Literary Friction

Our last minisode was about mothers, so in the name of equity (and riffing on Octavia’s statement that she’d rather be a dad) we’re extending the conversation to fathers in literature. The figure of the father has its own heavy symbolism, wrapped up with masculinity and the need to provide, and literature is filled with fathers from the admirable to the monstrous. We ask whether we expect as much from fathers in life and in books, and whether being a ‘bad’ father might pose a different kind of threat. Plus we get into the father memoir, how expectations are shifting, and the power of shame in creating more equal parenting roles. Enjoy!

This month's show is about East and Southeast Asian identity in Britain. We spoke to journalist Helena Lee about East Side Voices, the anthology of writing she edited that celebrates the diversity of these voices in the UK. We also spoke to poet and writer Will Harris about the poem he contributed and some of the other pieces from the collection, which features writers including Mary Jean Chan, Sharlene Teo, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan and Catherine Cho. These essays and poems cover a range of experiences and settings, from the set of Harry Potter to the NHS frontlines, and seek to combat the absence of representation in British culture in which East and Southeast Asian lives are often, to use Salman Rushdie’s words, "visible but unseen". Listen in for readings, music, plus all the usual recommendations. Recommendations: Octavia: Pisti, 80 rue de Belleville by Estelle Hoy Helena: Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda Will: Ultimatum Orangutan by Khairani Barokka Carrie: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman Find a l

In honour of the fact that a lot of our friends are suddenly becoming parents, this minisode is dedicated to mothers in literature. The figure of the mother is seriously heavy with symbolism - whether she’s the perfect mother or the monstrous mother, the mother we’re supposed to long for or the mother we’re supposed to fear. Then there's motherhood as an experience in all its complexity, with all its ambivalences and sacrifices and joys, and the politics that surround these choices and identity shifts. There's a lot to talk about! We definitely don't get through even half of it in a single show, but if you’d like some book recommendations about mothers and motherhood (or want to find out which of us would rather be a dad!) then this one’s for you.

It’s our last Literary Friction of 2021, so as usual it's time for our year in review show, packed full of recommendations just in time for your holiday shopping. 2021 may have been a bad year for going out, but it was a great year for books, and the voices that lifted us out of our lockdown torpor are particularly special to us now. Listen in for some of our favourite reads from the last year, a gentle check in on how our reading resolutions from 2020 went (clue: patchy), plus books we are looking forward to in 2022. We've posted a list of all the recommendations 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! Happy holidays everyone, catch you in the new year with our exciting 2022 programme. List of books recommended in this episode: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/2021-year-in-review Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction Email us: litfriction@gmail.com Tweet us & find us on Instagram:

Regular listeners will know that we love to get a little meta here on LF, and this month author Ruth Ozeki gave us the perfect excuse to indulge ourselves as we slide into the holiday season. Ruth's latest novel, The Book of Form and Emptiness, is about a boy named Benny who loses his father and shortly thereafter begins to hear the voices of inanimate objects, including the voice of the novel itself. In honour of Ruth, and Benny, this show is all about books about books. We'll dig into the ways that literature can be about itself, from books set in libraries to stories about writers to metafictional texts about their own means of creation, and ask what the joys and the pitfalls of this kind of self-referentiality can be - plus all the usual recommendations. Recommendations on the theme, Books About Books: Octavia: The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco Carrie: Writers & Lovers by Lily King General Recommendations: Octavia: The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial by Maggie Nelson Ruth: The Alep

In the wake of the COP26 summit in Glasgow we are thinking a lot about climate crisis and the role literature can play in galvanising people to take action. We want to think about how fiction, poetry, and non-fiction writing can approach climate crisis beyond showing how terrible it will be in the future - is there a way to write about the subject that's not only disaster fiction? How do we move out of what Jenny Offill calls 'the twilight knowing' into full comprehension? Listen in for our thoughts on all this plus lots of recommendations for books that address the climate crisis either directly or indirectly. Find a list of some of the books we talked about at: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/minisode-26-twilight-knowing

Social hierarchies and the metrics of status and success are a part of life accepted by some and rejected by others, but whatever your position, they are hard to escape. There are lots of novels about characters climbing proverbial ladders, from Patrick Bateman rising through the ranks in the workplace in American Psycho to Becky Sharpe social climbing in Vanity Fair. Our guest this month is Natasha Brown, whose debut novel Assembly follows a Black British woman preparing for a garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, and thinking through the stories she exists within - stories of class, race, and the meaning of success. She's ticked all the 'right' boxes, went to a good university, has a cushy job in finance, owns her flat, and yet she begins to question the cost of her complicity in a system that will never fully accept her. We get into how books can enforce these kinds of social norms or subvert them, and whether fiction is a good place to question these structures, plus all the usual recommendations

This minisode we are leaning even further into our autumnal and back to school-ish vibe to talk about The Campus Novel, a genre that includes some beloved books and some much less beloved books, but remains enduring nevertheless. Why is there such an appetite for novels about university life? Are these stories mostly wish fulfilment narratives for older men who fear irrelevance? Is it always an elitist set-up? Listen in as we dig into these questions and more.

Can you have freedom without constraint? What role does it play in creativity, and can it be productive as well as limiting? This month our guest is the thinker and writer Maggie Nelson, whose latest book, On Freedom, explores the concept of freedom via four wide-ranging essays about art, sex, drugs and climate. Its subtitle is Four Songs of Care and Constraint, so we thought we’d make this month’s show about the boundaries that are often the counterpoint to freedom. Tune in for Maggie’s thoughts on – to borrow a phrase from Judith Butler – ‘working the trap’, our favourite books about constraint, plus all the usual recommendations. Recommendations on the theme, Constraint: Octavia: The Mad Women’s Ball by Victoria Mas, translated by Frank Wynne Carrie: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison General Recommendations: Octavia: Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden-Keefe Maggie: My Brother by Jamaica Kinkaid Carrie: Train Dreams by Denis Johnson Find a list of all recommended books at: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/octob

School is a loooong way in our past, but the imprint of that new start in September cycle runs deep, so in this minisode we are leaning into that back-to-school feeling. It also feels like there are more brilliant books on the horizon than ever this autumn, and we want to pay homage to our big and exciting to-read piles by telling you about some of the books we’re most jazzed to read in the coming months. Get your pencils out and take some notes!

It's September, the leaves are starting to turn, and we're kicking off our Autumn season with a vital conversation about the power of writing for change. Our guest is the author Shon Faye, who joined us to discuss her hotly anticipated first book, The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice. It's a necessary and inspiring text in which she argues that we're having the wrong conversation about trans people, and that the struggle for trans liberation is all of our struggle. In honour of Shon's book, which aims to change the terms of a cultural conversation, we'll talk more widely about books that seek to shift perspectives, including the ones that shifted ours. It's good to be back! Recommendations on the theme, Writing for Change: Octavia: The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud Carrie: Ways of Seeing by John Berger General Recommendations: Octavia: Paul by Daisy Lafarge Shon: The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan Carrie: Circe by Madeline Miller Find a list of all recommended books at: https://uk.

We're on our summer break, which gives us a chance to re-run this brilliant conversation we had with punk superstar Viv Albertine when she dropped by the studio a few years ago to talk about her memoir, To Throw Away Unopened. Nothing grants insight into lived experience quite like a memoir, but the form can accommodate so much more than that, and Viv's book takes in many things alongside its descriptions of her experiences growing up as a working-class kid in London, and her complicated relationship with her extraordinary mother. So, tune in for a show celebrating memoirs that take us from the experience of giving birth to coming out to what it’s like to be in a world-famous band, via all the richness and thorny issues that this form promises, and we'll be back with a new episode in September.

It’s hot here, the sky is blue, the air smells sweet, and we are about to take our summer break, so we wanted this last minisode of the season to be a little ode to one of our very favourite things about this time of year: the ocean. Of course, the sea is for all seasons, but there is something magical about it in the summer - swimming in it, gazing at it, dreaming of it... that shimmery, glittery blue and green stretching all the way to the horizon. Writers and poets have been enthralled by it forever, so listen in as we ponder what it is about the ocean that will always be so captivating, and we'll be back with a new show in September.

