Literary Friction

When journalists write books, how do they balance the potentially tricky relationship between weaving a compelling narrative and sticking to the facts? What's the role of storytelling in reportage? And what are the ethics of reporting on other peoples' lived experiences? This month our guest is Tania Branigan, foreign leader writer at The Guardian and author of Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution. Tania was a correspondent in China for seven years, and Red Memory is about the Cultural Revolution, a decade of upheaval, purging and torture that began under Chairman Mao in 1966. Crucially, it’s also about the act of both remembering and forgetting this period, and the role the Chinese government and people have played in that process. Listen in for our chat with Tania, an exploration of journalism in literature and all the usual recommendations. Recommendations on the theme, Journalism: Octavia: Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion Carrie: The Orchid Thief by Susan

Money makes the world go round: it's an inescapable presence in our lives, and yet in a lot of cultures it's still a pretty big conversational taboo. Here in the UK right now there’s a serious cost of living crisis after years of terrible Conservative rule, the newspapers are full of often extremely patronising articles about how to ‘tighten your belt’, and it feels like everyone is talking about money without necessarily really talking about money. Are all books to some extent about money? Does the novel offer a useful way into thinking and talking about it? And where does the myth of The Writer who can afford to live off their writing alone come into it? Listen in as we dig into this, plus all the usual recommendations. Enjoy!

Portraits of real people abound in books. There are novels that use transcribed conversations, like Sheila Heti’s How Should A Person Be, or fiction based on historical or even living people, like Curtis Sittenfield’s Rodham. Our guest this month is the writer Kathryn Scanlan who joined us from the States to talk about her riveting new novel, Kick the Latch, which is based upon a series of conversations that Kathryn had with a woman named Sonia about her joyful and brutal life as a trainer for racehorses. Lydia Davis called Kick the Latch a “magical act of empathic ventriloquy”, and this show is about literature that engages in similar ways with the lives of others. We’ll be getting into things like the ethics of writing from another life in fiction, the art of biography, and our favourite literary portraits, plus all our usual reading recommendations. Recommendations on the theme, The Lives of Others: Octavia: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders Carrie: Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow General recommendati

Our January theme is heavily influenced by this time of year. Because the winter months are full of different feast days and celebrations, and because generally in the northern hemisphere it's a time where you just want to cocoon inside and feel warm, cosy and nurtured, we thought we’d talk about food and feasting in all kinds of literature. Whether in fiction or non-fiction, does reading about food make your mouth water? What can good food writing open up for a reader? And what about the politics of what kinds of food gets written about? Listen in for all this and more, plus our usual cultural recommendations.

We're on our end of year break, but didn't want to leave you without some LF to keep you company while you cook up your leftovers and potter around in your new socks. So, inspired by one of our new listeners, Charlotte, who tweeted to tell us how much she enjoyed an old episode, we’re re-running one of our favourite conversations from way back: in 2016 we met with Chris Kraus to talk about her book I Love Dick, which was being published in the UK for the first time. It's a classic of feminist literature first published in the States in 1997, a genre-bending novel about lust, desire and making art that investigates the power of infatuation and subverts the convention of the muse. We hope you enjoy listening and we'll be back with an absolutely belting new season in 2023!

Somehow it's already our last Literary Friction of 2022, which means as usual it's time for our year in review show, packed full of recommendations just in time for your holiday shopping. We've got you - and your Uncle Joe - covered, so listen in for some of our favourite reads from the last year, the usual gentle check in on how our reading revolutions from 2021 went (clue: still patchy), plus books we're looking forward to in 2023. We've posted a list of all the recommendations from this year on our page at Bookshop.org so click the link below to see everything lined up, and please remember to support your local independent bookshop by buying in store! Happy holidays everyone, catch you on the flipside with our extremely hot programme for 2023. List of books recommended in this episode: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/december-2022-year-in-review Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction Email us: litfriction@gmail.com Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction This episode is

When it comes to fiction, why are people so obsessed with authenticity and so appalled by literary deception? Does it matter who tells a story? And what do novels that confront these ideas have to tell us? Our guest this month is the writer Yiyun Li, whose latest novel The Book of Goose is about an intense friendship between two girls in rural postwar France. When Agnes and Fabienne write a book of stories together, a simple lie about the book’s authorship sends Agnes’ life in an unexpected direction. So in honour of their act of literary creation - and obfuscation - we wanted to devote our show to the idea of literary deception. Listen in for thoughts on authenticity, literary hoaxes, unreliable narrators and all the usual recommendations. Recommendations on the theme, Deception: Octavia: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee Carrie: The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante General recommendations: Octavia: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez Yiyun: The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McC

In this show we're getting to grips with graphic novels. What's the history of this kind of storytelling? What narrative possibilities does the form open up? We first explored this theme with the artist Nick Hayes all the way back in 2014 before this show was even a podcast, and we're returning to it now because our guest this month is the writer and artist Lizzy Stewart, whose debut graphic novel Alison was published this year. Alison is a subtle and beautiful story of a young woman who leaves her marriage and her rural life in Dorset for a much older, more sophisticated and famous painter in 1970s London. There she learns to find her own artistic voice, and reflects on a life lived in art. Listen in for a discussion of the graphic novels we love, the joys of the form, and all the usual reading recommendations. Recommendations on the theme, Graphic Novels: Octavia: The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel Carrie: Sabrina by Nick Drnaso General recommendations: Octavia: The Wolf Border by Sarah

This month we’re delighted to welcome Gabrielle Zevin to Literary Friction. Gabrielle’s latest novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is an engrossing and moving story of a multi-decade creative partnership between two video game designers, so we thought it only appropriate to make our theme today ‘playing games’. Listen in as we explore how games function in books like The Queen’s Gambit or Mansfield Park, the allure of choose your own adventure novels and the unique art of a game. Recommendations on the theme, Playing Games: Octavia: The King Must Die by Mary Renault Carrie: Roger Federer as Religious Experience by David Foster Wallace General Recommendations: Octavia: Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère Gabrielle: Trust by Hernan Diaz Carrie: Alison by Lizzie Stewart Ezra Klein interview with C Thi Nguyen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-philosophy-of-games-that-is-really-a-philosophy-of-life/id1548604447?i=1000552204773 Find a list of all recommended books at: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/october-20

For this minisode we’re doing something a little different - this episode is sponsored by publisher Picador, who this year have launched a new list of contemporary classics, called The Picador Collection, to coincide with their 50th anniversary year. With the aim of bringing seminal titles to a new generation of readers, the Picador Collection combines the gravitas of a modern classics list with the eccentric, boundary-pushing spirit of cult paperback publishing. To celebrate the collection, we interviewed the inimitable Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid, who has five books featured on this list. Then we talked to Stu Wilson, from the art department at Picador. The Picador Collection titles all have a fresh new look, designed by Katie Tooke, and Stu will be telling us about the work that went into designing the series, and the fascinating process of cover design more generally. We are ALSO running a competition with Picador! 5 lucky listeners will win a sturdy and now very rare Literary Friction tote,

It's autumn in the UK and we're full of that back to school feeling - fresh pencils, new pens and notebooks - so what better time for a minisode about correspondence. This theme was suggested by our patron Liza and we got really into it, not just because it's such a rich topic in literature (epistolary novels! fictional instant messenger chats! meaningful emails sent between friends!), but also because it got us thinking about the role of correspondence in our own lives (see: our ten years of conversation on whatsapp). So, listen in for our thoughts on writing and receiving letters, the romance of a good email, and a whole lot more. We're glad to be back!

We're on our summer break, which means we can re-run this excellent conversation we had with the French-Moroccan author Leïla Slimani in 2018. Leïla came in to talk to us about her second novel Lullaby (or Chanson Douce in French) which is about a middle-class couple in Paris and the nanny they hire to care for their children, who at first seems like the perfect caretaker. Inspired by the book, our theme was nannies, and the fascinating and sometimes fraught place that they occupy in our culture and in our books, from the magic caretaking of Mary Poppins to the killer babysitters of slasher B-movies. So, tune in for a spoonful of sugar and we'll be back with a brilliant new programme in September.

When does fandom tip over into unhealthy obsession? What are the power dynamics of being someone's fan, and how do they get exploited? This month author Sheena Patel joins Carrie to talk about her debut, I'm A Fan, a novel that gets to grips with power and relationships and what it means to be a fan. Octavia came back for the show chat to continue the conversations about fans and fandom - are we living in the age of the stan? What about celebrity memoirs? All this plus all the usual recommendations, we hope you enjoy it, love from your biggest fans at Team LF. Recommendations on the theme, Fandom: Octavia: Bluets by Maggie Nelson Carrie: Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh General Recommendations: Sheena: We Move by Gurnaik Johal and An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life by Paul Dalla Rosa Carrie: Lost & Found by Kathryn Schulz Find a list of all recommended books at: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/july-2022-fandom-with-sheena-patel Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction Email us: litfriction@gmail.

