Campaigning journalist Claud Cockburn – defiantly anti-establishment and proudly Communist – had as his watchword ‘believe nothing until it is officially denied’, a saying borrowed by his son Patrick, himself a legendary foreign correspondent, for his biography of his maverick father. Described by schoolfriend Graham Greene as the greatest journalist of the twentieth century, Cockburn was born at the heart of the establishment it became his life’s work to satirise, lampoon and undermine, with reports from Berlin during the rise of Fascism and Spain during the Civil War, as well as New York, Washington and Chicago, where he once conducted an interview with Al Capone. Patrick Cockburn spoke at the shop about Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied (Verso), and its lessons for journalism then, now and in the future, with journalist Duncan Campbell. Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Listen to Neal Ascherson discuss Claud Cockburn: https://lrb.me/aschersonpod Get the book: https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/believe-nothing-until-it-is-officially-denied-claud-cockburn-and-the-invention-of-guerrilla-journalism-patrick-cockburn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Building on his seminal lecture ‘The Shoah After Gaza’ (LRB 21 March 2024) and his earlier books From the Ruins of Empire and The Age of Anger, novelist and essayist Pankaj Mishra’s latest work The World After Gaza (Fern Press) seeks to place the current crisis in Gaza and Palestine within the broader context of the troubled and tragic history of colonialism and anticolonialism. ‘A brilliant book,’ writes William Dalrymple, ‘as thoughtful, scholarly and subtle as it is brave and original. The World After Gaza does what great writing is meant to do: to remind us of what it is to be human, to help us feel another's pain, to reach out and make connections across the trenches of race, colour and religion.’ Mishra is in conversation with curator and producer Gareth Evans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Isabelle Baafi, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award for her pamphlet Ripe, constructs her debut collection Chaotic Good (Faber) around the story of an escape from a toxic marriage. ‘Chaotic Good is a debut of amazing endurance,’ writes poet Will Harris. ‘Its formal pressures create a kind of kaleidoscopic intensity that – with each turn of the chamber – brings newly beautiful and painful shapes into focus.’ Isabelle Baafi read from her work in the company of Lavinia Greenlaw, whose most recent book is the essay collection The Vast Extent. Find more events a the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novelist, essayist and playwright Deborah Levy read from and spoke about her novel August Blue, a mesmerising story of how identities, coalesce, collide and collapse. She was joined in conversation about August Blue with the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz, author of The Examined Life. Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Buy a copy of August Blue: lrb.me/augustbluepod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marriage has been an institution for centuries but why this highly contested and ancient practice has remained relevant to so many is by no means certain. What are we really talking about when we talk about marriage? And what are we really doing when we say, 'I do'? In On Marriage (Hamish Hamilton), Devorah Baum draws on philosophy, film, fiction, comedy, psychoanalysis, music and poetry, to consider the marriage plot. Baum was in conversation with Hisham Matar. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When novelist and cultural critic Lynne Tillman’s mother became ill with the rare condition of normal pressure hydrocephalus she became entirely dependent on Lynne, her sisters and other caregivers, reversing the normal roles of parent and child. In Mothercare, Tillman describes, without flinching, the unexpected, heartbreaking, and anxious eleven years of caring for a sick parent. Tillman was joined by Michael Bracewell, author of Unfinished Business. Find more events at the Bookshop website: lrb.me/eventspod Buy a copy of Mothercare: lrb.me/mothercare Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claudia Rankine’s Plot, an early work published for the first time in the UK this month, is a meditation on pregnancy and the changes it heralds: the potential bodily cost, the loss of self, the sense of impending stasis. It is a genre-defying text, a collection of fragments, dreams and conversations with all of the hallmarks of Rankine’s subsequent work, Citizen, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely and Just Us.  Rankine will be in discussion with Nicola Rollock, author of The Racial Code. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Using Joni Mitchell's seminal album Blue - which shaped Amy Key's expectations of love - as an anchor, Arrangements in Blue elegantly honours a life lived completely by, and for, oneself. Joined by Megan Nolan, the author of Acts of Desperation, Key discussed the many forms of connection and care that often go unnoticed. Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Read Arrangements in Blue: lrb.me/amykeyblue Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A landmark work of oral history written in the spirit of Nell Dunn, Porn: An Oral History (Fitzcarraldo Editions) is a thrilling, thought-provoking, revelatory, revealing, joyfully informative and informal exploration of a subject that has always retained an element of the taboo. ‘Polly Barton is a brilliant, learned and daring writer,’ writes Joanna Kavenna, author of ZED. She was in conversation, brilliantly, learnedly and daringly, with Amelia Abraham, author of Queer Intentions (Picador). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Revolutionary Spring (Allen Lane), a series of brilliant set-pieces, pre-eminent European historian Christopher Clark brings back to our attention the extraordinary events of the Spring of 1848. From Paris to Vienna to Budapest to Berlin to Rome to Palermo, a whole continent was embroiled in struggle, hope, revolutionary fervour and ultimately reaction. Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge, Sir Christopher will be in conversation with Katja Hoyer, a visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and author of Blood and Iron and Beyond the Wall. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York in the late 1960s: Mae escapes a run-down an apartment, an alcoholic mother and her mother’s occasional boyfriend to a new life as a typist for Andy Warhol, transcribing conversations with his friends and associates to provide the material for an unconventional novel. A mordantly funny investigation of celebrity, obsession, womanhood and sexuality, Nothing Special (Bloomsbury) is itself an unconventional debut novel, following on from Flattery’s acclaimed short story collection Show Them a Good Time. Nicole Flattery discusses her novel with Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Pond and Checkout 19. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brenda Shaughnessy’s Liquid Flesh (Bloodaxe) gathers together poems from across her first five collections, as thrilling and unpredictable as any contemporary American poet. Writing about her work in the Boston Review, Richard Howard says that ‘when anything is as fresh as this diction, as free as these associations, as fraught as these passions, it is not descriptions or definitions which are wanted but the thing itself, the new words in new places, the necessary instigations’. Brenda Shaughnessy was in conversation with Amy Key, whose second collection, Isn’t Forever, came out with Bloodaxe in 2018, and whose new book inspired by Joni Mitchell's Blue, is forthcoming in spring 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Ruth Padel’s latest pamphlet, Watershed, the poet reflects on the natural world, on water, and on the psychology of denialism, particularly where it concerns the climate crisis. Padel was joined in reading and conversation by Sean Borodale, whose latest pamphlet is Re-Dreaming Sylvia Plath as a Queen Bee. Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Buy a signed copy of Watershed: lrb.me/watershedbook Or a copy of Re-Dreaming Sylvia Plath...: lrb.me/plathbeebook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Poor Artists (Particular Books) Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente (AKA The White Pube), explore the bizarre world of contemporary art through their protagonist Quest Talukdar. In surreal encounters with other artists, Quest learns profound truths about money and power, and must decide whether she cares more about success or staying true to herself. Blending storytelling with dialogue from anonymised interviews with artists and art workers – including a Turner Prize winner or two, a few ghosts, a Venice Biennale fraudster and a communist messiah – Poor Artists is a unique portrayal of the emotional, existential and financial experience of artists today. Joining them in conversation was Olivia Sudjic (Asylum Road, Sympathy). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Toy Fights poet Don Paterson recounts his childhood in working-class Dundee. This is a book about family, money and music but also about schizophrenia, hell, narcissists, debt and the working class, anger, swearing, drugs, books, football, love, origami, the peculiar insanity of Dundee, sugar, religious mania, the sexual excesses of the Scottish club band scene and, more generally, the lengths we go to not to be bored. ‘A tremendously engaging memoir’ writes William Boyd, ‘seasoned with Don Paterson's customary wit, total recall and love of language. A classic of its kind.’ Paterson talks about the book with poet Declan Ryan, whose whose debut collection, Crisis Actor, will be published by Faber in July.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ian Patterson, in both poetry and prose, revels in language, its possibilities, absurdities and contradictions. He joined fellow poet Keston Sutherland for conversation at the Bookshop, and to read from and present his latest collection Shell Vestige Disputed. Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Buy Shell Vestige Disputed: lrb.me/ianpattersonpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 years after he reinvented the family memoir with And When Did You Last See Your Father? poet, critic and novelist Blake Morrison returns to the subject of his family in Two Sisters (The Borough Press) which reflects on the recent deaths of his two sisters as well as on the often fraught relationships of siblings in history and literature. Morrison was in conversation with Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Everyone is Still Alive (Phoenix). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Based on the true story of an unsolved mystery, Sophie Mackintosh’s new novel, Cursed Bread (Hamish Hamilton), centres on a small village community upturned by the arrival of a glamourous couple. Jo Hamya calls the book‘sensuous and haunted, like Madame Bovary reworked as a ghost story’. Mackintosh was in conversation with Rebecca Watson, author of Little Scratch (Faber). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Affinities, a series of linked essays, Brian Dillon investigates what it might mean for a thing to be like something else, and what it might mean for things to be connected even when they are nothing like one another. Currently Professor of Creative Writing at Queen Mary, University of London, Dillon’s writing is always surprising, and revelatory. Expect both revelations and surprises. Dillon was joined in conversation by the writer Jennifer Higgie, whose latest book is The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World. Buy Affinities: lrb.me/affinitiesbook Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fellow of All Souls, Oxford and regular LRB contributor Clare Bucknell argues in The Treasuries: Poetry Anthologies and the Making of British Culture (Head of Zeus) that the selective way in which poetry has been presented over the past three centuries tells a fascinating story about the democratisation of literature, class, gender, politics and nationalism. She talks about it with another regular LRB contributor, social and architectural historian Rosemary Hill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In one of the most eagerly anticipated debuts of 2023, LRB editor Tom Crewe presents a fictionalised account of the lives and loves of John Addington Symonds and Henry Havelock Ellis. The New Life charts their collaboration on a revolutionary work that set out to transform our understanding of sexual ethics. Tom Crewe was in conversation with Paul Mendez, author of another ground-breaking debut Rainbow Milk. Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novelist and essayist Michael Bracewell reads from and talks about his latest novel Unfinished Business. An apparently ordinary, suburban office life, with its regular troubles of work, ambition, disappointment, marriage, age and bereavement becomes sharpened as pleasure is mistaken for happiness. Bracewell is in conversation with Gwendoline Riley, author of First Love and My Phantoms. Find upcoming events on the Bookshop website: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In I’m Black So You Don’t Have to Be (Cape) Colin Grant, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, director of WritersMosaic and author of Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation, A Smell of Burning: A Memoir of Epilepsy and Bageye at the Wheel, evokes the experience of growing up in Britain as the child of Jamaican parents. In the words of Bernardine Evaristo ‘Colin Grant writes about the characters in his family with the mischievous, dramatic flair of a natural storyteller. This is a compelling and charming read.’ Grant was in conversation with author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster and activist Michael Rosen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Different Speeds, Same Furies, Perry Anderson measures the achievement of Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time against Proust’s more celebrated In Search of Lost Time – and finds Powell to be superior in certain key respects. Anderson discusses why a comparison between two writers at once so similar and dissimilar sheds new light on their greatest work, and literary construction more generally. He was joined by novelist and LRB contributing editor John Lanchester, for whom both writers have been lifelong touchstones.   Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/events Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Third Realm is the next instalment of the series Karl Ove Knausgaard began with The Morning Star and continued in The Wolves of Eternity; like its two precursors, it is a breathtaking exploration of ordinary lives on the cusp of irrevocable change, ‘re-enchanting the cosmos with those beguiling secrets science had stolen from it’ (in the words of The Guardian). Knausgaard read from The Third Realm and was joined in conversation about its mysteries and complexities by Helen Charman, author of Mother State. Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ha-Joon Chang is one of the world’s leading thinkers on development economics. In Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World, Chang combines his passion for numbers with his passion for food (in particular, chocolate) to explain how the politics and economics of food production work with, for, and against us. Chang was joined by economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler, whose first book, Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like?, will be published in April 2023. Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Attend our last Winter Lecture this Friday in person or online: lrb.me/winterlectures Subscribe to Close Readings: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s latest book a film director is attending a retrospective of his work in Barcelona. Plagued by personal tragedy, Sergio Cabrera begins to recall the events that have marked him and his family, from the Spanish Civil War to the Chinese Cultural Revolution to the guerrilla wars in Latin America. Vásquez is in conversation with writer and broadcaster Shahidha Bari. Buy tickets to our forthcoming events, including livestreams, here: https://lrb.me/events Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over a century after the Russian Revolution, the tumultuous history of the Soviet Union continues to fascinate us and influence global politics. In The Shortest History Of The Soviet Union (Old Street Publishing), acclaimed historian Sheila Fitzpatrick charts the development of the nation, from its accidental beginnings to its unexpected departure, and asks what lessons the global superpowers of today have learned from its story. Sheila Fitzpatrick was in conversation with writer, journalist and fellow LRB contributor James Meek. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Katherine Rundell has been writing about endangered animals in the LRB since 2018. Her new book, The Golden Mole, gathers those essays and new pieces into a bestiary of unusual and underappreciated creatures. Katherine was joined by LRB editor Alice Spawls in a discussion touching on Elizabethan celebrity bears, Amelia Earhart’s bones, and the greatest lie we’ve ever told: that the world is ours for the taking. Find upcoming events on the Bookshop website: lrb.me/eventspod You can read Katherine’s work in the LRB archives: lrb.me/rundell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Derek Owusu’s first novel That Reminds Me, a haunting, edgy Bildungsroman, won the Desmond Elliott prize in 2020. He was joined by Jason Okundaye to discuss and read from his second novel Losing the Plot, which continues his exploration of Black lives in Britain. Find more events on our website: lrb.me/eventspod Grab a copy of Losing the Plot from the Bookshop: lrb.me/owusupod Subscribe to Close Readings: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wallace Shawn talks to Gareth Evans about his new collection of essays. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Abolish The Family, leading feminist critic Sophie Lewis asks us to imagine a world without families. She traces the history of family abolitionism, before introducing us to the groundbreaking politics of radical feminists and gay liberationists that have called for a society organised without the family at its core. Lewis was joined by Lola Olufemi, author of Experiments In Imagining Otherwise. Find more events at the Bookshop website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Subscribe to Close Readings: https://lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vigdis Hjorth’s latest novel Is Mother Dead (translated by Charlotte Barslund; Verso) is a characteristic blend of thriller, metafiction, meditation on art, motherhood, belonging and surveillance. She cites as influences Brecht and Céline. Others have compared her to Kafka and Thomas Bernhard, but in truth, she is quite unique. Hjorth was in conversation with writer and broadcaster, Shahidha Bari. Find more events on the Bookshop website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Subscribe to Close Readings: https://lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chantal Mouffe is one of the world’s leading left thinkers on power and populism. In her latest book, she proposes the creation of a broad coalition of movements under the banner of a Green Democratic Revolution to confront the impending ecological crisis. Mouffe was joined in conversation with James Schneider, co-founder of Momentum and author of Our Bloc: How We Win. Find more events at the Bookshop website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Subscribe to Close Readings: https://lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A storyteller, mythologist and poet, Martin Shaw’s latest collection, s t a g c u l t (Hazel Press, 2022) lifts a lantern to a kind of haunting we can’t quite exorcise, or don’t wish to. Shaw was joined in conversation by Claire Armitstead, associate culture editor at the Guardian and presenter of their weekly books podcast. Buy a copy of s t a g c u l t from the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/stagcult Find more events at the website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘If ever a book of history was blessed with contemporary relevance, this one is’, writes Andrew O’Hagan of Helen Castor’s The Eagle and the Hart (Allen Lane). ‘The dumbfounding, delusional, narcissistic King Richard; the white-knuckle ride of Henry IV, dogged all the way by notions of illegitimacy. I feel these men could have been ripped from today’s headlines.’ Castor, whose 2010 book She-Wolves was adapted for television by the BBC, discussed Richard and Henry with Mary Wellesley, author of Hidden Hands: Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers and co-presenter of the medieval strand of the LRB’s Close Readings​ podcast series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the spring of 2020 Lara Feigel found herself locked down with her partner, her two children and the works of D.H. Lawrence. In Look! We Have Come Through! (Bloomsbury) she blends biography, autobiography and literary criticism in a way familiar to readers of Free Woman, her book about Doris Lessing. Feigel was joined in conversation about Lawrence and her own rediscovery of him with author Lauren Elkin. Buy a copy of Look! We Have Come Through!: https://lrb.me/lawrencefeigel Find upcoming events at the Bookshop website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Perdendosi: an instruction, typically at the end of a piece, for musicians to gradually diminish in volume, tempo and tone, to the point of disappearance. Photographer Norman McBeath uses the term to describe the way his images of fallen leaves portray how they lose colour and volume, turning from living things into something like parchment. During lockdown, McBeath’s images were a constant companion to artist and writer Edmund de Waal, who responds to them here with a series of texts evoking change, decay and transformation, a unique collaboration beautifully documented in a new book from Hazel Press. McBeath and de Waal are in conversation with Alexandra Harris, Professor of English at Birmingham University and author of Weatherland and Romantic Moderns. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows was published in 1922 and is only now beginning to receive its due. The collection stands alongside the better-known masterpieces of that year in its distillation of the spirit of the age and its outsize influence. Writer, researcher, and LRB contributor Kevin Okoth joined poet Raymond Antrobus and author Paul Mendez to discuss McKay's extraordinary life and work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his fifth novel The Last White Man (Hamish Hamilton) Mohsin Hamid continues his exploration of cultural and racial displacement, commenced so brilliantly with Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Exit West. In what has been described as a contemporary remoulding of Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ a man awakes one morning to find that his skin has turned dark. Hamid was in conversation with Jo Hamya, author of Three Rooms (Vintage). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dawn Foster, chronicler of austerity Britain and leading voice from the housing crisis, passed away last year aged 34. Foster, author of Lean Out (Repeater, 2016) and LRB contributor, was a working class feminist who rose to prominence as a newspaper columnist and broadcast commentator; she was a fearless champion for those at the sharp end. In the week of the Queen's funeral, friends and colleagues discussed her life and legacy: K Biswas, critic and director of Resonance FM and On Road Media; James Butler, LRB contributing editor and co-founder of Novara Media; Lynsey Hanley, broadcaster and author; and Gary Younge, author and sociology professor at the University of Manchester. Read Dawn Foster's work in the LRB: lrb.me/dawnfoster Find more Bookshop events via the website: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef proprietor at London’s Quo Vadis, Jeremy Lee’s commitment to locality, excellence and simplicity has made the restaurant a must-eat-at destination for every resident or visiting gourmet. He’s also, in stark contrast to the popular image of the celebrity chef, the jolliest and most affable host you might ever hope to be fed by. His new book Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many (4th Estate), ‘one of the most beautiful cookery books I have ever seen’ according to Rachel Roddy, encapsulates his approach to food and cooking: first and foremost, it is about giving and receiving pleasure. Lee is in conversation about food and pleasure with the writer and critic Olivia Laing, who has written of him: 'I worship Jeremy Lee … He has a true gift for living, and for writing about it too. Find out about upcoming events: https://lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Knocking Myself Up (Dey St.), Michelle Tea brings all her characteristic passion, wit and occasionally alarming candour to bear on the trials, tribulations and joys of trying to become, and becoming, a queer parent. Witch-enhanced honey, intrusive medical procedures, impertinent questions and generous drag queens collide in a memoir that is both hugely entertaining and, in the end, profoundly moving. Tea was in conversation with Isabel Waidner, author of We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff and Sterling Karat Gold. Find more upcoming LRB Bookshop events via the website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now published for the very first time, Through the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever Stopping (House Sparrow Press) is Derek Jarman’s only piece of narrative fiction. Somewhere between a fairytale, acid trip and road movie, the work lays the foundations for many of the themes and styles that characterise Jarman’s work in film, painting and design. Joining host So Mayer, author of A Nazi Word for a Nazi Thing (Peninsula), to explore the book were writer Philip Hoare, Jarman scholar Declan Wiffen and artist Michael Ginsborg. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Remember the Details, Skye Arundhati Thomas reflects on the Indian protest movement that began in mid-2019 against xenophobic and casteist citizenship laws. In the wake of the state erasure of these events, it asks what it means to remember, and how words and imagery inscribe reality into history. Thomas was joined by Preti Taneja, writer, activist, and contributing editor at The White Review. Find more upcoming LRB Bookshop events via the website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Helen Mort’s latest collection, The Illustrated Woman, has just been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, the latest accolade in what has been an incredibly productive year: 2022 has also seen the publication of her memoir of walking and motherhood, A Line above the Sky, and a collaborative lyric essay (with Kate Fletcher), Outfitting, exploring fashion and wild ecology. Caroline Bird’s latest book is Rookie, a long-awaited selection gathering material from her seven Carcanet collections – including The Air Year, which won the Forward Prize in 2020. She is also a playwright, and was an official poet for the London Olympics in 2012. Mort and Bird discuss and read from their work. Find upcoming events at the Bookshop here: https://lrb.me/upcomingevents Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Black Meme (Verso) Legacy Russell, award-winning author of the groundbreaking Glitch Feminism, explores the “meme” as mapped to Black visual culture from 1900 to the present, mining both archival and contemporary media. Through imagery, memory, and technology, Black Meme shows us how images of Blackness have always been central to our understanding of the modern world. Russell was joined in conversation with artist and writer Rene Matić. Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cooking, we are told, has nothing to do with serious thought; the path to intellectual fulfilment leads directly out of the kitchen. In Small Fires (Pushkin), essayist and food writer Rebecca May Johnson takes a different path, rewriting the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge, revelation and radical thought. Johnson, author of the popular Substack ‘Dinner Document‘, was in conversation with Jonathan Nunn, who writes about the London food scene for eater.co.uk and edits the ‘Vittles’ newsletter. Find more upcoming LRB Bookshop events via the website: https://lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, published in English for the first time a century ago thanks to the efforts of his tutor at Cambridge Bertrand Russell, set out to solve all of the problems of philosophy in less than 100 pages, through a hierarchically numbered series of logical statements, or prepositions. He didn’t succeed, exactly – indeed, Wittgenstein himself was one of the book’s harshest critics – but that didn’t stop it becoming widely recognised as the most important work of philosophy of the 20th century. And its influence has extended into other artistic and intellectual fields too, from literature to cinema and music, and beyond. Joining Ray Monk, biographer of Wittgenstein and Russell and professor of analytic philosophy, for a conversation about the power of the Tractatus and the unparalleled breadth of its influence, were Signe Gjessing, whose Tractatus Philosophico-Poeticus, a dazzling poetic reimagining, was published earlier this year, and the celebrated composer, musician and interdisciplinary pioneer Max Richter. The conversation will be chaired by Sam Kinchin-Smith, Head of Special Projects at the LRB. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrey Kurkov is the celebrated Ukrainian author of Death and the Penguin and 18 other novels. His letters from Ukraine about his family’s flight from Kyiv became essential daily listening on the Today programme in the aftermath of the 2022 invasion. Two weeks after the Russian invasion began, Kurkov was joined by Oksana Zabuzhko, Robert Chandler, James Meek, Ilya Kaminsky, and Lyuba Yakimchuk for a special event chaired by Peter Pomerantsev. All the proceeds from ticket sales were donated to the Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital, an NGO coordinating the provision of medical care by civilian doctors on the Ukrainian front line. Find more upcoming LRB Bookshop events via the website: lrb.me/eventspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices