{"podcast":{"title":"The Shakespeare and Company Interview","slug":"the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467","podcast_index_feed_id":174467,"rss_url":"https://access.acast.com/rss/62065b88f850df0012335061","website_url":"http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/62065b88f850df0012335061/1780994163859-33b7fda3-aca3-4e25-920d-f05eae64045b.jpeg","author":"Shakespeare and Company","episode_count":210,"summary":"Discover your next favourite book, or take a deep dive into the mind of an author you love, with The Shakespeare and Company Interview podcast. Now also the home of Editions: A Shakespeare and Company x Faber Production. Long-form interviews with internationally acclaimed authors, recorded from our bookshop in the heart of Paris. Hosted by S&Co Literary Director, Adam Biles. Discover all our upcoming events here . If you enjoy these conversations, you can order The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews here . Past guests include: Ottessa Moshfegh, Ian McEwan, Ali Smith, Hari Kunzru, Rachel Kushner, Katie Kitamura, Elif Shafak, Claire-Louiose Bennett, Leïla Simoni, Ian Dunt, David Runciman, Richard Powers, Eimear McBride, Armando Iannucci, Lauren Grodd, Lauren Elkin, Recebcca Solnit, John Berger, Hollie McNish, Michael Pedersen, Rob Doyle, Philippe Sands, George Saunders, Edouard Louis, Rachel Cusk, Preti Taneja, Alejandro Zambra, DBC Pierre, Meg Mason, Sandra Newman, David Simon, Joshua Cohen, Geoff Dyer, David Wallce-Wells, Emul Saint-John Mandel, Mohsin Hamid, Tess Gunty, A.M. Homes, John Higgs, Miriam Toews, Kamila Shamsie, Annie Ernaux, William Boyd, David Keenan, Jonatha…","last_synced_at":"2026-06-25T10:20:31.999267+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467"},"episode":{"title":"Books Matter More Than Ever: A Conversation with Ian Patterson","slug":"books-matter-more-than-ever-a-conversation-with-ian-patterson","published_at":"2025-12-24T23:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467/books-matter-more-than-ever-a-conversation-with-ian-patterson","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467","url":"https://shows.acast.com/sandco/episodes/books-matter-more-than-ever-a-conversation-with-ian-patterso","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/62065b88f850df0012335061/e/693a88c3a9d003889c331169/media.mp3","summary":"In this episode of the Shakespeare and Company Podcast, Adam Biles speaks with poet, translator and critic Ian Patterson about Books: A Manifesto , his passionate defence of reading in all its forms. What begins with the construction of a personal library in a converted coach house opens into a wide-ranging meditation on memory, loss, vulnerability and the profound role books play in shaping a life. Patterson discusses the anguish of parting with thousands of volumes, the intimacy of marked-up, well-lived-in books, and the politics of reading slowly in a culture addicted to speed. The conversation moves through genre snobbery, guilty pleasures, poetry’s complex rewards, the porous borders of contemporary literature, and Patterson’s experience translating the final volume of Proust—an immersion so deep it altered his own prose. It’s a warm, generous exploration of why books matter, how they remake us, and why defending them feels more urgent than ever. Buy Books: A Manifesto: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/books-a-manifesto * Ian Patterson is a widely published poet and translator, and a former academic. The translator of  Finding Time Again , the final volume of the Penguin Proust, he is also the author of  Guernica and Total War  and  Nemo’s Almanac.  He won the Forward Prize for Best Poem in 2017, with an elegy for his late wife, Jenny Diski. He worked in Further Education between 1970 and 1984, had a second-hand bookselling business for ten years after that, and from 1995 until 2018 was an academic, teaching English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Many of his students have gone on to shape the world of publishing and writing, both in the UK and the US. Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Listen…","meta_description":"In this episode of the Shakespeare and Company Podcast, Adam Biles speaks with poet, translator and critic Ian Patterson about Books: A Manifesto , his pa…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3092,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467/episodes/books-matter-more-than-ever-a-conversation-with-ian-patterson/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-shakespeare-and-company-interview-174467/books-matter-more-than-ever-a-conversation-with-ian-patterson.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}