Many of us have significant relationships with our grandparents, but is this reflected in literature? From Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Olive Kitteridge, which fictional grandparents have stayed with you? This month, we’re really excited to welcome the author Anuk Arudpragasam to talk about his second novel, A Passage North. It's a beautiful, meditative book about a young man named Krishan, who must take a train from Colombo to Northern Sri Lanka to attend a funeral. His relationship with his grandmother is a central part of the story, so we're dedicating this show to the elders of literature. We'll be asking what grandparents symbolise in family dynamics, and wondering why there seem to be so few grandparents in contemporary literature, so put the kettle on, get comfy, and imagine we're offering you a Werther's original for the next hour of Literary Friction. Recommendations on the theme, Grandparents: Octavia: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende Carrie: Olive Kitteridge and O

Inspired by Deborah Levy's recommendation of The Friend by Sigrid Nunez - about the surprising friendship between a woman and a Great Dane named Apollo - this show is dedicated to: pets! Furry best friends or unfairly subjugated creatures? Is it ever possible to love animals ethically? Which pets from the pages of literature have stuck in our minds, and why? Tune in for odes to the animals in our lives, plus a cameo from an irascible peacock named Oberon. If you'd like to suggest themes for us to explore, and get an extra minisode each month, you can subscribe to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction

This month, our guest is the inimitable author Deborah Levy, whose latest book, Real Estate, is the third instalment in her acclaimed living autobiography trilogy. It's a book about a lot of things - being a writer, being a woman, how we make and remake a life, and what we ultimately leave behind. But it's also about real estate, which got us thinking about the importance of buildings, houses and homes in literature. How can books help us understand where and how we make our homes? Why is the haunted house such an enduring symbol? And how is the value of property different for 'generation rent'? So if you want to check out some hot property, join us for all this plus the usual recommendations. Recommendations on the theme, Real Estate: Octavia: In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado Carrie: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters General Recommendations: Octavia: Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters Deborah: The Friend by Sigrid Nunez Carrie: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas Find lists of all recommended bo

Book criticism - it’s a divisive topic, and one people feel very strongly about. Do you secretly relish a hatchet job, or think there's only space for glowing reviews?What actually is the function of criticism, and what makes it good or bad? Can it ever be truly impartial? This month's theme was recommended by our patron Angelique, and it's one we really enjoyed digging into. Tune in for Carrie's favourite critics, O's favourite Rilke quote, plus a cultural recommendation from the actual outside world! If you'd like to suggest themes for us to explore, and get an extra minisode each month, then you can subscribe to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction

Our guest this month is the novelist Rachel Kushner, who we have been huge fans of ever since we read her novel The Flamethrowers. Rachel’s latest book is a collection of essays, The Hard Crowd. Though it covers a lot of ground, the collection returns often to the rebels and misfits and outsiders living on the edge of society - a theme in her fiction too. Inspired by Rachel's work, for this show we're talking about ‘hard crowds’ in literature, from the ultraviolent gang in Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange to musicians living on the edge in their memoirs. So, climb on the back of our hogs and take a ride with us for the next hour of Literary Friction… Recommendations on the theme, Hard Crowds: Octavia: Nicotine by Nell Zink https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/nicotine?variant=32557710442574 Carrie: Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson https://us.macmillan.com/author/denisjohnson/ General recommendations: Octavia: No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/no-one-is-talking-ab

Some people treat books like they are sacred objects, others scribble all over them (or even cut them in half). Of course, books are objects, but they're also portals to other universes, new ways of thinking, adventures, romances, and more. The suggestion for this theme was sent to us on Patreon by a patron called Agnes - who asked if we’d talk about how we relate to books as things, as well as vessels for thoughts and experiences. Tune in to find out who is a profligate page folder, who underlines in pen, and who once threw a library book in a puddle of mud (gasp!). If you'd like to suggest themes for us to explore then you can subscribe to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction

Everyone needs a little magic from time to time, and this episode is brimming with it. We spoke to Leone Ross about her sensuous, absorbing new novel, This One Sky Day, which is set in the fictional Carribean archipelago of Popisho, where everyone is born with a certain magical gift, or cors. It's a story about many things, but mainly of two lovers trying to find their way back to one another over the course of a single day while the world shifts around them. We spoke to Leone about the subversive potential of magical realism, it's political power, and why some people are still so snobby about it. So listen in for our interview with Leone, a more general discussion of the literature of magical realism, and finally our usual book recommendations, and let us whisk you away to a better place for an hour. Recommendations on the theme, Magical Realism: Octavia: Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/571/57141/fictions/9780141183848.html Carrie: One Hundred Year