When is giving up not failure, but a way of succeeding at something else? In his new book, which began as a piece for the LRB, the psychoanalyst and critic Adam Phillips explores the ways in which knowing our limitations can be an act of heroism. This episode was recorded at the London Review Bookshop, where Phillips was joined by the biographer and critic H ... Show More
Yesterday
How Prediction Markets Work
According to their boosters, prediction markets such as Polymarket or Kalshi are ‘global truth machines’; their detractors say they’re just a glorified form of gambling. Either way, they’re zero-sum games with, as Geoff Mann put it recently in the LRB, ‘few winners and many loser ... Show More
1 h
Oct 24
Ulysses: James Joyce's properly obscene book
Tom McCarthy, writing in the LRB, described James Joyce's Ulysses as a ‘heavy book, a book full of weight, a fallen book’; a ‘properly obscene book’; ‘a book in which the central stake is the coming into being of the book itself’; a book for which ‘people should desist, once and ... Show More
53m 35s
Oct 22
How Fredric Jameson became Fredric Jameson
Perry Anderson once wrote that in Fredric Jameson’s account of postmodernism, ‘the vocation of Western Marxism has reached its most complete consummation.’ Praising the ‘spacious rhythms’ of his ‘complex, yet supple syntax’ and ‘sudden bursts of metaphoric intensity’, Anderson al ... Show More
53m 25s
Mar 2024
Adam Phillips & Hermione Lee: On Giving Up
‘Our history of giving up – that is to say, our attitude towards it, our obsession with it, our disavowal of its significance – may be a clue to something we should really call our histories and not our selves’, wrote Adam Phillips in a 2022 LRB piece, ‘On Giving Up’. Now develop ... Show More
52m 51s
Jul 2024
Adam Phillips, "On Giving Up" (FSG, 2024)
To give up or not to give up? The question can feel inescapable but the answer is never simple.Giving up our supposed vices is one thing; giving up on life itself is quite another. One form of self-sacrifice feels positive, something to admire and aspire to, while the other is pr ... Show More
41m 24s
May 2025
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
<p>Giving up can be painful. That's why we need to talk about it. Today: stories about glitchy apps, leaky paint cans, broken sculptures — and a quest for the perfect bowl of ramen. (Part three of a <a href="https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/how-to-succeed-at-failing/">four-pa ... Show More
1h 3m
Mar 2024
015. Exploring Sacrifice, Failure, and the True Meaning of Success w/ Rabbi Leder
<p>Today is a conversation about love, sacrifice, and the transformative journey of personal growth. We explore the depths of what it means to truly love and the power of overcoming adversity. This episode offers us a new lens through which to view our own struggles and triumphs, ... Show More
24m 54s
<p>Giving up can be painful. That's why we need to talk about it. Today: stories about glitchy apps, leaky paint cans, broken sculptures — and a quest for the perfect bowl of ramen. </p><p> </p><p>RESOURCES</p><ul><li>"<a href="https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/AAUP%20Data ... Show More
<p>Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on <i>Fail Better</i>, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the lessons that success could never teach.</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOURCES:</strong><ul><li><a href="https://www.imdb.co ... Show More
