Hello, I'm James Wood, and this year on the LRB's Close Reading's podcast, I'm asking,

Who's Afraid of Realism? I'll be taking a range of great novels and short stories,

from Flobe's Madame Bovary and Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, up to more recent works

by Amit Chowdhury and Gwendolyn Riley. And I'll be examining what makes and makes

for the real. How does realism produce its effects? What's the difference between artifice

and artificiality? And who is and has been afraid of realism and why? The series starts with

two episodes on Madame Bovary, which you can listen to right now.

And in the third episode, I'll be talking to Adam Thurlwell about Dostoevsky.

You can find a link in the description, or search close readings, wherever you get your podcasts.

Music You're listening to the London Review of Books podcast. I'm Thomas Jones. And to continue our summer of sport on the NRP podcast following my conversation

last time with David Trotter about golf. I'm talking today with Edmund Gordon about tennis

and what it takes or appears to take and what you have to give to become a truly great tennis player.

Edmund is the author of The Invention of Angela Carter,

and he teaches creative writing at King's College London,

but he's also the father of an eight-year-old tennis player.

And he had a piece in a recent issue of the LRB,

reviewing four books about the so-called golden generation

of Federer Nadal and Jockovich.

And Murray?

I'm a big Murray fan.

I sort of limited it to the big three rather than the big four in that piece.

Yeah.

...