89 Primo Levi

The second half of the twentieth century was marked by an extreme increase in America's prison population, from roughly 250,000 inmates in 1940 to well over two million by 2008. At the same time, American readers were devouring mysteries, thrillers, detective novels, police proce ...  Show more

At the time of Washington Irving's death, he was the most famous and widely praised American writer of his or any other era. But his reputation soon dwindled, and today he's known primarily as the author of just two stories ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle"), wh ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Italian author of Invisible Cities, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Cosmicomics and other celebrated novels, fables and short stories of the 20th Century. Calvino (1923 -1985) had a passionate belief that writing and art could make life bet ...  Show more

In this week’s episode we pay tribute to the periodic table. We talk to Sam Kean, author of the best-selling book The Disappearing Spoon and hear an excerpt from Primo Levi’s book The Periodic Table.

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This isn't an episode of Overdue, it's a Feed Drop! We wanted to share with you an episode of The History of Literature, a podcast about great stories and why we love them.To use host Jacke Wilson's words, the show "takes a fresh look at some of the most compelling examples of cr ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Portuguese poet Pessoa (1888-1935) who was largely unknown in his lifetime but who, in 1994, Harold Bloom included in his list of the 26 most significant western writers since the Middle Ages. Pessoa wrote in his own name but mainly in the name ...  Show more