Close Readings

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.

How To Subscribe

In Apple Podcasts, click 'subscribe' at the top of this podcast feed to unlock the full episodes.

Or for other podcast apps, sign up here: https://lrb.me/closereadings

RUNNING IN 2025:

'Conversations in Philosophy' with Jonathan Rée and James Wood

'Fiction and the Fantastic' with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis

'Love and Death' with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford

'Novel Approaches' with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guests

ALSO INCLUDED IN THE CLOSE READINGS SUBSCRIPTION:

'Among the Ancients' with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones

'Medieval Beginnings' with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley

'The Long and Short' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

'Modern-ish Poets: Series 1' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

'Among the Ancients II' with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones

'On Satire' with Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell

'Human Conditions' with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards

'Political Poems' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

'Medieval LOLs' with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley

Get in touch: [email protected]

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Education Books Arts Courses

Update frequency: every 6 days
Average duration: 19 minutes
Episodes: 165
Years Active: 2022 - 2025

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Human Conditions: ‘Anti-Semite and Jew’ by Jean-Paul Sartre

Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz for the first episode of Human Conditions to look at Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1946 book Anti-Semite and Jew, originally published in French as Réflexions Sur La Question Juiv…

00:54:57 | Sun 14 Jan 2024

On Satire: 'The Praise of Folly' by Desiderius Erasmus

Clare and Colin begin their twelve-part series on satire with the big question: what is satire? Where did it come from? Is it a genre, or more of a style, or an attitude? They then plunge into their …

00:11:56 | Thu 04 Jan 2024

Introducing: Among the Ancients II

For the final introduction to next year’s full Close Readings programme, Emily Wilson, celebrated classicist and translator of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, returns for a second season of Among the Anci…

00:11:41 | Wed 03 Jan 2024

Introducing: On Satire

In the first of three introductions to our full 2024 Close Readings programme, starting in January, Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell present their series, On Satire. Over twelve episodes, Colin and Cl…

00:14:15 | Mon 01 Jan 2024

Introducing: Human Conditions

In the second of three introductions to our full Close Readings programme for 2024, Adam Shatz presents his series, Human Conditions, in which he’ll be talking separately to three guests – Judith But…

00:25:33 | Mon 01 Jan 2024

The Long and Short: Elizabeth Bowen

In the final episode of The Long and Short, we turn to Elizabeth Bowen, widely considered one of the finest writers of the short story. Mark and Seamus unpack ‘the Bowen effect’ and her singularly ha…

00:11:27 | Sun 24 Dec 2023

Among the Ancients: Seneca

For the final episode in Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at Seneca, whose life is relatively well known to us. A child of the established Roman Empire, born around the same time as Jesus, Sene…

00:11:28 | Thu 14 Dec 2023

Medieval Beginnings: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

For the final episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina look at by far the most popular text (in its time) of all that have featured in the series: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. The fictio…

00:11:09 | Mon 04 Dec 2023

The Long and Short: Alice Oswald's ‘Dart’ and ‘Memorial’

The eleventh episode of the Long and Short brings us to the present day and the distant past, as we turn to two multivocal, monumental poems by Alice Oswald. The dazzlingly polyphonic Dart (2002) cel…

00:11:50 | Fri 24 Nov 2023

Among the Ancients: Ovid

Ovid was perhaps the most prolific poet of Ancient Rome, certainly in the amount of his poetry which has survived (around 30,000 lines). This episode focuses on his 15-book epic, the Metamorphoses, a…

00:11:08 | Tue 14 Nov 2023

Medieval Beginnings: The Digby Mary Magdalene Play

For sheer scale and spectacle, surely few plays of any period can match The Digby Play of Mary Magdalene. Boasting at least fifty speaking parts, with multiple locations, scaffolds and pyrotechnics, …

00:11:55 | Sat 04 Nov 2023

The Long and Short: Nella Larsen's 'Passing' and Langston Hughes's 'Montage of a Dream Deferred'

In the tenth episode of the series, Seamus and Mark turn to two figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nella Larsen’s ‘Passing’ is taut, tense and tartly stylish take on the Jamesian short story, redolen…

00:11:40 | Tue 24 Oct 2023

Among the Ancients: Horace

Emily and Tom follow Virgil with one of his contemporaries, Horace, whose poetry played an important political role in the early years of Augustan Rome and has had an enormous influence on subsequent…

00:09:17 | Sun 15 Oct 2023

Medieval Beginnings: Middle English Lyrics

From the first recorded instance of the word ‘fart’ in English, to nuanced vignettes of sexual power dynamics, the numerous Middle English lyrics that have survived down the centuries, often scribble…

00:11:18 | Wed 04 Oct 2023

The Long and Short: Ted Hughes's 'Gaudete'

Originally conceived as a film script, 'Gaudete' is Ted Hughes’s apocalyptic vision of an English village in the throes of pagan forces. While it may be ‘the weirdest poem by a very weird poet’, as M…

00:12:52 | Sun 24 Sep 2023

Among the Ancients: Virgil

In the ninth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom arrive at Virgil, focusing on his 12-book epic the Aeneid, which describes the wanderings of the Trojan prince Aeneas after the fall of Troy.…

00:12:03 | Thu 14 Sep 2023

Medieval Beginnings: Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde

Chaucer’s 14th century tale of ‘double sorrow’, Troilus and Criseyde, set during the siege of Troy, is the subject of Irina and Mary’s ninth episode of Medieval Beginnings. Based largely on Boccaccio…

00:11:36 | Mon 04 Sep 2023

The Long and Short: James Joyce's Dubliners

James Joyce wrote most of the short stories in his landmark collection, Dubliners, when he was still in his 20s, but a tortuous publishing history, during which printers refused or pulped them for th…

00:10:24 | Thu 24 Aug 2023

Among the Ancients: Lucretius

In their eighth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at a contemporary of Catullus, Lucretius, and the only poem we have from him, De rerum natura (The Nature of Things), which sets out …

00:10:15 | Mon 14 Aug 2023

Medieval Beginnings: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

In this episode of Medieval Beginnings, Irina and Mary jump to the 14th century for an introspective Arthurian romance about a knight trying to live up to his perfect reputation. The mysterious and i…

00:11:26 | Fri 04 Aug 2023

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