The LRB Podcast

Weekly conversations drawn from the pages of the LRB, with hosts Thomas Jones, Adam Shatz and Malin Hay.

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Four Hundred Years of Women's Football

Emma John, Natasha Chahal and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

2 August 2022 · 45mins

Emma John and Natasha Chahal join Tom to discuss England’s victory in Euro 2022, the long history of women’s football – mentioned in a poem by Philip Sidney in the 16th century, banned by the FA for half of the 20th – and what may happen next.

On Desert Island Discs

Miranda Carter and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

26 July 2022 · 39mins

Miranda Carter talks to Tom about the history of the world’s longest-running interview show, Desert Island Discs.

China's Gold Rush Migrants

Andrew Liu and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

19 July 2022 · 43mins

Andrew Liu talks to Tom about the Chinese workers who followed the gold rush to California, Australia and South Africa in the 19th century, as described in a new book by Mae Ngai, The Chinese Question.

After Johnson

James Butler and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

12 July 2022 · 49mins

James Butler joins Tom to consider the fall of Boris Johnson, the candidates hoping to replace him, and what the next few years of British politics might look like.

On Roe v. Wade

Laura Beers, Deborah Friedell and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

5 July 2022 · 48mins

Laura Beers and Deborah Friedell talk to Tom about the recent decision by the US Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson, which removed the constitutional right to abortion.

Modern-ish Poets: Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford, 16 April 2025

28 June 2022 · 1hr

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the lives and works of two poets, Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, close friends and leading lights of the New York School, who sought to create an anti-academic poetry, hedonistic and free of the puritan American tradition, and attentive to their personal differences from mainstream experience.

Palm Oil Dependency

Bee Wilson and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

21 June 2022 · 36mins

Bee Wilson talks to Tom about palm oil, which can be found in everything from pot noodles to shaving foam.

Great Replacement Theory

Adam Shatz, Sindre Bangstad and Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, 16 April 2025

14 June 2022 · 52mins

Adam Shatz, the LRB’s US editor, talks to Sindre Bangstad and Reza Zia-Ebrahimi about the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, from its origins in the high tide of French colonial expansionism in the 19th century and propagation through writers such as Jean Raspail and Renaud Camus, to its influence on mass murderers in Norway, New Zealand and the United States.

At the Bataclan Trial

Madeleine Schwartz and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

7 June 2022 · 34mins

Madeleine Schwartz talks to Tom about the trial of twenty men accused of involvement in the Paris terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015, which left 130 dead.

How To Win at Basketball

Benjamin Markovits, Ben Cohen and Kevin Arnovitz, 16 April 2025

31 May 2022 · 58mins

Ahead of the NBA finals next month, LRB contributor, novelist and former basketball player Benjamin Markovits talks to sports journalists Ben Cohen and Kevin Arnovitz about the role of data in the game.

On Olympia

James Romm and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

24 May 2022 · 32mins

James Romm talks to Tom about the site of the Ancient Greek games: the various contests in which athletes competed, the punishment for those found cheating, and the colossal statue of Zeus in whose honour they were held.

A Covid Update

Rupert Beale and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

17 May 2022 · 35mins

Rupert Beale returns to the podcast to talk to Tom about the current state of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK. 

Women on the Brink

Azadeh Moaveni and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

11 May 2022 · 40mins

Azadeh Moaveni talks to Tom about the situation on the Polish border, where women and children fleeing Ukraine face numerous dangers, including kidnapping, trafficking and forced labour. 

Romantic History: Waterloo to the British Museum

Neil MacGregor and Rosemary Hill, 16 April 2025

26 April 2022 · 55mins

In the final episode in our series looking at the way history was transformed in the Romantic period, Neil MacGregor joins Rosemary Hill to discuss the circulation of artefacts throughout Europe in the years after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, and the growth of public collections.

Mix Tapes and Flash Cubes

Andrew O’Hagan and Thomas Jones, 16 April 2025

19 April 2022 · 37mins

Andrew O’Hagan talks to Tom about the power of defunct objects, from the life-enhancing gadgets of his childhood to Seamus Heaney’s fax machine, and the role lost things play in fiction.