Lit Bits On Lit Bits: What Is Lit Bits? Lit Bits podcast

37:15

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by film critic and author James Mottram to discuss several matters pertaining to literature and film. We three grapple with, among other things, the strange discourse of The Empire Strikes Back —the life and opinions of Thomas Hanks Esq—the many difficulties involved when translating prose to the cinema—the peculiarities of reading a book while attending the cinema—Mr Thomas Hanks (actor)—the attractions or otherwise of becoming a screenwriter—the curious circumstances that befell Thomas Hanks—as well as more surprising and unexpected adventures, full of learning and good wit.----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Did we mention Tom Hanks? James Mottram is the author of The Sundance Kids: How the Mavericks Took Back Hollywood . Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 23 Lit Bits on New Year (Mini Lit Bit) 4:18

2 years ago4:18

4:18

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) forget old acquaintance in a Soho doorway as a December deluge rains on their parade to make their new year resolutions. More exercise, less saturated fat, and a diet of Jeffrey Archer, EL James and Jon Bon Jovi’s epic poem about a strip club. ----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... For the sake of auld lang syne. Whatever that means. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 22 Lit Bits on Walking (Mini Lit Bit) 16:04

2 years ago16:04

16:04

Walk this way. Talk this way. As Run DMC once said before taking their annual Boxing Day ramble to the pub. Adam 'Lit' Smyth and James 'Bits' Kidd follow suit and do their talking while they’re walking – and vice versa – tumbling out of the French House in Soho, recorder in hand.----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... With the heaven’s opening, and the pubs closing, our intrepid pair retire ‘neath the shady bow of an umbrella and wander the streets, searching for links between literature and perambulation. Fellow strollers include Paul Auster, Ben Jonson, and Philip Sidney. Lit Bits. Fellas with umbrellas. Listen to more Lit Bits.…

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Ep. 21 Lit Bits on Celebration (Mini Lit Bit) 29:50

2 years ago29:50

29:50

In which Adam 'Lit' Smyth and James 'Bit' Kidd don the party hats, parp those funny trumpets and let it all hang out. Or very nearly. This is Lit Bits' way of asking: how do novels, plays and poems celebrate good times (come on). What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Is humanity way too down with ambivalence to have a good time (come on, let's celebrate)? Are we too sad these days to strut our whatsits? So: Dickens does Christmas. Milton does Shakespeare. Carver does vodka. Gerard Manley Hopkins does the night. Frank O’Hara does love. And Kool and the Gang does … well, exactly what Kool and the Gang should. Yaa-HOO! Or, if you prefer, Goo-gle. This is your celebration! It might even work with Ask Jeeves (Ask Jeeves that one, kids). First broadcast on Resonance FM. Listen to more Lit Bits.…

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Ep. 19 Lit Bits goes Shopping (Mini Lit Bit) 5:36

2 years ago5:36

5:36

With Black Friday burning a hole in his tracksuit, James ‘Bits’ Kidd heads for a shopping mall in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York, to blow the entire Lit Bits expense account on a five-speed neck massager.----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... As well as flashing the cash, James wonders about at least some of the following. Why are there no clocks in malls? Why are there so many guns in malls? What is a five-speed neck massager? If a tree falls in a shopping mall, does anyone hear it fall? And does anyone really go shopping in shops anymore? Till you drop. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 18 Lit Bits on Mistakes (with Liane Strauss) 55:24

2 years ago55:24

55:24

In which Lit Bits (Adam 'Lit' Smyth and a train-delayed—but eventually present—James 'Bits' Kidd) are joined by poet Liane Strauss to discuss mistakes, slips, wanderings, and things not quite going to plan. A dash of Shakespeare; a shot of Keats; a half-pint tumbler of Wallace Stevens; and a generous lacing of Phil “Errare” Larkin.----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Like knights errant, but in Harris tweed. Liane Strauss is the author of Leaving Eden (Salt Publishing, 2010) and Frankie, Alfredo, (Donut Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals in the US and the UK, including The Hudson Review, The Georgia Review, Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner and Magma. She teaches literature and creative writing at Birkbeck College, The Poetry School and The City Literary Institute. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 17 Lit Bits on Fear (Mini Lit Bit) 8:14

