Life and Art from FT Weekend

Today we are bringing you a winter survival guide, full of deceptively small tips that will make winter unmeasurably better. How do we best appreciate these cold, dark months? How do we stay stimulated, but also reject the grind? Our FT Weekend Magazine’s resident “winter goddesses” Griselda Murray Brown and Cordelia Jenkins join Lilah armed with tons of delightful suggestions, from buying warm lightbulbs to reading your friends’ dusty old books. They also fight about electric vests. It’s a joy. We hope you love it.------ As you know, the show is ending in early January – we’re still collecting your cultural questions. What’s rolling around in your head? How can we help? Email Lilah at [email protected], or connect with her on Instagram @lilahrap. -------Links (all FT links get you past the paywall): – For our summer episode, search ‘How to have the perfect summer’ wherever you listen. Here it is on Spotify– The FT Magazine’s advent special is full of tips for enjoying winter– Lulu’s piece about watching 100 Christmas films is here: https://on.ft.com/3BBYrUR– Cordelia mentioned “jealousy lists”: here’s the FT’s list of favourite non-FT articles published this year. Here’s Bloomberg’s (paywall). Cordelia is most jealous of this Guardian piece by Jonathan Nunn about Nicholas Saunders: “Hippy, capitalist, guru, grocer: the forgotten genius who changed British food” – Gris loved Laura Marling’s album Patterns in Repeat. She also mentioned the book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat by Katherine May. – Gris is on Instagram @griseldamurraybrown. Cordelia is on Bluesky @cordeliajenkins-------Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart-------Music clip from Chrysalis RecordsRead a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elif Shafak’s new novel brings together four stories set in three different centuries: ancient Mesopotamia, 19th century London, a Yazidi village in 2014, and the present day. It connects them through the epic of Gilgamesh, and a single drop of fresh water. Making history come alive is one of Elif’s many talents, and today she shares her thoughts on how novels can fill in the gaps in authorised history. She also talks with Lilah about the importance of the unwritten word — and why she looks to oral traditions to make sense of the past.-------As you know, the show is ending in early January – we’re still collecting your cultural questions. What’s rolling around in your head? How can we help? Email Lilah at [email protected] or message her on Instagram @lilahrap.-------Links (all FT links get you past the paywall): – Elif Shafak’s new novel There are Rivers in the Sky, is out now in the US and the UK– Read the FT’s review of the book here: https://on.ft.com/4gC9cWd– Lilah spoke with Elif about her previous novel The Island of Missing Trees and the stories we tell ourselves back in 2020. Listen to that interview hereRead a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The FT’s books of the year special is out, and today, our literary editor Fred Studemann and outgoing deputy books editor Laura Battle join us one last time to talk about their top picks of 2024. This year has seen some huge releases from authors including Sally Rooney, Miranda July, Alexei Navalny, Al Pacino and Salman Rushdie. What trends did Fred and Laura notice this year? What books did they love? -------As you know, the show is ending in early January – we’re still collecting your cultural questions. What’s rolling around in your head? How can we help? Email Lilah at [email protected] or message her on Instagram @lilahrap.-------Links (all FT links get you past the paywall): – Books we mentioned: Orbital by Samantha Harvey; Patriot by Alexei Navalny; All Fours by Miranda July; Haunted Wood by Sam Leith; Rosarita by Anita Desai; There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak; Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World by David van Reybrouck; A Voyage Around the Queen by Craig Brown; Killing Time by Alan Bennett; Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman; The Wizard of the Kremlin by Giuliano da Empoli; Hope by Pope Francis (2025); and Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2025)– The FT Books of the Year are out now! Here is a roundup of the FT’s top columnists and editors’ book recommendations for 2024, including Fred’s top picks. Laura’s fiction picks are here.– Food, drink and travel books are here. Music books here. Art and design books are here. Check out the full guide for more (paywall)Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever wondered about the oldest recipes in history? They were discovered on four clay tablets from about 1,700 BCE at the time of the Assyrian Empire. Did you know that about 5 million Assyrians still live around the world today? This year, a cookbook was published that is the first modern collection of exclusively Assyrian cuisine, food that has a lot of overlap with those ancient tablets. It’s called The Oldest Kitchen in the World, and in it, Matay de Mayee records the recipes of his mother, Smuni Turan — recipes her ancestors have been passing down orally for centuries. Today, they join Lilah in the studio to talk about their kitchen.-------The Oldest Kitchen in the World is published in English, Dutch and German — in Dutch and German its title is Haniyé. You can find it in bookshops in the US, Canada, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and online.-------Send us your predictions! Write to Lilah at [email protected] or on Instagram @lilahrap. And — thank you.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.