Spy talk
One Cold War spy has his story retold by journalist Simon Kuper, while the granddaughter of another - Charlotte Philby - writes novels that explore the human side and cost of espionage. Nigel Inkster,...
1 Apr 202145min
From Blackface to Beyoncé
Hanif Abdurraqib, the American poet and essayist, has written a book in praise of black performance challenging stereotypes and recovering figures including the magician Ellen Armstrong who performed ...
31 Mar 202144min
Writing About Faith
In Frank Skinner's A Comedian's Prayer Book the broadcaster presents a series of prayers which read like a stand-up routine exploring questions of belief. A practising Roman Catholic, Skinner's questi...
30 Mar 202145min
Churchill's reputation
Wartime saviour or the symbol of nostalgic imperialism ? David Reynolds, Priya Satia, Richard Toye and Allen Packwood join Anne McElvoy to look at the ways Churchill's story and legacy are being writt...
25 Mar 202144min
Pleasure
As lockdowns have forced us to forgo the delights of the outside world, have we developed a taste for simple pleasures? Many have reported enjoying cooking and eating more than usual, or appreciating ...
24 Mar 202146min
Frantz Fanon
Irrational feelings of dread, fear, and hate in a subject whose threat is often exaggerated or "phobogenesis" - one of the psychological terms explored in Frantz Fanon's 1952 book Black Skin, White Ma...
23 Mar 202144min
Books to Make Space For on the Bookshelf: There's No Story There
The dangerous world of an explosives factory is the setting of Inez Holden’s 1944 novel There’s No Story There. A bohemian figure who went on to write film scripts for J Arthur Rank, to report on the ...
19 Mar 202113min
Books to Make Space For On The Bookshelf: Closer
Drugs, sex, violence and thinking about death are at the core of the George Miles cycle of five novels. New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester draws the links between the author Dennis Cooper and the ...
18 Mar 202114min
