The LRB Podcast

Jane Austen's ‘Emma’ and the art of misreading 30.05.2026 1t 8min

What kind of satirist was Jane Austen? Her earliest writings follow firmly in the footsteps of ‘Tristram Shandy’ in their deployment of heightened sentiment as a tool for satirising romantic novelistic conventions. But her mature fiction goes far beyond this, taking the fashion for passionate sensibility and confronting it with moneyed realism to depict a complex social satire in which characters are constantly pulled in different directions by romantic and economic forces. In this episode Clare and Colin focus on ‘Emma’ as the high point of Austen’s satire of character as revealed through conversational style, and consider the ways in which the world Austen was born into, of revolutionary thought and new money, shaped the moral and material universe of all her novels. Listen to the full episode on the LRB's Close Readings podcast. Get 25% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings with the code EMMA25 when you sign up here: https://lrb.me/closereadings Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gaza after the Ceasefire 27.05.2026 1t 9min

Since the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza six months ago, 904 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2700 wounded by the Israeli army. Last week, Trump’s Board of Peace released a report complaining of a ‘funding gap’ after reports emerged that it had received only a ‘tiny fraction’ of the $17 billion its members had pledged to rebuild the region.In this episode, Adam Shatz is joined by Muhammad Shehada and Jehad Abusalim to discuss the ongoing crisis on the ground in Gaza, the economic and political vision of the Board of Peace and the role of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a transitional body of Palestinian technocrats, in the so-called reconstruction. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod⁠⁠⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Rough Guide to Money Laundering 20.05.2026 46min

More than 90 per cent of transactions in the UK are now cashless, yet there is more cash in circulation than ever before. In the UK, there’s about £1300 circulating for every individual; in the US it’s more than $7000, and the majority of this exists in the highest-denomination banknotes, such as the $100 and €500 bills. So where is it all? Remarkably, nobody really knows, but the assumption is that it’s underpinning much of the world’s criminal activity. John Lanchester joins Tom to talk through the many ways this money is hidden and processed, from the three classic stages of money laundering (placement, layering and integration) to the methods used to bypass banks entirely, through the purchase of agricultural equipment or the use of store cards and cash-only businesses such as vape shops and nail bars. Read John Lanchester on money laundering: https://lrb.me/lanchester052026pod From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When will AI replace us? 14.05.2026 42min

Is AI taking us into a world where computer programmers, and perhaps the rest of us too, are obsolete? And if so, how quickly is it taking us there? Paul Taylor has been looking at code since the time when computer games didn't even have screens, and in this episode he talks to Tom about the enormous changes generative AI has brought to programming and the world of work in the past couple of years, from the threat of Claude’s secretive Mythos to one-person companies, and they consider what jobs might be like in the future, if they exist at all. Read Paul Taylor on Claude: https://lrb.me/taylorclaude From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Politics: A New Era for UK Politics 12.05.2026 1t 4min

In the wake of last week’s devolved and local elections, Keir Starmer is once again fighting for his political future. Labour has almost completely vanished in Wales, came a distant second in Scotland (tied with Reform UK), and lost nearly 1500 councillors in England. But while Plaid Cymru and the SNP were victorious in Wales and Scotland, in many ways the results in England were a disappointment for everybody, with no party making the breakthroughs they hoped for and the Conservatives pushed to the fringes. James is joined by Richard King, Rory Scothorne and Andy Beckett to makes sense of this new political map and consider what the collapse of old party loyalties and the rise of nationalist politics means across all three countries. Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Politics: The Fall of Orbán, the Rise of Magyar 07.05.2026 1t 5min

For more than a decade, Viktor Orbán has stood alongside Trump and Modi as a global figurehead for authoritarian nationalism, and an inspiration to popular strongmen everywhere with his model for the ‘illiberal’ democratic state. But on April 12 his sixteen-year tenure as Hungary’s prime minister came to an end with a surprisingly gracious concession speech to his opponent, Péter Magyar, who won the country’s general election by a landslide. But if Orbán has fallen, will Orbánism collapse with him? James is joined by journalist Dan Nolan and poet and translator George Szirtes to discuss why Orbán was finally voted out and the challenges Magyar faces in meeting his main election promises of tackling corruption and improving the economy. Read Jan-Werner Müller on the Hungarian elections: https://lrb.me/ophungary01 Watch 'Magda's Boy: How George Szirtes invented his mother': https://lrb.me/ophungary02 From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Lasdun's road trip to America's courts 29.04.2026 50min

‘Courtroom encounters present you with only a fragment of a person’s story, from which you may or may not be inclined to infer the rest,’ James Lasdun wrote recently in the LRB. Last October, he set out on a road trip across America, with the aim of attending as many different kinds of criminal and civil trials as possible in one month. His journey took him from immigration hearings in Chicago to jury trials in Deadwood to felony proceedings in Louisiana. On this episode of the LRB podcast, James joins Thomas Jones to discuss the ‘swerving tales’ he witnessed on his trip, and whether the ‘brazenly bad-faith goings-on at the Justice Department’ are showing up in local courts. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod⁠⁠⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Politics: The Pope and the President 23.04.2026 1t 1min

When commenting on the power and influence of the Catholic Church, Stalin is supposed to have asked: ‘how many divisions has the pope?’ Donald Trump has yet to question how many F35s Leo XIV has, but he may as well have done in his angry response to the American pope’s criticism of the US and Israel’s attack on Iran. With the US president’s supporters invoking the Catholic theory of ‘just war’ to defend the bombing of Iran, and the claims of Silicon Valley to offer their own paths to salvation, the Church of Rome faces multiple challenges to its role as a moral and diplomatic force. To consider why the conflict between the pope and the American right has escalated so quickly in the past few weeks, James is joined by Massimo Faggioli, a professor in ecclesiology at the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin, and Jack Hanson, an associate editor at the Yale Review. They also discuss the nature of papal authority and its evolution since the loss of the papal states in 1870, and whether we’re seeing the return of faith to the public sphere or simply the shattering of a consensus about what constitutes religion. Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The War in Lebanon 17.04.2026 48min

Lebanese and Israeli delegations met in Washington this week for their first direct talks in 33 years. On 15 April, with talks underway, the IDF’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, designated all of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River a ‘Hizbullah kill zone’. In this episode, Adam Shatz is joined by Joëlle Abi-Rached and Mohamad Bazzi to discuss life on the ground in Lebanon, Israel’s strategic objectives in the region and Hizbullah’s relationship to the the Lebanese state. This episode was recorded shortly before Trump’s statement announcing the agreement of a ten-day ceasefire. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod⁠⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠⁠⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠⁠⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Men Looking at Men 15.04.2026 1t 6min

In a recent issue of the LRB, Tom Crewe asked if the Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte’s fixation with male figures and the male gaze is evidence not just of a homosocial milieu, but of homosexual desire. Meanwhile, in the same issue of the paper, James Butler reviewed Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations 1400-1750 by the historian Noel Malcolm, who excavates archival evidence of sexual relationships and interactions between men in northern and southern Europe while cautioning against applying modern ideas of queerness to historical figures. Tom and James join Malin to discuss the interplay between their pieces, and to reflect on the ways that modern interpreters attempt to read the history of homosexuality in sometimes patchy archives, as well as on gay art in the past and the present. Read more in the LRB: Tom Crewe: Men Watching Men https://lrb.me/lrbpod04142601 James Butler: Cultures of Homosexuality https://lrb.me/lrbpod04142602 Alice Hunt: Out of Rehab https://lrb.me/lrbpod04142603 Also from the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The philosophy of Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’ 08.04.2026 45min

