How to grow a human
In this bonus edition of the podcast, William Collins have taken over the feed to play a new episode of their podcast, Ideas Matter. In this exclusive extract, science writer Phillip Ball talks to his...
9 Okt 201940min
Scavenger of eternal truths
Was the 1960s a good decade for Norman Mailer? Thomas Meaney reconsiders the work; Henry Hitchings on Auberon Waugh, anarcho-snob and master of the "vituperative arts"; Toby Lichtig on the vitality of...
2 Okt 201941min
Unsettled by Sontag
Elaine Showalter on the “avid, ardent, driven, generous, narcissistic, Olympian, obtuse, maddening, sometimes loveable but not very likeable” Susan Sontag; Patrice Higonnet goes in search of the real ...
25 Sep 201954min
The recipe for superstardom
"When future historians study these troubled times, they will marvel at the relentless rise of sea levels, strongman politics and Kardashians." So says Irina Dumitrescu, who joins us to discuss the ph...
18 Sep 201951min
Is it too late?
The future of the planet is in question this week, or at least, humanity's place on it, as Gabrielle Walker discusses possible solutions to climate change and why we don't need to panic - yet - but we...
11 Sep 201943min
What do the kids say?
We turn to children's and YA literature in this week's episode, with Rozalind Dineen and Toby Lichtig presenting new releases (as reviewed by a selection of young readers), as well as discussing some ...
4 Sep 201936min
'We should all be interested in pigeons...'
What kind of son was Philip Larkin? The TLS's poetry editor Alan Jenkins finds insight in some of the 4,000-odd letters and postcards the poet sent home to his "Mop" and "Pop"; Helen Macdonald, the au...
21 Aug 201947min
The most expensive mystery of all
The whereabouts of the "Salvator Mundi", the most costly artwork in the world, are still uncertain, as is its attribution to Leonardo da Vinci. Federico Varese, best known for his studies of the mafia...
14 Aug 201949min
