Interviews
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Little Atoms 585 - Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
37:06 | May 23rd
Andrea Lawlor lives in Western Massachusetts and teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College. Lawlor is a fiction editor for Fence and the author of a chapbook, Position Papers (Factory Hollow Press, 2016). Paul Takes The Form of A Mortal Girl is their ...Show More
Little Atoms 584 - Season Butler's Cygnet
24:23 | May 20th
Season Butler is a writer, artist and dramaturg born in Washington, DC. Through her work, she explores her interest in identity and otherness, the opportunities and traps of hindsight and hope, and what it means to look forward to an increasingly wil...Show More
Little Atoms 583 - Dan Richards' Outpost
32:03 | May 16th
Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood) and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews and Climbing Days. He has written for the Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar, Caught by the River, Monocle and the Quietu...Show More
Little Atoms 582 - Natalie Haynes' A Thousand Ships
39:35 | May 13th
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Children of Jocasta and The Amber Fury, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award, and a non-fiction book about Ancient History, The Ancient Guide to Moder...Show More
Little Atoms 581 - Iain Reid's Foe
30:37 | May 9th
Iain Reid is the author of two critically acclaimed, award-winning books of nonfiction. His internationally bestselling debut novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, has been published in more than twenty countries. Oscar-winner Charlie Kaufman is writ...Show More
Little Atoms 580 - Bret Easton Ellis' White
30:19 | May 6th
Bret Easton Ellis is the author of several novels, including Imperial Bedrooms, Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Glamorama and Lunar Park, and a collection of stories, The Informers. Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, A...Show More
Little Atoms 579 - Bev Thomas' A Good Enough Mother
29:42 | May 2nd
Bev Thomas was a clinical psychologist in the NHS for many years. She currently works as an organizational consultant in mental health and other services. A Good Enough Mother is her debut novel.
Little Atoms 578 - Jarett Kobek's Only Americans Burn in Hell
47:50 | Apr 29th
Jarett Kobek is a Turkish-American writer living in California. His novella ATTA, a psychedelic biography of the 9/11 bomber Mohamed Atta, was an unexplained bestseller in parts of Canada. His first novel, I Hate the Internet, was a bestseller everyw...Show More
Little Atoms 577 - Isabella Hammad's The Parisian
25:43 | Apr 25th
Isabella Hammad was born in London. She won the 2018 Plimpton Prize for Fiction for her story 'Mr. Can’aan'. Her writing has appeared in Conjunctions and the Paris Review. The Parisian is her first novel.
Little Atoms 576 - Will Ashon's Chamber Music
36:11 | Apr 22nd
Will Ashon is the author of Strange Labyrinth (Granta, 2017) and two novels. He previously ran BIG DADA records where his artists included Roots Manuva, MF DOOM, Kate Tempest and Diplo. Will's latest book is Chamber Music: About the Wu-Tang (in 36 Pi...Show More
Little Atoms 575 - Temi Oh's Do You Dream of Terra-Two?
29:00 | Apr 18th
Temi Oh graduated from King’s College London in 2015 with a BSci in Neuroscience. While at KCL, Temi founded and ran a book-club called “Neuroscience-fiction”, where she led discussions about science-fiction books which focus on the brain. In 2016, s...Show More
Little Atoms 574 - Steve Brusatte's The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
30:38 | Apr 15th
Steve Brusatte is a palaeontologist on the faculty of the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He grew up in the Midwestern United States and has a BS in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago, MSc in Palaeob...Show More
Little Atoms 573 - A K Benjamin's Let Me Not Be Mad
27:24 | Apr 11th
A K Benjamin is a Clinical Neuropsychologist, specialising in diagnostics and acute rehab. Previously he was a screenwriter, spent two years as a contemplative monk and has worked at a number of NGOs, with homeless addicts, with gangs and with childr...Show More
Little Atoms 572 - Hanna Jameson's The Last
27:38 | Apr 8th
Hanna Jameson wrote her first book at the age of seventeen. Paul Rees of Q Magazine described her as writing like 'an angel on speed'. She has worked for the NHS and travelled the USA, Japan and Europe, developing a particular interest in the US, whi...Show More
Little Atoms 571 - Adam Foulds' Dream Sequence
30:21 | Apr 4th
Adam Foulds most recent books are In the Wolf's Mouth; The Quickening Maze, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Encore Award and the European Union Prize for Literature; and The Broken Word, which won the Costa Poetry Award an...Show More
Little Atoms 570 - Damian Barr's You Will Be Safe Here
31:20 | Apr 1st
Damian Barr is an award-winning writer and columnist. Maggie & Me, his memoir about coming of age and coming out in Thatcher's Britain, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and Sunday Times Memoir of the Year, and won the Paddy Power Political Books 'S...Show More
Little Atoms 569 Jan Carson's The Fire Starters
31:01 | Mar 29th
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her first novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears, was published in 2014 to critical acclaim, followed by short story collection, Children's Children, and a flash fiction anthology Post...Show More
Little Atoms 568 - Luke Turner's Out of the Woods
27:40 | Mar 26th
Luke Turner is a writer and editor based in London. He co-founded the influential music website The Quietus where he runs a regular podcast and radio show. He has contributed to the Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Vice, NME, Q Mojo, Monocle, Nowness and ...Show More
Little Atoms 567 - Lewis Dartnell's Origins
32:29 | Mar 22nd
Lewis Dartnell is a Professor of Science Communication at the University of Westminster. He has won several awards for his science writing, and contributes to the Guardian, the Times and the New Scientist. He has also written for television and appea...Show More
Little Atoms 566 - Yara Rodrigues Fowler's Stubborn Archivist
28:14 | Mar 19th
Yara Rodrigues Fowler grew up in a Brazilian-English household in London, where she still lives. She has a BA in English from Oxford and an MA in Comparative Literature at UCL. Yara is a trustee of Latin American Women's Aid, the only refuge run for ...Show More
Little Atoms 565 - Ken Hollings' The Space Oracle
34:00 | Mar 15th
Ken Hollings is a writer, broadcaster, cultural theorist and lecturer based in London. He is the author of the books Destroy All Monsters, Welcome To Mars, and The Bright Labyrinth. His work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies thr...Show More
Little Atoms 564 - Fatima Bhutto's The Runaways
34:21 | Mar 12th
Fatima Bhutto was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1982. She grew up in Syria and Pakistan. She is the author of four previous books, most recently the highly acclaimed The Shadow of the Crescent Moon which was longlisted in 2014 for the Bailey's Women...Show More
Little Atoms 563 - Max Porter's Lanny
47:25 | Mar 8th
Max Porter is the author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers, which has been translated into twenty languages worldwide, and been made into a stage play starring Cillian Murphy. His latest book is Lanny, the story of a young boy, an elderly artist, a...Show More
Little Atoms 562 - John Lanchester's The Wall
29:31 | Mar 5th
John Lanchester was born in Hamburg in 1962. He has worked as a football reporter, obituary writer, book editor, restaurant critic, and deputy editor of the London Review of Books, where he is a contributing editor. He is a regular contributor to the...Show More
Little Atoms 561 - Ece Temelkuran's How To Lose A Country
31:35 | Mar 1st
Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish novelist and commentator. Her journalism has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine, and her novels include Women Who Blow On Knots and The Time of Mute Swans. H...Show More
Little Atoms 560 - Dr Julia Shaw's Making Evil
33:42 | Feb 26th
Dr Julia Shaw is a scientist in the Department of Psychology at University College London (UCL). Her academic work, teaching and role as an expert witness have focused on different ways of understanding criminal behaviour. Dr Shaw has consulted as an...Show More
Little Atoms 559 - Deborah Lipstadt's Antisemitism Here And Now
41:54 | Feb 20th
Deborah Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. Her books include The Eichmann Trial, Denial: holocaust history on trial (a National Jewish Book Award-winner), Denying the Holocaust: the growing...Show More
Little Atoms 558 - Kristen Ghodsee's Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
35:53 | Feb 12th
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Kristen R. Ghodsee was travelling in Europe, and spent the summer of 1990 witnessing first-hand the initial hope and euphoria that followed the sudden and unexpected collapse of state socialism in the former Eastern...Show More
Little Atoms 557 - Georgina Harding's Land of the Living
28:15 | Feb 5th
Georgina Harding is the author of three previous novels: The Solitude of Thomas Cave, The Spy Game and, most recently, Painter of Silence, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. Her first book was a word of non-fiction, In Anoth...Show More
Little Atoms 556 - Simon Garfield's In Miniature
31:48 | Jan 29th