In 1908, Virginia Woolf wrote that she hoped to revolutionise the novel and ‘capture multitudes of things at present fugitive’. ‘To the Lighthouse’ (1927) marks perhaps her fullest realisation of the novel as philosophical enterprise, and not simply because one of its central characters is engaged with the problem of ‘subject and object and the nature of reality’. In the final episode of their series, Jonathan and James consider different ways of reading Woolf’s great novel: as a satirical portrait of her father through Mr Ramsay, as a study of creative expression through Lily Briscoe, or as a mystical, Platonic quest in which form and style respond to philosophical propositions, and the truth of human experience is to be found in movement, conversation and laughter. Get 50% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings when you use the code 'woolf' at checkout: https://lrb.me/woolfcrpod (Note: this offer is only available on the link above, through our partner Supporting Cast, and not if you subscribe directly in Apple Podcasts, but you can still listen in Apple Podcasts if you subscribe in Supporting Cast.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Politics: Iran and the Oil Crisis 03.04.2026 1t 10min

Trump’s war on Iran has highlighted recent dramatic changes in the politics of oil. While the United States still guarantees maritime security in the Middle East, it is no longer the primary beneficiary, with most oil and gas exports from the Persian Gulf going to Asia. In Britain, meanwhile, debates over drilling in the North Sea point to the urgent need for electrification, both to achieve greater energy security and to reach net zero by 2050. In this episode, James is joined by Helen Thompson, a professor of political economy at the University of Cambridge, who argues that the war, though far from inevitable, stems in part from regional and international tensions caused by the shifting of energy flows. They discuss the central role that finance, and insurance in particular, plays in deciding whether tankers can sail, and how energy requirements helped Trump to secure the backing of major US corporations in the 2024 presidential election. Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Insulin Wars 01.04.2026 56min

Diabetes has been recognised as a fatal condition for thousands of years: its symptoms are described in ancient Chinese, Sanskrit and Greek texts. But it wasn’t until the late 19th century that its cause began to be understood, as scientists conducted experiments on dogs. It was a pair of researchers at the University of Toronto in the early 1920s who – through a gruelling series of experiments that would not pass an ethics review today – eventually isolated the hormone that patients with diabetes are lacking. On this episode, Liam Shaw, who reviewed the latest edition of Michael Bliss’s classic book The Discovery of Insulin in a recent issue of the LRB, joins Thomas Jones to discuss the history of diabetes treatments from insulin to Ozempic, the all-too-human scientists who discovered them and the companies that profit from them. Read Liam’s piece: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n06/liam-shaw/bring-me-bimagrumab From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Politics: Why you can’t change someone’s mind 25.03.2026 1t 11min

Something has gone wrong in the way we discuss politics. If democratic systems since the Athenian polity have been founded on debate, then what does debate do for us today, aside from making us angrier and filling billionaire-owned social media sites with monetisable content? Sarah Stein Lubrano has argued that the ‘marketplace of ideas’ is a myth and the best ideas often don’t win out. In this episode she joins James Butler to talk about the things that do and don’t change people’s minds and why meaningful change is better achieved through means other than argument, such as social ties and collective action. They also consider what technology has done to shape the political landscape and individual behaviour, and the ways in which it has been exploited most effectively by those on the right.Sarah Stein Lubrano is the author of Don’t Talk About Politics. Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ordinary Abuse 18.03.2026 56min

‘I hadn’t wanted to have sex with the prince,’ Virginia Giuffre said, ‘but I felt I had to.’ Reviewing Giuffre’s memoir, Nobody’s Girl, in the LRB, Andrew O’Hagan writes: ‘All the pomp, tradition, ceremony and “loyalty” in the world can’t wash away the simple facts. Ghislaine Maxwell took this young girl to Jeffrey Epstein, who abused her a number of times, then they flew her around the world to be abused by their powerful friends.’ In the same issue, Susan Pedersen observes that ‘the scandal lays bare the entitlement felt and impunity enjoyed by the powerful and crass,’ while pointing out that ‘a girl doesn’t have to fall into Epstein’s clutches to see sexual abuse up close.’ On this episode of the podcast, Susan and Andrew join Thomas Jones to discuss whether the Epstein scandal has anything new to tell us about sexual abuse. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/ordinaryabuse From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Politics: Keir Starmer’s Mess 12.03.2026 1t 11min