2 years ago8:14

8:14

Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bit’ Kidd) ascends to a hidden portal in the London Library and finds not Thetans, but a creepily broken desk. Is this where recalcitrant members go to die? ----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Is this what happens if you write in pen in the margin of page 423 of that Lord Byron biography? Is this what happens if you make stains on the red carpet of the reading room? Adam and James gird their loins, brace their mainsail, and buckle their swashes to confront - FEAR. What books make you scream? MR James, Jeffrey Archer, and a terrifying revelation neath the undercrofting. But what’s that noise on the stairs? Be ye afeared. Be ye verry afeared. Prithee. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 16 Lit Bits on Truth (with Hallie Rubenhold and Alex von Tunzelmann) 44:40

2 years ago44:40

44:40

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) – never afraid to tackle the big issues – dons its metaphysical (and metaphorical) wig, takes a deep breath, and plunges into TRUTH in films and books. Joined by historical whizzes Alex von Tunzelmann and Hallie Rubenhold, the pod wrestles with JFK; Margaret Thatcher; Christian Bale; John Keats; The French Revolution; T.S. Eliot; Shakespeare; a couple of llamas; and dear, dear Mel Gibson.----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Questions that are pondered. Why did no one realise America won the Trojan War? Can Leonardo di Caprio play anyone not born in the 21st century? And if history is written by winners, then little wonder no one has asked Sven Goran Erikkson to direct a movie. Hallie Rubenhold is a novelist and historian. She is the author of the bestselling The Five; The Untold Lives of The Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and the extraordinary story of Harris’ List (2005), which was adapted for TV on BBC4; Lady Worsley’s Whim; An Eighteenth Century Tale of Sex, Scandal and Divorce (2008); and Mistress of My Fate; The Confessions of Henrietta Lightfoot (2011). Alex von Tunzelmann is the author of Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (2007), and Red Heat. Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean (2011). She writes the ‘Reel History’ column for The Guardian, on popular films and historical accuracy. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 15 Lit Bits on Flying (w/ Hallie Rubenhold + Alex von Tunzelmann) 5:14

2 years ago5:14

5:14

It’s chocks away as Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined, for five high-altitude minutes, by Alex von Tunzelmann and Hallie Rubenhold, to talk planes and books. Just what do you read during a flight? Why is airplane food so terrible? Why does every movie seem to star Seth Rogan? And who exactly is Seth Rogan????? Reading, writing, doomed ambition and all manner of zipless unmentionables.----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Fasten your seatbelts. Put out that cigarette. Don’t sit near Gerard Depardieu. Emergency exits can be found there and there...and there. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 14 Lit Bits on Pubs (Mini Lit Bit) 5:11

2 years ago5:11

5:11

Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) pop down the boozer for a quick 0.5. Beginning a seemingly inexhaustible fascination with recording nonsense in boozers, our intrepid pod duo battle their way out of the The Lord John Russell to chat about James Joyce and Geoffrey Chaucer. In the process, they struggle to describe Ulysses’ multi-vocal pub conversations, and scratch their heads about just how many whiskeys Dylan Thomas downed before descending that great beer cellar in the basement.----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Lit Bits also experiences its first brush with fame, as three not especially wise men stare us out during the pod. Pretty scary. Two pints of cider. Ice in the cider. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 13 Lit Bits vs Larkin, Philip (Mini Lit Bit) 6:05

2 years ago6:05

6:05

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are just raising their socks after another exhausting 45 minutes of sitting on a chair and talking nonsense when they ambush themselves with another poem: this time A Study of Reading Habits by Hull’s very own holding midfielder Philip Larkin. ‘Get stew. Books are a code of laps.’ Or something very like it. ----more---- Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 12 Literature & WH Auden (Mini Lit Bit with Dinah Roe) 8:00

