The final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry established that the fire on 14 June 2017, which killed 72 people, was the ‘culmination of decades of failure’. Every death was avoidable, and every death was the result of choices made by corporations, individuals and elected officials. James Butler, who writes about the report and its findings in the current issue of the LRB, joins Tom to discuss the causes and consequences of the fire and whether those responsible will be brought to justice.

Read James's piece: https://lrb.me/butlergrenfell

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In November 2022, archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Philadelphia, two hours south of Cairo, discovered a clump of papyri in a shallow grave. On one of them were written nearly a hundred lines from two lost plays by Euripides. Robert Cioffi, who has been working with the same team on a new archaeological mission, joins Tom to discuss the find, the precarious transmission of ancient manuscripts, and the time he tried to make papyrus in his kitchen.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/euripidespod

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Singing, acting, directing, writing: Barbra Streisand always insisted on doing it her way. Malin Hay, who recently reviewed Streisand’s 992-page autobiography, joins Tom to discuss her performances on stage and screen, her prodigious voice and why her best movie may be one where she doesn’t sing at all.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/barbrapod

Malin’s Streisand playlist: https://lrb.me/barbraplaylist

Sponsored links:

Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk

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Jane Ellen Harrison was Britain’s first female career academic, a maverick public intellectual burdened with the label ‘the cleverest woman in England’. Her quips and quirks became legendary, but many of those anecdotes were promulgated by Harrison herself. Mary Beard joins Tom to discuss Harrison’s legacy, the challenges in writing her life and the careful cultivation of her voice.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/jeharrisonpod

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LRB Audio

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This episode is a chapter from Complicated Women by Bee Wilson, a new LRB audiobook, based on pieces first published in the London Review of Books. Wilson explores the lives of ten figures, from Lola Montez to Vivienne Westwood, who challenged the limitations imposed on women in dramatically different ways. In this free chapter, she describes the ways that Edith Piaf’s life and art embodied the needs of her public, and how she became a symbol of postwar French resilience.

Podcast listeners can get 20% off using the code POD20 at checkout.

Buy the audiobook here and listen in your preferred podcast app: https://lrb.me/audio

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This week, a chapter from a new LRB audiobook, Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre by Jonathan Rée. This collection of ten biographical pieces, read by Rée, describes the lives of some of most influential thinkers of the past four hundred years and the radical and sometimes bizarre ideas that emerged from them. The audiobook also includes an introductory conversation between Rée and Thomas Jones, host of the LRB Podcast. In this free chapter, Rée looks at the life of Jean-Paul Sartre up to the publication of his first major philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, in 1943.

Podcast listeners can get 20% off using the code POD20 at checkout.

Buy the audiobook here and listen in your preferred podcast app: https://lrb.me/audio

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The great auk was a flightless, populous and reportedly delicious bird, once found widely across the rocky outcrops of the North Atlantic. By the 1860s it was extinct, its decline sharpened by specimen collectors and at least one volcanic eruption. Human-driven extinction was ‘almost unthinkable’ until the auk’s disappearance, Liam Shaw writes. He joins Tom to discuss when, where and why the great auk died out.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/aukspod

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What do Jane Austen, Simone de Beauvoir and Herodotus have in common? 

They all appear in three of this year’s Close Readings series, in which a pair of LRB contributors explore an area of literature through a selection of key works. This week, we’re revisiting some of the highlights from subscriber-only episodes: Clare Bucknell and Colin Burrow on Emma, Judith Butler and Adam Shatz on The Second Sex, and Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones on Herodotus’ Histories.

To listen to these episodes in full, subscribe to Close Readings:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Md5fd5

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The Book of Genesis begins with the creation of the universe and ends with the death of Jacob, patriarch of the Israelites. Between these two events, successive generations confront the moral tests set for them by God, and in doing so usher in the Abrahamic religious tradition. In Reading Genesis, Marilynne Robinson argues for the continued relevance of Genesis as a foundational text of Western culture. James Butler joins Malin to discuss Robinson’s account in the light of a long, rich and conflicted history of interpretation.

Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/genesispod

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Learn more about the Royal Literary Fund here: https://rlf.org.uk/

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In the 160s CE, Rome was struck by a devastating disease which, a new book argues, may have been the world’s first pandemic. Galen began his career treating ’the protracted plague’ with viper flesh, opium and urine, but despite his extensive documentation, we still don’t know what a modern diagnosis would be. Josephine Quinn joins Malin to discuss contemporary theories about the Antonine Plague and what ice cores and amulets can tell us about the disease’s impact.

Further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/romanplaguepod

LRB Audio

Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiopod

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When Wittgenstein published his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1921, he claimed to have solved all philosophical problems. One problem that hasn’t been solved though is how best to translate this notoriously difficult work. The expiry of the book’s copyright in 2021 has brought three new English translations in less than a year, each grappling with the difficulties posed by a philosopher who frequently undermined his own use of language to demonstrate the limitations of what can be represented. Adrian Moore joins Malin Hay to discuss what Wittgenstein hoped to achieve with the only work he published in his lifetime and to consider how much we should trust his assertion that everything it contains is nonsensical.

Find further reading and listening on the episode page: https://lrb.me/tractatuspod

LRB Audio

Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiopod

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