Critic and novelist Margaret Drabble joins us to review the life and work of Muriel Spark, whose centenary we mark this year; Samuel Graydon discusses a new exhibition on J. R. R. Tolkien, including drawings and doodles, language trees and fan mail; the TLS's History editor David Horspool introduces a selection of new work on the medieval period
Works discussed
The Centenary Edition of the Novels of Muriel Spark, edited by Alan Taylor
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth, an exhibition at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, with accompanying book by Catherine McIlwaine
‘Finding Henry – Why England’s most powerful medieval monarch should be better remembered’ by Claudia Gold, in this week’s TLS
Medieval Bodies: Life, death and art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell
Sea of Caliphs: The Mediterranean in the medieval Islamic world by Christophe Picard, translated by Nicholas Elliott
The Oxford English Literary History, Volume 1: 1000–1350: Conquest and Transformation by Laura Ashe
Egos and experiments
Finer points of murder
Icons familiar and unfamiliar
Mary Beard's 'Introduction to the Odyssey' – a bonus episode
Highlights from 2018 – a bonus episode
Arts of the Year 2018
Ode to the orca
Who on earth was William Gilbert?
Our problem with cows
The best books of 2018
Is it accurate to call Donald Trump a fascist?
WW1: Remembering / forgetting
Remembering Peterloo
BONUS: Must read – must buy?
1844, remember the date...
Ever-enigmatic Leonardo da Vinci
An Odyssey for everyone
Radical Cheltenham and a poem from Paul Muldoon
Diarmaid MacCulloch on Thomas Cromwell
Mexico's great disgrace
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Covert Narcissism Podcast
Greece Travel Secrets Podcast
That Park Life: a Disney World Podcast
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL