Our summer books and films special: what to read and watch
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2022
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week is our summer books and films spectacular, full of recommendations of things to read and watch. First, Lilah is joined by literary editors Fred Studemann and Laura Battle to explore the FT's Summer Books special. They suggest a range of light summer reads, sharp non-fiction, deep dives, thrillers and classics to take on your summer holiday, and talk trends in book publishing. Then, deputy arts editor Raphael Abraham recommends the top films to look out for this summer. After watching 24 films in less than a week at the Cannes film festival, he's filtered the new releases down to a must-see list.
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Tell us about your own favourite new books and films! We’ll share them alongside the episode on our social platforms. Email us at [email protected]. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.
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Here’s Laura’s list of the best fiction summer reads: https://on.ft.com/3AvtuPg. The whole summer books special is at http://ft.com/summerbooks.
Books mentioned:
–Audiobooks: Bad Actors by Mick Herron and Ulysses by James Joyce
–Novels that span centuries: To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara and Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel
–Beach read: You Made a Fool of Death with your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi
–Fun non-fiction: Circus of Dreams by John Walsh
–Empire books: Legacy of Violence by Caroline Elkin and In the Shadow of the Gods by Dominic Lieven
–BRussian influence: Putin’s People by Catherine Belton and Butler to the World by Oliver Bullough
–AI simulation: The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier
Stories mentioned:
–Marriage in all its divine tedium: https://on.ft.com/3KXOBfm
–Edward Luce on whether America is headed for another civil war: https://on.ft.com/3yJ43az
Films to watch this summer, from Raph:
–Aftersun: https://on.ft.com/3uUt9lJ
–Nitram: https://on.ft.com/3auhgvs
–Hit the Road
–McEnroe
–Three Thousand Years of Longing: https://on.ft.com/3nMshLK
–Elvis: https://on.ft.com/3P1Uaeu
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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you're going on vacation this summer, you're going to want a few books to take with you. |
| 0:06.3 | And if you'll be in transit, you might opt for an audiobook. |
| 0:10.2 | I'll let you in on something. |
| 0:11.4 | I tend to listen to thrillers on audio, and I would call it to highlight Mick Heron's latest bad actors. |
| 0:19.9 | But this year, I've been listening to Ulysses. Wow. This is |
| 0:24.7 | a late summer read. Fred's light summer read. Yeah, exactly. That's Fred Studeman, the F.T.'s |
| 0:29.7 | Literary Editor. He's talking to me and our Deputy Books editor, Laura Battle, about his summer |
| 0:34.7 | book picks. And as you heard, one of them is the audio book of |
| 0:39.2 | Ulysses by James Joyce. Notoriously, that is one of the harder books to decipher in the English |
| 0:44.8 | language. How many hours is that, Fred, or weeks of your life, is that? |
| 0:49.5 | Look, I'll be honest with you. I started in February, it's an ongoing project. I think it's in |
| 0:56.5 | but I just like I just love the way of dipping in and out and it's read by Jim Norton. It's done |
| 1:02.9 | very well and he captures those sort of crazy moments when bloomers in a pub and there's sort of |
| 1:08.2 | 12 different voices going on at the same time. Whether everyone |
| 1:12.9 | listening here would thank me for saying, take that to the beach, I don't know. Today we meet with |
| 1:20.8 | Fred and Laura, who will give us an excellent list of summer books to take on holiday. We'll talk |
| 1:25.6 | about new fiction and nonfiction published this year, |
| 1:28.4 | from thrillers to romance to a novel that suggests that we're living in a simulation. Then Deputy |
| 1:34.3 | Arts editor Raphael Abraham brings us through the best summer movies. Welcome to our summer |
| 1:40.5 | recommendations spectacular. This is FD Weekend. I'm Lila Roptopoulos. |
| 1:52.5 | Every summer, the FT publishes a range of book recommendations from our top editors and writers |
| 1:57.9 | based on the best books to have come out so far this year. |
... |
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