Simon Garfield is the author of seventeen acclaimed books of non-fiction including Timekeepers, A Notable Woman (as editor), To the Letter, On the Map, Just My Type and Mauve. His study of AIDS in Britain, The End of Innocence, won the Somerset Maugh...Show More
Little Atoms 555 - Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
26:51 | Jan 22nd
Alexander Chee is the bestselling author of the novels The Queen of the Night and Edinburgh. He is a contributing editor at the New Republic, an editor at large at Virginia Quarterly Review, and a critic at large at the Los Angeles Times. His work ha...Show More
Little Atoms 554 - Adam Weymouth's Kings of the Yukon
26:57 | Jan 15th
Adam Weymouth's work has been published by a wide variety of outlets including the Guardian, the Atlantic and the New Internationalist. His interest in the relationship between humans and the world around them has led him to write on issues of climat...Show More
Little Atoms 553 - Thea Lim's An Ocean of Minutes
32:08 | Jan 8th
Thea Lim’s novel An Ocean of Minutes is out now from Quercus/Hachette in the UK, Viking/Penguin Random House in Canada, and Touchstone Books/Simon & Schuster in the US. Her writing has been published by the Paris Review, the Guardian, Salon, the Nati...Show More
From The Archive - Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation
29:04 | Jan 1st
To see in the New Year, here's a repeat of our Interview with Ottessa Moshfegh from August. Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Her first book, McGlue, a novella, won the Fence Modern Prize in Prose and the Believer Book Award. She...Show More
From the Archive - Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt
37:33 | Dec 25th, 2018
For Christmas Day, here's a repeat of our interview from June 2018 with Adam Kay. Adam Kay is an award-winning comedian and writer for TV and film, including Mitchell & Webb and Very British Problems. He previously worked as a junior doctor, detailin...Show More
Little Atoms 552 - David Frye's Walls
28:57 | Dec 18th, 2018
David Frye is a professor and historian, whose research has taken him around the world and involved him in numerous archaeological digs since receiving his PhD from Duke University. He has published extensively in international academic journals. He ...Show More
Little Atoms 551 - Jeff Jackson's Destroy All Monsters
30:32 | Dec 11th, 2018
Jeff Jackson is the author of Mira Corpora, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His short fiction has appeared in Guernica, Vice, and The Collagist, and five of his plays have been produced by the Obie Award–winning Collapsable Giraffe t...Show More
Little Atoms 550 - Paul Ewen's Francis Plug: Writer in Residence
28:58 | Dec 4th, 2018
This week Padraig Reidy talks to Paul Ewen. Paul Ewen is a New Zealand writer based in south London. His work has appeared in the British Council's New Writing anthology, the Guardian, the TES, Tank, and Five Dials. Paul's first novel, Francis Plug: ...Show More
Little Atoms 549 - R.O. Kwon's The Incendiaries
22:06 | Nov 27th, 2018
R. O. Kwon is the author of the novel The Incendiaries. Her writing is published in The Guardian, Vice, BuzzFeed, Time, Noon, Electric Literature, Playboy, and elsewhere. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, MacDow...Show More
Little Atoms 548 - Thomas Page McBee's Amateur
29:56 | Nov 20th, 2018
Thomas Page McBee was ‘masculinity expert’ for Vice and the first trans man ever to box at Madison Square Garden. His essays and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Playboy, Glamour and Salon. He is the author of Man Alive, and most recent...Show More
Little Atoms 547 - Robert Olen Butler's Paris in the Dark
28:13 | Nov 13th, 2018
Robert Olen Butler is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and sixteen other novels including Hell, A Small Hotel, Perfume River, and the Christopher Marlowe Cobb series. He is also the author of six short story ...Show More
Little Atoms 546 - Richard Skinner's Writing a Novel
29:11 | Nov 6th, 2018
Richard Skinner is a novelist, poet and critic. His most recent book, The Mirror, was described as ‘beautifully written . . . immersive . . . captivating’ by the Guardian. As Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy, he created the flagship...Show More
Little Atoms 545 - Rose George's Nine Pints
32:35 | Oct 30th, 2018
Rose George is the author of A Life Removed: Hunting for Refuge in the Modern World, and The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste, which was judged one of the best books of 2008 by the Economist, and one of the top ten science books ...Show More
Little Atoms 544 - Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall
26:50 | Oct 22nd, 2018
