Close Readings· Staffel 18· Folge 3

Nature in Crisis: ‘Blue Machine’ by Helen Czerski

Montag, 9. März 2026 · 15 min

MP3

Shownotes

In Blue Machine (2024), Helen Czerski refigures the ocean as an enormous planetary engine, converting light and heat into motion. Her book invites us to see the ocean not as an ‘absence’ but an intricate series of operations that makes life as we know it possible.

In this episode, Meehan Crist and Peter Godfrey-Smith reflect on the ways Czerski’s book has altered their thinking about the ocean, and whether new perspectives can ever be enough to change public policy.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:

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Get the book: lrb.me/czerskicr

More from the LRB:

Richard Hamblyn on deep-sea exploration:

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n21/richard-hamblyn/hu…

Katherine Rundell on the greenland shark:

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n09/katherine-rundell/…

Liam Shaw on coral:

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n22/liam-shaw/in-the-p…

Amia Srinivasan reviews Peter’s book on octopus minds:

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n17/amia-srinivasan/th…

Film: Forecasting D-Day

lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/videos/lrb-films…

Next episode: ‘The Burning Earth’ by Sunil Amrith

lrb.me/amrithcr

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