Literary Friction
Episodes
Minisode Five: Let's Hear It For The Beach Reads!
29 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Isn’t this beautiful weather we’re having? Doesn’t it make you feel like running sand between your fingers and toes? Now that summer is very muc...
Literary Friction - The Science Of Bias With Jennifer Eberhardt
15 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We know that literature - like all culture - is biased, but can books also be a way of recognising and combating stereotypes? Our guest, Dr Jennifer E...
Literary Friction - Minisode Four: Guilty Pleasures
30 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On Minisode Four we're thinking about our literary guilty pleasures - those books we might not want people to know we read, because we fear their judg...
Literary Friction - Poetry With Hannah Sullivan
17 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the words of celebrated Canadian poet Anne Carson, “if prose is a house, poetry is a man on fire running quite fast through it”. Whether you’...
Literary Friction - Minisode Three: Red Flags
02 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The writer Laura Relyea recently tweeted the question ‘What books are automatic red flags for you with people?’ and it got over 12,000 likes and 4...
Literary Friction - Migration With Valeria Luiselli
26 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In a world increasingly dominated by xenophobia and wall-building, this month we wanted to look to the books that cross borders instead. So our theme ...
Literary Friction Special - Yelena Moskovich Live At Jewish Book Week
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We're thrilled to bring you this podcast special: a recording of our live interview with author Yelena Moskovich at Jewish Book Week. We talked about ...
Literary Friction - Minisode Two: Literary Crushes
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We’re very pleased to report that Minisode One went down really well so we're back with another one for your pleasure. Last time we talked about boo...
Literary Friction - Brothers With Claire Adam
20 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
From Cain and Abel, to the Brothers Karamazov, to Fred and George Weasley, the pages of literature have been filled with memorable brothers. This mont...
Literary Friction - Minisode One: Books We Hate
05 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to our first ever minisode! We’ve wanted to bring you more literary friction for a while, so thought we’d follow the lead of some of our f...
Literary Friction - Into The Woods With Luke Turner
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Are the woods a joyous escape from the morals and prying eyes of polite society, or a dark and forbidding place where no-one is safe? Or both? How is ...
Literary Friction - Year in review with Ann Wroe
05 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In honour of the arrival of 2019, this month we’ll be looking back at the last year in books, discussing what we most enjoyed, and looking forward t...
Literary Friction - Masculinity with Thomas Page McBee
29 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a man? Why do men fight? Is there a crisis of masculinity? These are some of the questions that authors from Ernest Hemingway to Grayson Pe...
Literary Friction - History with Esi Edugyan
31 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From Ivanhoe to Wolf Hall to The Essex Serpent, what is it about the historical novel that is so compelling? This month, we spoke to Canadian author E...
Literary Friction - High Society with Patrick deWitt
03 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Who wants to be a millionaire? This month, darlings, we’re talking about all things hoity-toity, posh and expensive - our theme is High Society. Why...
Literary Friction - Rest & Relaxation with Ottessa Moshfegh
05 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone needs to peace out from time to time, so this month we’re talking about the fictional trope of rest and relaxation, and how authors have ex...
Literary Friction - Youth Culture with Guy Gunaratne
09 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Youth culture: is it the territory of fashion and music, or can novels tell us something about the teenage experience? This month is dedicated to the ...
Literary Friction - State Of The Nation with Olivia Laing
10 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Western politics is a mess right now, so what better time to discuss the role of the State of the Nation novel - those books that capture the zeitgeis...
Literary Friction - Small Towns with Jon McGregor
13 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Whether it’s Jefferson, Mississippi in the novels of William Faulkner, or coastal Maine in Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, or even the Shire,...
Literary Friction - On The Road With Damian Le Bas
16 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Our theme this month is ‘On the Road’ and no - we’re not spending an hour discussing Jack Kerouac (phew). Instead, we’ll be talking about all ...
Literary Friction - Memoir With Viv Albertine
17 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Nothing grants insight into lived experience quite like a memoir, and the form is currently having a resurgence. This month, we celebrate the memoirs ...
Literary Friction - Rediscovery with Nell Dunn & Jennifer Hodgson
21 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This show is dedicated to rediscovered literature - all the neglected gems that have been reintroduced to the world by passionate publishers, writers ...
Literary Friction - A Spoonful Of Sugar With Leila Slimani
23 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As the most famous nanny in the world once said, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but you won't need to sweeten the deal as you listen ...
Literary Friction - Novellas with Cynan Jones
05 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The novella - a book that you can devour in a day, or even a single sitting. Feared by contemporary publishing but loved by readers, some of the most ...
Literary Friction - Shame With Pajtim Statovci
07 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
From Adam and Eve to Hester Prynne to Cersie Lannister, characters in literature have been motivated by and undone by shame, so this month we decided ...
Literary Friction - Know Your Place with Kit de Waal + Nathan Connolly + Abondance Matanda
04 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
After Brexit - the supposed ‘will of the people’ - everyone is talking about the working class. And yet the actual voice of the working class is r...
Literary Friction - The Everyday with Karl Ove Knausgaard
05 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It's September, the leaves are turning and Autumn has arrived, so in honour of this return to reality we bring you a show about the everyday, the mund...
Literary Friction - The Silver Screen With Dana Spiotta
10 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since the Lumière brothers showed their 1895 film of a train pulling into a station, we have been captivated by the silver screen, and this mont...
Literary Friction - Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge and Kishani Widyaratna
13 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This month we're discussing a subject that isn't covered enough: race in Britain. Our brilliant author/guest is Reni Eddo-Lodge, who came in to talk a...
Literary Friction - Conversations With Sally Rooney
14 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We have a very meta show for you this month: the theme is conversation, so we’ll be talking about writing about talking, from the conversation betwe...
Literary Friction - Essays With Brian Dillon
17 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The literary essay is a slippery and expansive form, and has encompassed everything from an attempt to define the word ‘camp’ to a dispatch from a...
Literary Friction - Medicine with David France and Sarah Moss
20 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
From Thomas Mann to Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande, library shelves heave with stories about the struggle to understand and overcome illness. This mont...
Literary Friction - Immigrants With Julianne Pachico
23 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It seems the Western world has begun to eat itself, so in defiance, this month we bring you a show celebrating the rich diversity of immigrants in lit...
Literary Friction - Illustrations With Sara Baume
03 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Do illustrations have a place in the novel? Pictures were commonplace in nineteenth-century books by authors like Thackeray and Dickens, and yet today...
Literary Friction - Short Stories With Jessie Greengrass
27 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The short story is literature in a single shot, and the form has many masters, from Guy de Maupassant to Edgar Allan Poe to Lorrie Moore to Junot Diaz...
Literary Friction - Future Sex With Emily Witt
05 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Baby, it's cold outside, so come and warm your cockles with us as we talk FUTURE SEX. Writer Emily Witt joined us all the way from America to talk abo...
Literary Friction - Resistance with Salena Godden
05 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the next United States, and we are despairing. But we’re also preparing: this worldwide trend towa...
Literary Friction - Bohemian Rhapsody With Eimear McBride
03 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This month we're joined by the celebrated Irish author Eimear McBride, who came in to discuss her fabulous second novel The Lesser Bohemians. In honou...
Literary Friction - The Death Of America With Gary Younge
17 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Each week we seem to get more news about violent deaths in America. What is it with America and violence, America and guns? And what can books tell us...
Literary Friction - Back to School: The Ultimate Reading List
15 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It's that time of year again - leaves are falling and publishers are pushing out their heavy-weight literary titles - so this month we're going BACK T...
Literary Friction - Translation with Milena Busquets, Deborah Smith and Meike Ziervogel.
17 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve got the Brexit Blues here on Literary Friction, so for this show we’re celebrating something that bridges borders rather than closes them: l...
Literary Friction - Black Sheep With Joanna Cannon
18 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ever wonder if you're with the flock, or against it? British author and psychiatric doctor Joanna Cannon’s debut novel The Trouble with Goats and Sh...
Literary Friction - Abstract Romanticism with Chris Kraus
20 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
We are incredibly excited to be joined by American artist and writer Chris Kraus, here to discuss her novel I Love Dick. A feminist classic from the 9...
Literary Friction - Vile Bodies with Sara Pascoe
24 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The body – especially the female body – has forever been an object of literary fascination and desire. But what about the intimate bits that make ...
Literary Friction - Down The Rabbit Hole with Kevin Barry
22 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Spring has sprung, so we're going down the rabbit hole with Kevin Barry, who joins us this month to talk about Beatlebone, his wonderful novel about a...
Literary Friction - Objects With Harry Parker
29 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Harry Parker's debut novel Anatomy of a Soldier is narrated by objects, 45 things – ranging from dog tags to a bomb to a mattress – that witness t...
Literary Friction - New Voices LIVE with Ned Beauman, Evie Wyld, Joanna Cannon and Faber New Poets
08 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In January we teamed up with our friends at Faber Social and put together an evening of live literary excitement with the theme of 'New Voices'. It wa...
Literary Friction - OZ With Evie Wyld
28 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Oz, that mythical land, where days are hotter than chilli sauce and water goes down the plughole the wrong way... This month we're talking to Evie Wyl...
Literary Friction - Arrested Development with Emma Jane Unsworth
25 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Christmas is all about kids, big and small, so our present to you is our Arrested Development show from earlier this year - we were joined by the wond...
Literary Friction - Generations with Sara Taylor
07 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This month novelist Sara Taylor joins us for a show all about literary families that span multiple generations. From the Forsytes of The Forsyte Saga ...
Literary Friction - Last Night A DJ Saved My Life W/ David Cavanagh
05 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This month we're joined by author and journalist David Cavanagh for a show all about music in literature. David's book, Good Night and Good Riddance, ...
Literary Friction - Animal Grammar with Max Porter
15 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This month we're interviewing Max Porter about his first book, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, which features Crow – antagonist, trickster, healer...
Literary Friction - Corpses With Caitlin Doughty
30 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This month’s theme is Corpses, and our guest is Caitlin Doughty, whose book Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: and Other Lessons from the Crematory is a fasci...
Literary Friction - Confessions with Petina Gappah
14 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This month we interview Guardian First Book Award winner Petina Gappah, whose new novel THE BOOK OF MEMORY is narrated by an albino woman convicted of...
Literary Friction - Imposters With Sarah Perry
12 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This month’s guest is Sarah Perry, who joins us to talk about her gothic, dreamy debut novel AFTER ME COMES THE FLOOD. The theme is imposters, encom...
Literary Friction - The Hidden City w/ Ramita Navai
13 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This month we talk to Ramita Navai about her fascinating book CITY OF LIES: Love, Sex, Death & the Search for Truth in Tehran, and discuss the hidden ...
Literary Friction - Coastlines with Patrick Barkham
17 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Joining us this month is Patrick Barkham, whose book COASTLINES: The Story of our Shore is a history of the swathes of English coast protected by the ...
Literary Friction - Politics w/ Terry Stiastny
01 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This month we talk to Terry Stiastny, whose debut novel ACTS OF OMISSION won the Political Novel of the Year. We also discuss politics in literature. ...