This week, Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig are joined by the critic and gym-sceptic Irina Dumitrescu to consider a clutch of books about fitness – how it came to be the industry it is, what it means to us, even what the smell of sweat does; Alex Clark, a regular contributor to the TLS’s fiction pages, runs through this year’s Booker Prize shortlist, just announced, before turning to a real-life story that reads like a mystery novel: the “Stonehouse affair”, the tale of the MP and former Cabinet minister John Stonehouse, who disappeared while swimming from a private beach in Miami
The Age of Fitness: How the body came to symbolize success and achievement by Jürgen Martschukat
Exercised: The science of physical activity, rest and health by Daniel Lieberman
The Joy of Sweat: The strange science of perspiration by Sarah Everts
The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
John Stonehouse, My Father: The true story of the runaway MP, by Julia Stonehouse
Stonehouse: Cabinet minister, fraudster, spy by Julian Hayes
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Godzilla, the plague, etc
‘It’s not him, it’s us’
Introducing: Stories of our times
‘A very peculiar telegram’
The kangaroo curve
Tweets, memes and the smell of masculine
Tales of a century
Passion projects
Absolutely worth the hype
The Mirror & the Light – an extract from Hilary Mantel's new novel
West Side Storyless
Vanilla sex in Pompeii
Can't go on. Go on.
Anne Enright – a reading from Actress
Daniel Kehlmann, an interview
Bringing Tolstoy down
Carrier bag or stick?
Byron's oddness
Huge stars in a minor key
Bonus episode: Five women, one radical address
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