‘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 developed and expanded into a book of the same title, Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up, and helps us to address the central question: what must we give up in order to feel more alive? Phillips was joined in conversation by Dame Hermione Lee. Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspod Buy On Giving Up: lrb.me/givinguppod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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