Less than two years after winning a huge majority, even many of Keir Starmer’s own MPs think he’s doomed. But is he? Despite a historic loss to the Green Party in the Gorton and Denton by-election last month, the prime minister has managed to cling on, for now. His critics point to a lack of vision in government, the alienation of Labour members and a failure to accept the need for radical reform. Those less critical argue it’s simply a problem with communicating his achievements, and that Britain is pretty much ungovernable anyway.James Butler is joined by Sienna Rodgers, deputy editor at the House magazine, and Jeremy Gilbert, professor of cultural and political theory at the University of East London, to consider the reasons for Starmer’s mess, from the selection of his MPs to the ‘iron law of oligarchy’. And if he’s not prime minister at the end of the year, who will be? Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What next in Iran? 11.03.2026 58min

On 9 March, Donald Trump described the war against Iran as ‘very complete, pretty much’. Later that day, his secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, told ABC that the ongoing strikes were ‘just the beginning’. In this episode, Adam Shatz is joined by Robert Malley and Esfandyar Batmanghelidj to discuss the chaos of Trump’s Iran strategy, whether the United States and Israel are aligned in their objectives for the region, and what Iran’s future might look like if Trump decides to bring the conflict to an end in the near term. They also examine how the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new leader of the Islamic Republic could shape the course of the war, and whether Iran will be able to sustain its current military strategy. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Caravaggio’s Bodies 04.03.2026 43min

In the 1590s, Caravaggio was one of ‘the swaggering, violent young men who terrorised Romans’, Erin Maglaque wrote recently in the LRB, and he ‘made his name by painting this violent, chaotic world’. On this episode, Erin joins Thomas Jones to discuss the ways that Caravaggio represented his models' bodies on canvas – their muscles, skin, hair, clothing and dirty toenails – and what makes his paintings so unnerving that even the people who commissioned them sometimes got rid of them as soon as they could. Find the article and further reading and listening on the episode page: https://lrb.me/caravaggiopod From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Politics: The Rearmament Consensus 25.02.2026 1t 5min

‘We must build our hard power because that is the currency of the age,’ Keir Starmer declared to the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. It’s a sentiment shared across Europe, where leaders have cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the rise of Chinese power and US instability to justify substantially increased defence spending. But the rearmament consensus has so far not been accompanied by much detail on where the money needs to go or what accountability there will be for the use of this ‘hard power’. To discuss the origins and implications of Europe's militarisation, James is joined by Sam Jones, European security correspondent at the Financial Times, and Anna Stavrianakis, professor of international relations at the University of Sussex. Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early Modern News 18.02.2026 45min

‘Information in the early modern world could move no faster than the bodies that carried it,’ John Gallagher wrote recently in the LRB. For a horse and rider, that was just under fifteen kilometres per hour. Yet postal systems, as pioneered by the enterprising Tassis family, were becoming ever more reliable and efficient, at first in northern Italy and then across much of Europe – despite plague, war and the efforts of bandits and spies to intercept the mail. If the post was highly organised, news spread more organically, whether in the form of manuscript newsletters, printed pamphlets or word of mouth, at the local barbershop, from a ballad singer on a street corner, on the Rialto bridge in Venice or in the nave of St Paul's Cathedral in London. On this episode of the LRB podcast, John joins Thomas Jones to discuss how information (and disinformation) circulated in early modern Europe, and whether our predecessors were any better than we are at sifting fake news from fact. Read John Gallagher’s piece: https://lrb.me/earlymodernnewspod From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices