Marguerite Yourcenar entered the Académie Française in 1981, the first woman to be admitted. Her novel Memoirs of Hadrian, published thirty years earlier, is ‘often considered the best French novel of the 20th century’, as Joanna Biggs wrote in a recent issue of the LRB. In this episode of the podcast, Joanna joins Tom to discuss Yourcenar’s life and work, a ... Show More
Today
Jessica Mitford’s Handbag
When Jessica Mitford (aka Decca) was eleven, in 1928, she opened a Running Away Account at Drummonds Bank. A few years later she ran away to Spain to help in the fight against Franco, and not long after that moved to the US where she became a naturalised citizen and joined the Co ... Show More
50m 44s
Jan 21
Buckley, MAGA’s Patron Saint
‘Anti-communist dandy, scourge of Ivy League administrators, magazine chieftain, amanuensis to Joe McCarthy, father-confessor of the Nixon White House, Ronald Reagan consigliere: is it any wonder that William F. Buckley is still the patron saint of the American right?’, Thomas M ... Show More
47m 30s
Feb 2025
Casanova, l'amour à Venise (1/3)
Si sa vie a tout d’une légende, Giacomo Casanova a bel et bien existé. Au XVIIIe siècle, ce libertin irrésistible partage la couche de plus d’une centaine de femmes. Mais sa destinée ne se limite pas à ses conquêtes : de conseiller d'un roi à prisonnier dans la plus cruelle des c ... Show More
34 m
Nov 2013
Albert Camus - The Outsider
One hundred years after his birth this month’s World Book Club, will be discussing Albert Camus' seminal novel The Outsider with his acclaimed biographer Oliver Todd, and Professor of French at Sheffield University, David Walker. And appropriately the programme comes from the hea ... Show More
53m 21s
Oct 2024
La légende noire de la reine Margot (2/4)
Coquette, Marguerite sait comment plaire et collectionne les amants. Sa vie sexuelle sulfureuse provoque le scandale à la cour, mais aussi en Europe. Visionnaire, la reine Margot va avoir une grande influence sur la mode de l’époque.
"Secrets d'Histoire" est un podcast d'Initial ... Show More
28m 3s
Nov 2024
Harriet Constable in “les Rencontres” — CHANEL Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon
<p>Listen to author and critic Erica Wagner in conversation with Harriet Constable, writer of “The Instrumentalist”, her first novel published by Bloomsbury in 2024, in which she retraces the story of musical prodigy Anna Maria della Pietà, student of Antonio Vivaldi. Through thi ... Show More
39m 45s