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Rabbitbox is Wayne Holloway-Smith’s first foray into long-form narrative, but retains the originality, compression and power which characterize his poetry collections (most recently Love Minus Love, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize). Exploring a mother and her young son’s reactions to an all-consuming domestic threat, Joelle Taylor has described how, in Rabbitbox, Holloway-Smith ‘bunches language like a fist, one that unravels into shadow butterflies’. Holloway-Smith was in conversation with the actor Adeel Akhtar. You can buy a copy of Rabbitbox from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Artist and film-maker Lauren J. Joseph’s first novel At Certain Points We Touch, described by Olivia Laing as ‘A stone-cold masterpiece’ was hailed as a Debut Novel of the Year by the Observer in 2022. Her second novel takes us from the night-spots of Soho to the febrile Berlin music scene. A story of obsession and excess, doppelgängers and disassociation, fame and the terrible things we do to feel loved, Lean Cat, Savage Cat (Bloomsbury) is an unforgettable novel from one of the most exciting writers at work today. The author was in conversation about her book with Olivia Laing, who describes it as ‘An erotic spectacular of self-creation and spiralling disintegration.’ You can buy a copy of Lean Cat, Savage Cat from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Isabel Waidner’s latest novel As If (Hamish Hamilton) is an existential farce exploring fading hopes and lost dreams through the medium of two very different, but very similar men. ‘Reading Waidner is like plugging into an electric socket of language and ideas’ wrote Jude Cook in the Guardian. Waidner was in conversation with artist and film-maker Sarah Wood. You can buy a copy of As If from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Norwegian writer Vigdis Hjorth has been a shop favourite ever since we discovered Long Live the Post Horn, a powerful tale about loneliness and the struggle between capitalism and humanity told through the microcosm of the Norwegian postal service. Hjorth is in conversation with Catherine Taylor to discuss Repetition (Verso), her sixth novel to be published in English, translated by her indefatigable champion Charlotte Barslund. As winter approaches in Norway and the daylight dwindles, a chance encounter prompts a novelist to re-examine her past. The seismic events following her sixteenth birthday return with haunting vividness, exposing a story both utterly familiar and desperately strange. Catherine Taylor is a writer and critic and the former deputy director of English PEN. Her first book, The Stirrings, won the 2024 TLS Ackerley Prize for memoir and life-writing. More from the Bookshop: Discover our author of the month, book of the week and more: https://lrb.me/bkshppod From the LRB: Subscribe to the LRB: https://lrb.me/subsbkshppod Close Readings podcast: https://lrb.me/crbkshppod LRB Audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiobooksbkshppod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: https://lrb.me/storebkshppod Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his latest novel Your Life Without Me (Canongate) journalist and novelist James Meek investigates the unpredictable links between personal trauma, family dysfunction and political violence. A retired schoolmaster is invited by the police to meet a former pupil accused of plotting to destroy St Paul’s Cathedral. ‘This is his best novel yet, writes Alex Preston, ‘a dark and unsettling meditation on marriage, fatherhood and architecture. Every page rings with deep truth.’ James read from his book, and was in conversation about it with the writer Lara Pawson. You can by a copy of Your Life Without Me from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between a quarter and a fifth of young people in the UK now suffer a mental disorder. One in four adults are prescribed psychiatric medication. These numbers represent a huge and recent expansion in mental health labelling, but reveal nothing of the experience of those seeking help. In The Unfragile Mind, Gavin draws on conversations with patients, colleagues, and his thirty years of practice to explore the chequered history of psychiatry, the nature of mental health and ill-health, and the problems - including mood disorders, trauma, anxiety and addiction - that he addresses daily. The mind, he argues, is dynamic and adaptive - better addressed not with rigid labels and protocols, but with curiosity, kindness, humility and hope. Francis was in conversation with Philippe Sands. You can buy a copy of The Unfragile Mind from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anouchka Grose, a psychotherapist specialising in climate anxiety, became disillusioned with the apparent futility of activism as it is normally conceived, resolved to look inwards, seeking a way to revolutionise the self in response to polycrisis. The Revolution Will Be Internalised (Indigo) documents that inward journey, encompassing ego-dismantling retreats, animal communication, and tantra. Grose will be in conversation about her work with Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered, Daddy Issues and Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again. You can buy a copy of The Revolution Will Be Internalised from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Tell Me How You Eat (Hutchinson Heinemann), Amber Husain draws on her own experience of the diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders as well as on an omnivorous diet of reading that ranges from Eleanor Marx to the Black Panthers and beyond to ask profound questions about our relationship with food, and what a truly healthy diet might be, both for ourselves and for society as a whole. She was in conversation with Emily LaBarge, author of Dog Days. You can buy a copy of Tell Me How You Eat from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To mark the release of the second print edition of contemporary food and culture magazine Vittles, writers Sheena Patel and Lauren J Joseph will discuss the short stories they contributed to the issue. One of the through lines of Issue 2 – which is themed around the notion of ‘Bad Food’ and celebrates the gross, vulgar and unaesthetic aspects of how we feed ourselves that don’t align with the aspirational bent of typical food media – is an exploration of the inter-relations between food, sex, bodies and desire. Patel and Joseph were in conversation with Vittles editor Odhran O’Donoghue about the relationship between food and the erotic in their writing. You can buy a copy of Vittles, issue 2 from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Rebecca Perry’s May We Feed the King (Granta) the narrative switches between two increasingly intermingling timelines, medieval and contemporary, as a modern curator becomes absorbed in the story of a half-forgotten monarch struggling to maintain his rule. Perry is the author of two acclaimed poetry collections Beauty/Beauty and Stone Fruit and was in conversation about her debut novel with fellow poet K Patrick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices