The Best-Paid Woman in NYC

The Best-Paid Woman in NYC

Author: The London Review of Books June 25, 2025 Duration: 40:30
As J.P. Morgan's personal librarian, entrusted with building his collection, Belle da Costa Greene could ‘spend more money in an afternoon than any other young woman of 26’, as the New York Times put it in 1912. In the latest LRB, Francesca Wade reviews a new biography of Greene and a recent exhibition dedicated to her at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City, of which Greene was the first director. Francesca joins Tom on the podcast to talk about Greene's life and work. They discuss her long-term, long-distance relationship with the art historian Bernard Berenson and her reasons for concealing her African American heritage. Find further reading in the LRB: https://lrb.me/wadepod From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/pod⁠⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Each week, The LRB Podcast extends the long-form, inquisitive spirit of the London Review of Books into a conversational format. Hosts Thomas Jones and Malin Hay guide discussions that delve into the essays and ideas animating Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, creating a space where complex thoughts on society, art, history, and literature are explored with depth and clarity. The rhythm of the podcast includes a dedicated fortnightly episode, ‘On Politics,’ hosted by James Butler, which sharpens the focus on the political forces and theories shaping our current moment. Listening feels like joining a nuanced, ongoing conversation where arguments are carefully constructed and perspectives are challenged. It’s a natural companion for anyone who believes that understanding the world requires patience, critical thinking, and engaging dialogue. The podcast doesn’t offer quick takes but rather thoughtful excavations of the week’s most compelling cultural and intellectual questions, mirroring the publication’s commitment to serious and elegant prose. This is where written criticism finds its voice, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the debates that define our time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The LRB Podcast
Podcast Episodes
After Grenfell [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:18
The final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry established that the fire on 14 June 2017, which killed 72 people, was the ‘culmination of decades of failure’. Every death was avoidable, and every death was the result of…
Euripides Unbound [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:37
In November 2022, archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Philadelphia, two hours south of Cairo, discovered a clump of papyri in a shallow grave. On one of them were written nearly a hundred lines from two lost pl…
Streisand’s Way [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:36
Singing, acting, directing, writing: Barbra Streisand always insisted on doing it her way. Malin Hay, who recently reviewed Streisand’s 992-page autobiography, joins Tom to discuss her performances on stage and screen, h…
‘The Cleverest Woman in England’ [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:26
Jane Ellen Harrison was Britain’s first female career academic, a maverick public intellectual burdened with the label ‘the cleverest woman in England’. Her quips and quirks became legendary, but many of those anecdotes…
On Edith Piaf [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:29
This episode is a chapter from Complicated Women by Bee Wilson, a new LRB audiobook, based on pieces first published in the London Review of Books. Wilson explores the lives of ten figures, from Lola Montez to Vivienne W…
Jean-Paul Sartre: 'Being and Nothingness' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:41
This week, a chapter from a new LRB audiobook, Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre by Jonathan Rée. This collection of ten biographical pieces, read by Rée, describes the lives of some of most influential thinkers…
Great Auks! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:40
The great auk was a flightless, populous and reportedly delicious bird, once found widely across the rocky outcrops of the North Atlantic. By the 1860s it was extinct, its decline sharpened by specimen collectors and at…
Jane Austen, Simone de Beauvoir and Herodotus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:33
What do Jane Austen, Simone de Beauvoir and Herodotus have in common? They all appear in three of this year’s Close Readings series, in which a pair of LRB contributors explore an area of literature through a selection o…
How to Read Genesis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:54
The Book of Genesis begins with the creation of the universe and ends with the death of Jacob, patriarch of the Israelites. Between these two events, successive generations confront the moral tests set for them by God, a…

«1...678910