🎸🤵♂️The Beatles, James Bond and the British Psyche ,with John Higgs🤵♂️🎸
09/21/22 • 61 min
2 Listeners
**Contains outrageous spoilers about the recent Bond film No Time to Die**
There are few cultural phenomena that rival the impact, reach and longevity of either The Beatles or James Bond. That both made their first significant impact on the public consciousness on the same day 5 October 1962 — with the release of the Beatles’ first record “Love Me Do’ and Dr. No the first James Bond film — was a significant enough piece of synchronicity for John Higgs to begin an investigation into the decades-long dance between two very different visions of the world, of Britain, of masculinity of art, of love and — inevitably — of death.
Buy Love and Let Die here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6267356/higgs-john-love-and-let-die
*
SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES
Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses
If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and early access to Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.
Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en
All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.
*
John Higgs is a writer who specialises in finding previously unsuspected narratives, hidden in obscure corners of our history and culture, which can change the way we see the world. In the words of MOJO magazine, “Reading John Higgs is like being shot with a diamond. Suddenly everything becomes terrifyingly clear”. The Times agreed, saying that “Higgs’s prose has a diamond-hard quality. He knows how to make us relate.” “A while ago I decided to read anything Higgs writes,” said Frank Cottrell Boyce, “He seems to be able to take any subject — pop music, Watling Street, conspiracy theories, robotics — and poke at it until it yields up its secrets.” Russell Brand described him succinctly as “a great writer [...] who pulls shit together in an interesting way.”
Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-time
Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1
Get bonus content on PatreonHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
**Contains outrageous spoilers about the recent Bond film No Time to Die**
There are few cultural phenomena that rival the impact, reach and longevity of either The Beatles or James Bond. That both made their first significant impact on the public consciousness on the same day 5 October 1962 — with the release of the Beatles’ first record “Love Me Do’ and Dr. No the first James Bond film — was a significant enough piece of synchronicity for John Higgs to begin an investigation into the decades-long dance between two very different visions of the world, of Britain, of masculinity of art, of love and — inevitably — of death.
Buy Love and Let Die here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6267356/higgs-john-love-and-let-die
*
SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES
Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses
If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and early access to Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.
Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en
All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.
*
John Higgs is a writer who specialises in finding previously unsuspected narratives, hidden in obscure corners of our history and culture, which can change the way we see the world. In the words of MOJO magazine, “Reading John Higgs is like being shot with a diamond. Suddenly everything becomes terrifyingly clear”. The Times agreed, saying that “Higgs’s prose has a diamond-hard quality. He knows how to make us relate.” “A while ago I decided to read anything Higgs writes,” said Frank Cottrell Boyce, “He seems to be able to take any subject — pop music, Watling Street, conspiracy theories, robotics — and poke at it until it yields up its secrets.” Russell Brand described him succinctly as “a great writer [...] who pulls shit together in an interesting way.”
Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-time
Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1
Get bonus content on PatreonHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode
🎤 Sunday Poetry: Tayi Tibble reads from Poūkahangatus🎤
A new series of short readings from some of our favourite poets.
Tayi Tibble (Te Whānau ā Apanui/Ngāti Porou) was born in 1995 and lives in Wellington, New Zealand. In 2017, she completed a master’s degree in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington, where she was the recipient of the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing.
Buy Poūkahangatus: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/6037217/tibble-tayi-poukahangatus
Intimate, moving, virtuosic, and hilarious, Tayi Tibble is one of the most exciting new voices in poetry today. In Poūkahangatus (pronounced “Pocahontas”), her debut volume, Tibble challenges a dazzling array of mythologies—Greek, Māori, feminist, kiwi—peeling them apart, respinning them in modern terms. Her poems move from rhythmic discussions of the Kardashians, sugar daddies, and Twilight to exquisite renderings of the natural world and precise emotions (“The lump in her throat swelled like a sea that threatened to take him from her, and she had to swallow hard”). Tibble is also a master narrator of teenage womanhood, its exhilarating highs and devastating lows; her high-camp aesthetics correlate to the overflowing beauty, irony, and ruination of her surroundings.
*
SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES
Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses
If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and early access to Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.
Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en
All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.
*
Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1
Get bonus content on PatreonHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Next Episode
👭🏽On Friendship, Politics and when the Two Collide, with Kamila Shamsie👭🏽
**Find out more about our Year of Reading here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/7486597/shakespeare-and-company-year-of-reading **
Kamila Shamsie’s new novel Best of Friends begins in Karachi in 1988, a year that would prove pivotal in the political history of Pakistan. Zahra and Maryam are teenagers, on the cusp of adulthood, finding their feet in a world where they have to keep one eye on the intrigues of the school yard and the other on the lives into which they are expecting or expected to step. Lives of vast opportunity but also uncertainty. In fact perhaps the only certainty for both Zahra and Maryam is their friendship. Rock solid since the age of four. But then something happens, or perhaps better to say almost happens, that continues to cast a shadow thirty years later when the story picks up again in London.
Buy Best of Friends here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/product/5782828/kamila-shamsie-shamsie-best-of-friends
*
SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR BONUS EPISODES
Looking for Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses? https://podfollow.com/sandcoulysses
If you want to spend even more time at Shakespeare and Company, you can now subscribe for regular bonus episodes and early access to Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses.
Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandco
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/shakespeare-and-company-writers-books-and-paris/id1040121937?l=en
All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop’s non-profit, created to fund our noncommercial activities—from the upstairs reading library, to the writers-in-residence program, to our charitable collaborations, and our free events.
*
Kamila Shamsie was born and grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. Her most recent novel Home Fire won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2018. It was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017, shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel Award, and won the London Hellenic Prize. She is the author of six previous novels including Burnt Shadows, shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and A God in Every Stone, shortlisted for the Women’s Bailey’s Prize and the Walter Scott Prize. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow and Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature and was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist in 2013. She is professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester. She lives in London.
Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-time
Listen to Alex Freiman’s Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1
Get bonus content on PatreonHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-198829/the-beatles-james-bond-and-the-british-psyche-with-john-higgs-23794335"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to 🎸🤵♂️the beatles, james bond and the british psyche ,with john higgs🤵♂️🎸 on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy