</p><br><p>Mark Ford: No One Else Can Take a Bath for You</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n07/mark-ford/no-one-else-can-take-a-bath-for-you" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n07/mark-ford/no-one-else-can-take-a-bath-for-you</a></p><br><p>Karl Miller: Some Names for Robert Lowell</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n09/karl-miller/some-names-for-robert-lowell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n09/karl-miller/some-names-for-robert-lowell</a></p><br><p>Nicholas Everett: Two Americas and a Scotland</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n18/nicholas-everett/two-americas-and-a-scotland" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n18/nicholas-everett/two-americas-and-a-scotland</a></p><br><p>Helen Vendler: The Numinous Moose</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n05/helen-vendler/the-numinous-moose" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n05/helen-vendler/the-numinous-moose</a></p><br><p>Get the books: <a href="https://lrb.me/crbooklist" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/crbooklist</a></p><br><p>Next episode: Self-elegies by Hardy, Larkin and Plath.</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
April 7, 2025
<p>Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are strange books, a testament to their author’s defiant unconventionality. Through them, Lewis Carroll transformed popular culture, our everyday idioms and our ideas of childhood and the fantastic, and they remain enormously popular.</p><br><p>Anna Della Subin joins Marina Warner to explore the many puzzles of the Alice books. They discuss the way Carroll illuminates other questions raised in this series: of dream states, the nature of consciousness, the transformative power of language and the arbitrariness of authority.</p><br><p>Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:</p><br><p>Directly in Apple Podcasts: <a href="https://lrb.me/applecrff" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/applecrff</a></p><p>In other podcast apps: <a href="https://lrb.me/closereadingsff" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/closereadingsff</a></p><br><p><strong>Further reading in the LRB:</strong></p><br><p>Marina Warner: You Must Not Ask</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v18/n01/marina-warner/you-must-not-ask" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v18/n01/marina-warner/you-must-not-ask</a></p><br><p>Dinah Birch: Never Seen A Violet</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n17/dinah-birch/never-seen-a-violet" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n17/dinah-birch/never-seen-a-violet</a></p><br><p>Marina Warner: Doubly Damned</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n03/marina-warner/doubly-damned" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n03/marina-warner/doubly-damned</a></p><br><p>Get the books: <a href="https://lrb.me/crbooklist" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/crbooklist</a></p><br><p><strong>Next episode:</strong> The stories of Franz Kafka, with Adam Thirlwell.</p><br><p>Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.</p><br><p>Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014.</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
March 31, 2025
<p>Mill’s 'Autobiography' was considered too shocking to publish while he was alive. Behind his musings on many of the philosophical and political preoccupations of his time lie the confessions of a deeply repressed man who knows that he’s deeply repressed, coming to terms with the uncompromising educational experiment his father subjected him to as a child – described by Isaiah Berlin as ‘an appalling success’. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss Mill’s startlingly honest account of this experience and the breakdown that ensued in his 20s, and the boldness of his life and thought from his views on socialism and the rights of women to his unwavering devotion to his wife, Harriet Taylor, the co-author of 'On Liberty' and other works.</p><br><p>Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:</p><br><p>Directly in Apple Podcasts: <a href="https://lrb.me/applecrcip" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/applecrcip</a></p><p>In other podcast apps: <a href="https://lrb.me/closereadingscip" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://lrb.me/closereadingscip</a></p><br><p>Further reading in the LRB:</p><br><p>Sissela Bok on Mill's 'Autobiography':</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n06/sissela-bok/his-father-s-children" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n06/sissela-bok/his-father-s-children</a></p><br><p>Alasdair MacIntyre: Mill's Forgotten Victory</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n20/alasdair-macintyre/john-stuart-mill-s-forgotten-victory" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n20/alasdair-macintyre/john-stuart-mill-s-forgotten-victory</a></p><br><p>Panbkaj Mishra: Bland Fanatics</p><p><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n23/pankaj-mishra/bland-fanatics" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n23/pankaj-mishra/bland-fanatics</a></p><br><p>Next Episode</p><br><p>F.H. Bradley's 'My Station and Its Duties' can be found online here:</p><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/ethicalstudies0000brad/page/160/mode/2up" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/ethicalstudies0000brad/page/160/mode/2up</a></p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
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