Sarah Moss is the author of six novels and a memoir of her year living in Iceland, Names for the Sea, shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Her novels are Cold Earth, Night Waking (Fiction Uncovered Award), Bodies of Light (shortlisted for the Well...Show More
Little Atoms 543 - Jonathan Ames' The Extra Man
37:47 | Oct 18th, 2018
Jonathan Ames is the author of nine books including The Extra Man, Wake Up, Sir!, and You Were Never Really Here, all published by Pushkin Press. He also created the hit HBO comedy Bored to Death, starring Ted Danson, Zach Galifianakis and Jason Schw...Show More
Little Atoms 542 - Ivy Pochoda's Wonder Valley
28:32 | Oct 15th, 2018
Ivy Pochoda is a novelist and writer, previously a world ranked squash player. Her novel Visitation Street was chosen as an Amazon Best Book of 2013 and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. She has written for a number of outlets in...Show More
Little Atoms 541 - Patrick deWitt's French Exit
23:53 | Oct 11th, 2018
Patrick deWitt is the author of The Sisters Brothers, which won the Governor General's Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Walter Scott Prize. He also is the author of Ablutions, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice, and ...Show More
Little Atoms 540 - Michael Redhill's Bellevue Square
31:21 | Oct 8th, 2018
Michael Redhill is the author of nine novels including Consolation, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Martin Sloane, a finalist for the Giller Prize, Canada's most prestigious book award which he won with Bellevue Square. He's written a novel ...Show More
Little Atoms 539 - Adam Rutherford's The Book of Humans
33:25 | Oct 1st, 2018
Dr Adam Rutherford is a science writer and broadcaster. He studied genetics at University College London, and during his PhD on the developing eye, he was part of a team that identified the first genetic cause of a form of childhood blindness. He has...Show More
Little Atoms 538 - Jean Hannah Edelstein's This Really Isn't About You
29:36 | Sep 24th, 2018
Jean Hannah Edelstein is a writer who lives in Brooklyn. She writes regularly for numerous outlets including The Guardian and The Pool, and a weekly TinyLetter, which Vogue said ‘pops up in your inbox like lucid dreaming.’ She also writes all of the ...Show More
Little Atoms 537 - Sophie Mackintosh's The Water Cure
23:34 | Sep 20th, 2018
Sophie Mackintosh won the 2016 White Review Short Story Prize and the 2016 Virago/Stylist Short Story competition, and has been published in Granta magazine and TANK magazine among others. her debut novel The Water Cure was longlisted for the 2018 Ma...Show More
Little Atoms 536 - Nell Stevens' Mrs Gaskell and Me
27:14 | Sep 17th, 2018
Nell Stevens has a First in English and Creative Writing from Warwick, after which she went on to study Arabic and Comparative Literature at Harvard, to receive a Marcia Trimble Fellowship and the Florence Engel Randall Graduate Fiction Award for her...Show More
Little Atoms 535 - Amy Sackville's Painter to the King
29:38 | Sep 13th, 2018
Amy Sackville was born in 1981. She studied English and Theatre Studies at Leeds, and went on to do an MPhil in English at Exeter College, Oxford, and an MA in Creative & Life Writing at Goldsmiths. Her first novel was The Still Point, which was long...Show More
Little Atoms 534 - Tim Parks' Out of My Head
28:24 | Sep 10th, 2018
Born in Manchester, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since. He is the author of novels, non-fiction and essays, including Europa, Cleaver, A Season with Verona and Tea...Show More
Little Atoms 533 - Miriam Toews' Women Talking
32:03 | Sep 6th, 2018
Miriam Toews was born in 1964 in the small Mennonite town of Steinbach, Manitoba. She has published four novels and a memoir of her father, and is the recipient of numerous literary awards including the Governor General's Award, the McNally Robinson ...Show More
Little Atoms 532 - Lauren Groff's Florida
33:20 | Sep 3rd, 2018
Lauren Groff is the author of three New York Times bestselling novels – Fates and Furies (named by Barack Obama as his favourite book of 2015), The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia – as well as the story collection Delicate Edible Birds. She graduat...Show More
Little Atoms 531 - Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation
29:04 | Aug 30th, 2018
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Her first book, McGlue, a novella, won the Fence Modern Prize in Prose and the Believer Book Award. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World. Her stories ha...Show More
Little Atoms 530 - Michael Donkor's Hold
29:58 | Aug 27th, 2018
Michael Donkor was born in London, to Ghanaian parents. He studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, undertook a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway and now teaches English Literature to secondary school students. His debut novel is Hold.
Little Atoms 529 - Melissa Harrison's All Among The Barley
26:42 | Aug 20th, 2018
Melissa Harrison is the author of the novels Clay and At Hawthorn Time, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize, and one work of non-fiction, Rain, which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. S...Show More
Little Atoms 528 - William Atkins' The Immeasurable World
26:20 | Aug 13th, 2018
William Atkins’s first book, The Moor, was shortlisted for the Thwaites Wainwright Prize. He works as an editor and his journalism has appeared in the Guardian and Granta. In 2016 he was a recipient of the British Library Eccles Prize. His latest boo...Show More
Little Atoms 527 - Madeline Miller's Circe
33:23 | Aug 6th, 2018
Madeline Miller has a BA and MA from Brown University in Latin and Ancient Greek, and has been teaching both for over a decade. She has also studied at the Yale School of Drama, specialising in adapting classical tales to a modern audience. Her first...Show More
Little Atoms 526 - Gavin Francis' Shapeshifters
27:43 | Jul 30th, 2018
Gavin Francis is a GP, and the author of True North, Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins, which won the Scottish Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and Costa Prize, and Adventures in Human Being. He also ...Show More
Little Atoms 525 - Laura Lippman’s Sunburn
28:27 | Jul 23rd, 2018
Laura Lippman has been awarded every major prize in crime fiction. Since the publication of What the Dead Know, each of her hardcovers has hit the New York Times bestseller list. A recent recipient of the first-ever Mayor’s Prize, she lives in Baltim...Show More
Little Atoms 524 - Miranda Doyle's A Book of Untruths
28:26 | Jul 16th, 2018
Miranda Doyle's family come from the tiny island of Coney in Sligo Bay. She grew up in Edinburgh alongside three brothers and a suspicious number of ill-fated pets. With an MA from Goldsmiths in Creative and Life Writing she has lectured on Autobiogr...Show More
Little Atoms 523 - Dorthe Nors' Mirror, Shoulder, Signal
22:07 | Jul 12th, 2018
Dorthe Nors was born in 1970 and studied literature at the University of Aarhus. She is one of the most original voices in contemporary Danish literature. Her short stories have appeared in numerous international periodicals including including The B...Show More
Little Atoms 522 - Fred Pearce's Fallout
38:18 | Jul 9th, 2018
Fred Pearce is an award-winning journalist and author, reporting from 87 countries. He is the environment consultant of New Scientist magazine, a regular broadcaster and contributor to the Guardian, Washington Post and others. He has written fourteen...Show More
Little Atoms 521 - Sarah Churchwell's Behold, America
52:34 | Jul 5th, 2018
Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She is the author of Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and The Invention of The Great Gatsby...Show More
Little Atoms 520 - Tim Winton's The Shepherd's Hut
32:40 | Jul 2nd, 2018
Tim Winton has published over twenty books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into many different languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award fo...Show More
Little Atoms 519 - Sharlene Teo's Ponti
27:29 | Jun 28th, 2018
Sharlene Teo was born in Singapore in 1987. She has an LLB in Law from the University of Warwick and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she received the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship and the David TK Wong Creati...Show More
Little Atoms 518 - Fern Riddell's Death in Ten Minutes
40:40 | Jun 25th, 2018
Dr Fern Riddell is a historian specialising in sex, suffrage and culture in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. She appears regularly on TV and radio, and writes for the Guardian, Huffington Post, Telegraph and Times Higher Education among others, and ...Show More
Little Atoms 517 - Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt
37:33 | Jun 21st, 2018
Adam Kay is an award-winning comedian and writer for TV and film, including Mitchell & Webb and Very British Problems. He previously worked as a junior doctor, detailing his funny and sad experiences in his first book This Is Going To Hurt.
Little Atoms 516 - Inara Verzemnieks & Among the Living and the Dead
35:09 | Jun 18th, 2018
Inara Verzemnieks teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Iowa. She has won a Pushcart Prize and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa. She is the author ...Show More
Little Atoms 515 - Daniel Trilling's Lights in the Distance
38:26 | Jun 11th, 2018
Daniel Trilling is the editor of New Humanist magazine and has reported extensively on refugees in Europe. His work has been published in the London Review of Books, Guardian, New York Times and others, and won a 2017 Migration Media Award. His first...Show More
Little Atoms 514 - Aida Edemariam's The Wife's Tale
29:31 | Jun 4th, 2018
Aida Edemariam, whose father is Ethiopian and mother Canadian, grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She studied English literature at Oxford University and the University of Toronto, and his worked as a journalist in New York, Toronto and London, where ...Show More
Little Atoms 513 - Ziyad Marar's Judged
28:53 | May 28th, 2018
Ziyad Marar is the author of Intimacy (2014), Deception (The Art of Living) (2008) and The Happiness Paradox (2003) and is President of Global Publishing at Sage Publications. His latest book is Judged: The Value of Being Misunderstood.
