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The LRB Podcast

The LRB Podcast

By: The London Review of Books
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The LRB Podcast brings you weekly conversations from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, and featuring our fortnightly 'On Politics' podcast hosted by James Butler. 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© LRB (London) Ltd 1980 - 2021 Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Among the Private Spies

    Among the Private Spies
    Jul 8 2026
    The Trump-Russia dossier, leaked to the press in 2017, contained multiple allegations of collusion between the US president and Putin, including reports of meetings between Kremlin officials and members of Trump’s campaign team, and the existence of kompromat in the form of the infamous ‘pee tape’. Shortly after the dossier was leaked, Christopher Steele, the head of a private business intelligence firm called Orbis, was named as its author. Steele claimed that his company had access to sources which allowed them to ‘illuminate Vladimir Putin’s autocratic and closed regime’. In a review of Steele’s memoir in the LRB, Vadim Nikitin called the dossier ‘shoddy’ and ‘full of uncorroborated and implausible’ material. None of its claims have been proven. In this episode, Vadim joins Thomas Jones to discuss the legacy of the dossier, Steele’s career before and after its release and how the internal workings of the business intelligence industry are influencing politics in both the US and the UK. Archive: ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’/MSNBC ‘Russian oligarch met with Cohen at Trump tower’/CNN ‘This House Prefers Style Over Substance’/Cambridge Union ‘Special Report: Mueller report release’/CBS News ‘Your World’/Fox News ‘Times Radio Breakfast’/Times News More 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
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    38 mins
  • Poetry and the Turning World: Food

    Poetry and the Turning World: Food
    Jul 5 2026
    The most popular modern food poem is probably William Carlos Williams’s ‘This Is Just to Say’, in which the speaker confesses to eating the plums his wife was saving for breakfast. Food has often been a means for poetry to represent intimate relationships, but, as Sarah and Sandeep explore in this episode, it has also provided ways of thinking about alienation, societal change, survival and displacement. In Tony Harrison’s 'V.', supermarkets and food providers become central motifs in a discussion of Britain’s changing landscapes; Bhanu Kapil’s How to Wash a Heart uses the memory of a grandfather planting yogurt under a tree as a means of understanding the aftermath of Partition; and in Yousif M. Qasmiyeh’s ‘Communion’, set in the Beddawi refugee camp in Lebanon, lentils become part of a living archive through which experiences are transmitted across generations. Read Tony Harrison's 'V.' in the LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n01/tony-harrison/v Book tickets to a live recording of this series: https://lrb.me/ptwtickets Get 25% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings with the code ’POETRY25’ at checkout here: https://lrb.me/crpoetry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 23 mins
  • On Politics: The Andy Burnham Show

    On Politics: The Andy Burnham Show
    Jul 1 2026
    Andy Burnham will soon become the UK’s seventh prime minister since 2010 and will face many of the same problems that defeated his predecessors, not least the UK’s stubbornly weak economy. To dissect the collapse of the Starmer project and the prospects for a Burnham administration, James is joined by Patrick Maguire, chief political commentator for the Times, and William Davies, a political economist at Goldsmiths. Patrick Maguire is the author of 'Get In: The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer',. William Davies is a regular contributor to the LRB and the author of 'This is Not Normal: The collapse of liberal Britain' among other books. Read William Davies on Burnham: https://lrb.me/opburnham01 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
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    1 hr and 8 mins
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Great content but over time vocal fry, verbal filler ("like", "kind of") and up-speak are taking over this podcast more & more. It's hard to listen to, in a way that it never was before. A real⬆️, like, shame⬆️

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