2 years ago8:00

8:00

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are just putting their feet up after another exhausting 45 minutes of sitting on a chair and talking nonsense when they are ambushed by Dinah Roe armed with a copy of W.H. Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’. How will they fare in this on-the-spot close reading? It’s literary criticism, in the nude. Those of a sensitive literary critical disposition might want to look away…now. What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Listen out for the sound of pouring wine. And possibly Wystan H turning in his grave. About suffering Lit Bits was often wrong. But only epistemologically. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 11 Lit Bits on Sheds (Mini Lit Bit) 5:55

2 years ago5:55

5:55

In which Lit Bits (Adam 'Lit' Smyth and James 'Bits' Kidd) stroll to the bottom of the garden to nose around the woodshed. Sheds! Innocent abodes for gardening equipment? Laboratories of literary invention?----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Don’t close the door. Or perhaps do close it. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 10 Lit Bits on Art (with Dinah Roe) 38:29

2 years ago38:29

38:29

Art! In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by Dinah Roe and, freshly saddled, bound off in pursuit of enlightenment on the verbal and the visual. We begin with some chatter about the Pre-Raphaelite painters who also designed books and even wrote some poems to go inside them. ----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... We ask our usual quota of big questions. Are poems like paintings? Are frames like paratexts? How large was William Morris’ beard? Frank O’Hara is read the riot act, or at least just read. How do texts interact with images, and vice versa. Are is there really not a rhyme for orange? Gratuitous references to Andrew Motion are included. Can you see what it is yet? Dinah Roe is a Reader at Oxford Brookes University, the author of The Rossettis In Wonderland: A Victorian Family History (2011) and Christina Rossetti’s Faithful Imagination and the editor of two Penguin Classics: Christina Rossetti: Selected Poems and The Pre-Raphaelites: From Rossetti to Ruskin . Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 9 Lit Bits on Computers 2.0 (Mini Lit Bit with James Kidd) 6:47

2 years ago6:47

6:47

Greetings from the future, pod listeners. Admire our foil suits and chrome helmets. Our touch-screen soap dispensers. Stand well back as James 'Bit' Kidd plugs in, turns on and downloads a hi-tech second mini-pod on literature and computers. John Keats meets Radiohead. Or should that be the other way around? Or should that be the other way around?----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Fitter, happier and more deductive Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 8 Lit Bits on Computers 1.0 (Mini Lit Bit with Adam Smyth) 5:23

2 years ago5:23

5:23

Hail! A mini Lit Bits in which—for half of ten minutes—Adam 'Lit' Smyth reflects on what Shakespeare would have made of computer-simulated voice software.----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Bring your inky cloak and enjoy. Listen to more Lit Bits here.

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Ep. 7 Lit Bits on Pop Music (with Paul Myerscough) 43:58

2 years ago43:58

43:58

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by man of song Paul Myerscough. After ducking beneath Usher’s Climax , the podsters tap their feet to a merry farrago of (among others) Paul Morley—Kylie Minogue—Christopher Ricks— Ulysses —Bob Dylan—Keats—Shakespeare—and perhaps the greatest of them all, Andrew Ridgeley. What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Hear the worst cover of Run DMC - ever (now that’s what I call shit hop). Thrill to the pointiillist synthesiser. And gasp as someone admits to their love for Bon Jovi and Natasha Bedingfield. The only question is: who? Dancing shoes? We think so. Paul Myerscough is a Senior Editor at the London Review of Books . As heard on Resonance FM. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 6 Lit Bits on Architecture (with Steve Rose) 41:30

2 years ago41:30

41:30

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by Steve Rose Esq., Guardian film critic and man of buildings. Some 40 minutes of musings on books and buildings —the links and differences— not excluding with some matters concerning to: impossible buildings, the language of architecture and literature, the relationship between reading a book and walking a city, the lusty symbolism of the brick, and how to enter a building. What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Other questions include. What exactly is a Rem Koolhaas? What do architects and writers have in common? What happened when Adam went to an exhibition of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell's defaced library books? How do you preserve buildings and for that matter books? One trigger warning alert. There is some discussion of Andrew Motion and a reading of one of his poems, which was projected onto a building in Sheffield. Listener discretion advised. The pleasant history then draws to a conclusion. Regrets are few as the fellows depart for an ordinary or inn. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 5 Lit Bits on Adverts (with Jonathan Thake) 38:04

2 years ago38:04

38:04

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by advertising wiz, comedy writer, and all-round chap-about-town Jonathan Thake. Our trusty podders saddle their steeds and engage in a veritable canter through the vast wild fields of literature and advertising. Among other oddities they encounter on their questing voyage are: Ben Jonson, Pot Noodle, American Psycho, Heineken, and Andrew Motion. Profit and delight are assured. What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Duration: 38.05 Jonathan Thake is a writer for both television and advertising. His first comedy series, The Persuasionists , told the story of a fictional advertising agency, and premiered on BBC2 in 2010. Jonathan also works in advertising, and is best known for the controversial ‘slag of all snacks’ campaign for Pot Noodle. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 3 Lit Bits on Food (with Polly Russell) 38:55

2 years ago38:55

38:55

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by Polly Russell. After the introduction to the work—or bill of fare to the feast—containing as much of the background as is necessary or proper to acquaint the listener with in the beginning of this ‘podcast’—discussion turned to such topics as: who reads cookbooks for fun? TV chefs: for or againt? Poems about plums? And how many servants is ideal for the upkeep of a stately house? What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Containing scenes of gastronomical felicity in different degrees of life—and various other transactions. Fit for all to consume. The pod you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite. Don't forget to floss after each novel. Polly Russell is a Curator at the British Library, and co-author of the celebrated The Kitchen Revolution: A Year of Time-and-money-saving Recipes . Polly is also a chef, and has cooked under Joyce Molyneux and at London’s renowned Moro. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 2 Lit Bits on Bad Literature (with James Byrne) 36:33

2 years ago36:33

36:33

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by poet, editor and teacher James Byrne. What is literary badness? Is it just a matter of taste (yeuch)? What makes a bad sentence? What separates goodness and badness? ----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Among the good, bad and ugly, we look at Josephine Hart, The Beat Poets, Bob Dylan, Simon Cowell, to name but a phew. Sorry, few. James Byrne is an award-winning poet, whose collections include Everything Broken Up Dances, White Coins, and Blood/Sugar. He has also published the pamphlets SOAPBOXES and, with Sandeep Parmar, Myth of the Savage Tribes, Myth of Civilised Nations. James edited the poetry magazine The Wolf from 2002-2017, and with ko ko thett an anthology of Burmese poetry, Bones Will Crow. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Ep. 1 Lit Bits on Football (pilot episode with Joe Brooker) 33:31

2 years ago33:31

33:31

The Pilot episode. In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by the scholar's scholar, the pundit's pundit and runner-up in the East Basingstoke John Lydon lookalike contest (two years running), Professor Joe Brooker. The big team asks the big questions. How is football like literature, and vice versa? What are the canonical soccer texts? Do writers make good footballers, and indeed vice versa? Did Derrida write about football (and vice versa)? And why is 'Peter Crouch is an oxymoron' the greatest poem ever chanted? ----more---- What is Lit Bits? Listen here... Containing a portion of time somewhat longer than a demi-heure—and composed of many rules, and some examples—by which the twin arts of pen and boot may be aligned—and other prudential inducements to comparison. Which inaugurates Lit Bits, with an instance of wit, which—we hope—will not appear unnatural. The authors crave the forbearance of the listener (or ‘podder’) that this being a pilot pod, the sound is (in the words of the demotic) ‘somewhat patchy.’ Joe Brooker teaches English literature at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he works on modern and contemporary literature and culture. He has written on the work of James Joyce and Flann O’Brien, and his latest books are Literature of the 1980s: After the Watershed (Edinburgh University Press, 2010) and Jonathan Lethem and the galaxy of writing (2019). A pod of three thirds. Listen to more Lit Bits here.…

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Lit Bits on Lit Bits: What is Lit Bits? 4:58

3 years ago4:58