Books Matter More Than Ever: A Conversation with Ian Patterson
About this episode
Adam Biles interviews Ian Patterson about the importance of books and reading in contemporary culture.
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…
More episodes of The Shakespeare and Company Interview
- Ben Lerner on Transcription
- Why Translate Homer Again? Daniel Mendelsohn on his new Odyssey
- Rare Book Collecting with Ben Brown
- Going South: Tash Aw on Inheritance, Identity, and Escape
- Booker Prize Winner David Szalay on Agency, Violence, and Restraint
- Murder, Mannerism and the Medicis with Laurent Binet
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Shakespeare and Company Interview podcast page.