As Miranda Carter writes in the current issue of the LRB, more than 2360 episodes of Desert Island Discs are available as podcasts. ‘This audio archive is unique,’ Carter says. ‘Before your ears thousands of famous and no longer famous people talk about themselves. Over seventy years, the language with which we describe ourselves, and expectations about what it’s acceptable to reveal in the public realm, are audibly mapped.’ Some of the programme’s guests have also contributed to the London Review of Books. They include, in chronological order: