Year of Wonder: Classical Music For Every Day
Have you ever wanted to know more about the classical canon but had no idea where to begin? Are you an aficionado who would like to widen your acquaintance with sublime music? Clemency Burton-Hill selects one piece of music for each day of the year in an interactive guide that allows you to listen as […]
Escapades in Food and Wine
Speakers: Nina Caplan, Elisabeth Luard, Matthew Stadlen New Statesman wine critic, Nina Caplan, explores the history of the grape, depicting delightful portraits of the eccentric characters she meets – from Catalonia to the Sussex Downs – all sharing her passion for wine. Award-winning food writer and illustrator, Elizabeth Luard, offers an enchanting food memoir, as […]
Family Angst
Speakers: Claire Armitstead, Amanda Craig, Francesca Segal Fractured and fractious families are at the heart of two witty contemporary morality tales. Amanda Craig’s The Lie of the Land traces the trajectory of the sexually unquenchable Quentin and his unhappy partner, Lottie, whose problems only escalate when they decamp to Devon’s remote arcadia. Francesca Segal’s razor-sharp, […]
Feeling Jewish (a book for just about anyone)
Speakers: Devorah Baum, Josh Cohen Why are ‘negative’ feelings such as self-hatred, guilt, resentment, paranoia, hysteria, and overbearing mother-love characterised as ‘Jewish’? In her sparkling debut, Devorah Baum delves into film, fiction and psychoanalysis. In so doing, she explores what it’s like to be a Jewish woman, shining a light on cultural icons from Groucho […]
Gershom Scholem – Stranger In A Strange Land
Speakers: Zvi Leshem, George Prochnik George Prochnik, in a vivid and compelling mix of biography and personal memoir, traces the life and thought of the visionary founder of the modern study of Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, from his alienated childhood in Berlin, to his emigration to the land of his dreams, where he finds himself once […]
Just Not Kosher
Speakers: Rick Pushinsky, Steven Morris, Tanya Gold Steven Morris has always cooked; his photographer son Rick Pushinsky has always eaten. Just Not Kosher is a stunning collection of recipe cards that began as a family archive of Steven’s 60 years of ‘making a mess in the kitchen’. For Rick, this repository was not just a […]
Making Sense of Terror
Speakers: Gabrielle Rifkind, Rowan Summerville, Hugo Rifkind Gabrielle Rifkind offers a unique insight into the psychology of political extremism. When we talk about IS and similar groups, we approach them as political organisations. What, however, would Sigmund Freud have made of these deadly entities? We need to ask the question: Do the inner disquiets of […]
Melanie Phillips and Maureen Lipman in conversation
Speakers: Maureen Lipman, Melanie Phillips, Tanya Gold Doyennes of the media and stage, Melanie Phillips and Maureen Lipman, explore their politics, passions, writing, journalism and broadcasting, coinciding with the print publication of Melanie Phillips’ memoir, Guardian Angel, and her first novel, The Legacy.
Moral Dilemmas
We are a people with the baggage of millennia. The practice and tradition contained in our book of books concerning fundamental life lessons are often forgotten or misunderstood. Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum interviews Rabbi Joseph Dweck, a leading religious voice in Anglo-Jewry today, on his interpretations of the biblical prophets.
The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
Speakers: Erica Wagner, Martin Knight The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the iconic landmarks of the New York skyline; it has stood for more than 130 years, taking fourteen dramatic years to complete. In Chief Engineer, Erica Wagner tells the riveting story of the bridge’s construction and of Washington Roebling, the man who built it, […]
The Némirovsky Question
Speakers: Susan Suleiman Irène Némirovsky was a literary superstar of the 1920s and 1930s but a controversial figure in her lifetime, seen by some as a self-hating Jew. Born in Tsarist Russia, she fled to France, becoming an overnight sensation with the publication of David Golder. Her novel Suite Française was published in 2004 to […]
Warner Bros and the Making of the American Dream
David Thomson is arguably the world’s greatest living film critic and writer on the movies. His New Biographical Dictionary of Film was voted by Sight and Sound the best book on film ever written. His latest book, Warner Bros, charts the history of the ultimate family business, taking us behind the scenes of the legendary […]