Great Auks!
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 specime...
28 Aug 202444min
Jane Austen, Simone de Beauvoir and Herodotus
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 ...
21 Aug 202431min
How to Read Genesis
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 se...
14 Aug 202448min
The First Pandemic?
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, o...
7 Aug 202430min
On Wittgenstein’s ‘Tractatus’
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 n...
31 Juli 202457min
Patrick McGuinness: Back to Bouillon
Patrick McGuinness reads his diary from our 6th June issue about his family’s hometown of Bouillon in Belgium. He reflects on the linguistic and national barriers he crossed to return there each year;...
24 Juli 202433min
At the Republican National Convention: Day Four
It’s the final day of the Republican National Convention. Andrew O'Hagan and Deborah Friedell dissect Trump’s marathon acceptance speech and ask what a second term could look like. Hosted on Acast. Se...
20 Juli 202423min
At the Republican National Convention: Day Three
At day three of the Republican National Convention, Andrew O'Hagan and Deborah Friedell discuss what a second Trump presidency would mean for American foreign policy. They compare notes on J.D. Vance'...
18 Juli 202424min
