Malin Hay is an editor at the LRB.
At the end of the 20th century, Mills and Boon changed its look. The genteel bodice-unlacers of the 1950s, hardbacks with titles like Inherit My Heart and Journey to Love, gave way in the 1970s to colourful paperbacks sporting a painting of a busty blonde and her hulking Burt Lancaster. Then, as their contents turned towards erotica, the covers became more upfront. Categories were...
Season One of Russian Doll, Netflix’s high-concept comedy about a woman who spends her 36th birthday dying over and over again, ends with Natasha Lyonne’s Nadia Vulvokov marching in a ghoulish Mardi Gras parade to Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’. The second series opens with her striding through the streets of New York accompanied by Depeche Mode’s...
The LRB is printed on a matte lightweight coated paper. The specifications are exact: it needs to be heavier than newsprint, resistant to heat and the effects of ageing, and good at reproducing colour. It is called ‘improved newsprint’: the paper quality is slightly higher and the ink doesn’t come off on the reader’s hands. Early on, the LRB did use newsprint; in...
Since 1995, at least 51 young people have died in Scottish prisons. These include Katie Allan and William Lindsay, who shared strong support networks and, despite very different life experiences, died...
The Norwegian novelist Vigdis Hjorth is a master of the collapsing relationship. In her twenty books, she turns her eye to estranged siblings, tormented lovers, demanding parents and disaffected colleagues...
Singing, acting, directing, writing: Barbra Streisand always insisted on doing it her way. Malin Hay, who recently reviewed Streisand’s 992-page autobiography, joins Tom to discuss her performances on...
In his introduction to our twelfth LRB Collection, Sisters Come Second, Colm Tóibín writes that most siblings dream of being only children. Malin Hay explores this idea with Colm and Andrew O’Hagan,...
Michael Wood talks to Malin Hay about the recent list from Sight and Sound of the ‘greatest films of all time’ (in which he voted), and what considerations could, or should, go into compiling such...
With the future of TikTok increasingly uncertain in the US and other countries, Malin Hay talks to Tom about the app’s powerful reading-focused corner, BookTok: what it is, how it works, and the tropes...
Bee Wilson speaks to Malin Hay about Paul Newman’s mystique – his passivity, his domesticity and his irresistible blue eyes.
Jane Stanford, the co-founder of Stanford University, was murdered with strychnine in 1905. Her killer was never discovered – until now (perhaps). James Lasdun talks to Malin Hay about a new book by...
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