logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2023
14m 15s

Next Year on Close Readings: On Satire

THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
About this episode

In the first of three introductions to our full 2024 Close Readings programme, starting in January, Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell present their series, On Satire. Over twelve episodes, Colin and Clare will attempt to chart a stable course through some of the most unruly, vulgar, incoherent, savage and outright hilarious works in English literature, as they ask what satire is, what it’s for and why we seem to like it so much.

Authors covered: Erasmus, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Earl of Rochester, John Gay, Alexander Pope, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark.

Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, and regular contributors to the LRB.

First episode released on 4 January 2024, then on the fourth of each month for the rest of the year.


How to Listen


Close Readings subscription

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings


Close Readings Plus

In addition to the episodes, receive all the books under discussion; access to webinars with Colin, Clare and special guests including Lucy Prebble and Katherine Rundell; and shownotes and further reading from the LRB archive.

On sale here from 22 November: lrb.me/plus



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Aug 20
Close Readings: 'Our Mutual Friend' by Charles Dickens
'Our Mutual Friend' was Dickens’s last completed novel, published in serial form in 1864-65. The story begins with a body being dredged from the ooze and slime of the Thames, then opens out to follow a wide array of characters through the dust heaps, paper mills, public houses an ... Show More
35m 43s
Aug 13
The Psychology of Tennis
As well as raw talent and incredible athleticism, professional tennis ‘requires extraordinary psychological capacities’, Edmund Gordon wrote recently in the LRB: ‘obsessive focus, epic self-belief’. Edmund – whose son is a rising star on the London under-nine circuit – joins Tom ... Show More
46m 12s
Aug 6
Why you should care about golf
With the world's most famous amateur golfer now in charge of the 'free world', the sport has never been more important in the lives of non-golfers. When Donald Trump was spotted cheating recently on a course in Scotland, it was recognised by enthusiasts and sportswriters as a maj ... Show More
55m 56s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2019
Ep. 189 The Complete Guide to What to Read in 2019
If there's one thing Awesomes Know How to do, it's finding the best books for any reading season. In this episode, Meg is joined by Meredith and Kaytee - Awesome creators and co-hosts of the Currently Reading podcast - and they are here to tell you everything you need to know abo ... Show More
1h 3m
Sep 2021
Sad and Twisted Stories
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Skye C. Cleary to discuss Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘lost’ novel, ‘The Inseparables’, published almost seventy years after it was written; Anna Picard reviews a very dark production of ‘Rigoletto’ at the Royal Opera House; plus, ... Show More
49m 7s
May 2024
On Satire: John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera'
In The Beggar’s Opera we enter a society turned upside down, where private vices are seen as public virtues, and the best way to survive is to assume the worst of everyone. The only force that can subvert this state of affairs is romantic love – an affection, we discover, that sa ... Show More
12m 59s
Jun 2023
Best of: A new philosophy of love
Sean Illing talks with Carrie Jenkins about her new book Sad Love, and her call to rethink the shape and boundaries of romantic love. In this far-ranging discussion about the meaning of romantic love, Sean and Carrie discuss the connection between love and happiness, what we shou ... Show More
59m 1s
Dec 2021
A trip to our secret book vault. Plus: the best books of 2021
This weekend, we’re going behind the scenes of the FT’s legendary Books of the Year roundup. Literary editor Frederick Studemann and deputy books editor Laura Battle take us into a secret room in the basement of the FT, where all the books sent in for review are kept behind lock ... Show More
24m 24s
Dec 2019
Cats, Susan Hill's Ghost Story, Martin's Close, Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck, Gypsy
The much-anticipated film of Cats with its stellar and fur-enhanced cast including Judi Dench and Taylor Swift finally reaches the big screen. Catnip or catastrophe?Spooky offerings in the Christmas TV schedule this year include Martin's Close by Mark Gatiss on BBC 4 and Susan Hi ... Show More
49m 39s
Jun 2024
On Satire: 'The Dunciad' by Alexander Pope
Nobody hated better than Alexander Pope. Despite his reputation as the quintessentially refined versifier of the early 18th century, he was also a class A, ultra-pure, surreal, visionary mega-hater, and The Dunciad is his monument to the hate he felt for almost all the other writ ... Show More
12m 38s
Feb 2021
BOOK CLUB: Just Like You
G’day book club friends!!! This month, we read best-selling author Nick Hornby’s eighth novel, Just Like You. The book follows two protagonists, 22-year-old Joseph and 42-year-old Lucy, who fall in love despite coming from two different worlds. Joseph is a young Black DJ trying t ... Show More
37m 39s