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Close Readings Podcast Transcripts

London Review of Books · 228 episodes with transcripts

Close Readings is a multi-series podcast from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to some episodes for free here, and extracts from our ongoing subscriber-only series.

Spoken has transcripts of 228 Close Readings episodes, with the speakers named. The newest listed here is from October 8, 2026.

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Every Close Readings transcript in one script

228 episodes of Close Readings have transcripts. Fetch them all as speaker-labeled Markdown in one script — 1 credit each, and re-fetching one you already have is free:

archive.sh
curl -s -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://spoken.md/podcasts/1669485143/episodes \
  | jq -r '.episodes[] | "\(.id) \(.title)"' \
  | while IFS=' ' read -r id title; do
      slug=$(echo "$title" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | tr -cs 'a-z0-9' '-' | sed 's/-*$//')
      [ -f "${id}-${slug}.md" ] && continue
      curl -sf -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
        -o "${id}-${slug}.md" \
        https://spoken.md/transcripts/$id || rm -f "${id}-${slug}.md"
      sleep 0.34
    done

Already-saved files are skipped — safe to re-run after a top-up.

228 credits. Credits never expire. Excludes VAT, added at checkout for EU customers.

Latest Close Readings transcripts

London Revisited: The Monster

October 8, 2026

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom.

For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview, the first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old, the tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom, Nordstrom. Big or small, we're here for all…

Rosemary Hill (0:30)

Hello, and welcome back to London Revisited. I'm Rosemary Hill. Last time, we covered the Glorious Revolution, so-called, of 1688, and we watched London become a global financial capital and very quickly suffer the consequences with the South Sea Company crash, the bubble, as it was called, in which very sensible…

In today's episode, the ramifications of both those things, the crash and the revolution, continued to reverberate. We will also see the country's first Prime Minister take up residence in Downing Street. We'll watch ever grander squares being laid out as London spreads further west and northwest. And alongside the…

Markman Ellis (1:33)

Hello, Rosemary.

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Any Close Readings episode comes back as Markdown with the speakers named, one credit each.

request
curl -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://spoken.md/transcripts/1000792851814

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