For this month's minisode, we thought we'd give our listeners a preview of some of the bonus minisodes that we're creating for our patreon subscribers. This is one we recorded in May 2021, and it's all about the history of Literary Friction. We had a lot of fun thinking back to when we were baby interviewers, so listen in for the fruits of Carrie's archival digging, our memories of the night we first met all those moons ago (clue: big earrings and a jumpsuit were involved), and our high points and low points over the years. We hope you enjoy it, and head over to patreon.com/litfriction if you'd like to support our show and hear more episodes like this one.

This month we're bringing you an author special with Elif Batuman, who joined Carrie in cyberspace to talk about her hilarious and original second novel Either/Or. In this extended interview, they discussed what makes a novel political, snobberies about structure and storytelling, learning to be funny on Twitter, the allure of the '90s, and much more. Plus the usual book recommendations. We hope you enjoy! Recommendations: Elif: The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili, translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin Carrie: Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell Find a list of all recommended books at: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/june-2022-special-with-elif-batuman Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction Email us: litfriction@gmail.com Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction This episode is sponsored by Picador: https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador

Spring is finally really happening here in the UK: the roses are out, we’ve swapped our coats for jackets, we even had dinner together outside the other night and watching the city come to life made us think about parties. Remember them? Parties! Outfits! Strangers in close proximity! The agony and the ecstasy of all that might happen... So, listen in for an ode to parties good, bad, imaginary and literary, plus all the usual recommendations. PLUS, your last chance to get your hands on one of our excellent tote bags, here: https://literaryfriction.myshopify.com/collections/all Patrons get an extra 20% off and you can subscribe here: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction

This minisode is a sister to our last one about bookshops - this month, we're talking about libraries. We love libraries! Those other places where you can go to get your hands on the books you want, the books you don’t yet know you want, the books that want you, and everything in between. Listen in for stories of the libraries and librarians that shaped us, our favourite libraries around the world, libraries in books and movies (Giles from Buffy gets an honourable mention) plus all the usual cultural recommendations. We are also about to launch another sale of our gorgeous, sturdy LF tote bags on Etsy in the next week or so, and there will be a special discount for Patrons. Keep your eyes on our socials for more info!

Whether it’s a single action that reverberates around a community, or the rupture of a break-up, literature is filled with memorable instants after which everything changes. Our guest this month is Amy Liptrot, who joined us from Orkney to talk about her second book The Instant, a memoir of Amy’s move from Scotland to Berlin, where she searches for racoons, tracks the moon, goes to techno clubs, looks for boyfriends, falls in love and has her heart broken. It’s also about connectivity and the instants that change our lives, and so in honour of Amy’s book our theme today is ‘the instant’ - we’ll be thinking about those moments in literature when things turn on a dime. Sit back, enjoy, and let us change the course of your life over the next hour on literary friction. Recommendations on the theme, The Instant: Octavia: All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld Carrie: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene General Recommendations: Octavia: Body Work: the radical power of personal narrative by Melissa Febos Amy: Time

The theme for this minisode was suggested by our patron Maria and it's a subject very close to our hearts: bookshops. We love bookshops - those magical places where you can get your hands on the books you want, the books you don’t yet know you want, the books that want you, and everything in between. Listen in for this ode to everything we love about bookshops and booksellers, including our earliest memories of hanging out in bookshops, our favourite bookshops in the UK and around the world, plus all the usual cultural recommendations. Enjoy!

We love a good satire here at LF, so we're thrilled this month to bring you a show dedicated to the form. Argentine writer and novelist Pola Oloixarac joined us from Barcelona to talk about her latest novel Mona, which has been translated from Spanish by Adam Morris. It's the story of a young Peruvian novelist invited to Sweden, where she's in the running for one of the most prestigious literary awards in Europe. There, she has a number of hilarious run-ins with authors from all over the world, but lurking beneath the surface is a memory of violence which cannot be fully suppressed. It's a biting and very funny satire of the literary world, so in honour of Mona this show is all about our favourite satirical work, from The Master and the Margarita to Catch 22. We'll get into what we think makes satire successful, and also some of the times it can fall flat, plus all the usual recommendations. Enjoy! Recommendations on the theme, Satire: Octavia: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Carrie: Catch 22