Little Atoms 512 - Lucy Wood's The Sing of the Shore
28:54 | May 21st, 2018
Lucy Wood is the critically acclaimed author of Diving Belles, a collection of short stories based on Cornish folklore, and Weathering, a debut novel about mothers, daughters and ghosts. She has been longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the D...Show More
511 - Chris Power's Mothers
40:54 | May 15th, 2018
Chris Power lives and works in London. His 'Brief Survey of the Short Story' has appeared in the Guardian since 2007. His fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review and The White Review. Mothers is his first book.
510 - Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing
31:46 | May 7th, 2018
Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur 'Genius' Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency and the Strauss Living Prize. She is the first female author to win two Natio...Show More
509 - Leo Benedictus’ Consent
36:06 | Apr 30th, 2018
Leo Benedictus is a freelance feature writer for the Guardian and other publications. His first novel, The Afterparty was published by Jonathan Cape in 2011. His latest novel is Consent.
508 - Kathryn Mannix's With The End In Mind
22:54 | Apr 29th, 2018
In the third of our shows featuring shortlisted writers for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, Neil talks to Dr Kathryn Mannix about her book With The End in Mind.
Kathryn Mannix has spent her medical career working with people who have incurable, advan...Show More
507 - Wellcome Prize part 2 with Lindsey Fitzharris and Ayobami Adebayo
32:12 | Apr 26th, 2018
In the Second of three shows featuring shortlisted writers for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, Neil talks to Lindsey Fitzharris about The Butchering Art, and Ayobami Adebayo about her novel Stay With Me.
Lindsey Fitzharris received her doctorate in t...Show More
506 - Jillian Scudder's Astroquizzical
45:14 | Apr 23rd, 2018
Jillian Scudder is an astrophysicist and assistant professor at Oberlin College, Ohio. She has been writing ‘Astroquizzical’, a blog answering space-related questions from the public, for over five years. Her writing has also been published in Forbes...Show More
504 - Wellcome Prize Special part 1: Meredith Wadman and Sigrid Rausing
30:38 | Apr 19th, 2018
In the first of three shows featuring shortlisted writers for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, Neil talks to Meredith Wadman about The Vaccine Race, and Sigrid Rausing about Mayhem: A Memoir.
Meredith Wadman, MD, has a long profile as a medical report...Show More
504: David Adams' Genius With
30:43 | Apr 16th, 2018
Dr David Adam is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Man Who Couldn't Stop and an editor at Nature, the world’s top scientific journal. Before that he was a specialist correspondent on the Guardian for seven years, writing on science, medicine...Show More
503 - Aminatta Forna's Happiness
36:44 | Apr 9th, 2018
Aminatta Forna is the author of the novels The Hired Man, The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones, and the memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water. Her books have won multiple prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Book Award, and been sh...Show More
Penderyn Book Prize Special - David Hepworth
30:49 | Apr 5th, 2018
David Hepworth has been writing, broadcasting and speaking about music and media since the seventies. He was involved in the launch and editing of magazines such as Smash Hits, Q, Mojo and The Word, among many others.
He was one of the presenters o...Show More
501 - Jim Crace's The Melody
29:33 | Apr 2nd, 2018
Jim Crace is the prize-winning author of eleven previous books, including Continent (winner of the 1986 Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize), Quarantine (1998 Whitbread Novel of the Year and shortlisted for the Booker Prize), B...Show More
Little Atoms 500! Philip Hensher’s The Friendly Ones
41:46 | Mar 26th, 2018
The 500th Little Atoms! Philip Hensher has written nine novels, including The Mulberry Empire, the Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency, King of the Badgers and Scenes from Early Life, which won the Ondaatje Prize in 2012. He is Professor of Crea...Show More
499 - Cathi Unsworth’s Old Black Magic
34:09 | Mar 20th, 2018
Cathi Unsworth began a career in journalism at nineteen on the music weekly Sounds, and has since worked for music, arts, film and lifestyle journals. She is the author of five previous novels: Weirdo, The Not Knowing, The Singer, Bad Penny Blues and...Show More
498: Matthew Sweet's Operation Chaos
50:00 | Mar 13th, 2018
Matthew Sweet is a journalist and broadcaster. He presents Night Waves and Freethinking on BBC Radio 3, and is the summer presenter of The Film Programme on Radio Four. He is the author of The West End Front, Inventing the Victorians and SheppertonBa...Show More
Little Atoms 497 - International Women's Day Special with Julia Pierpoint's Feminist Saints
17:07 | Mar 8th, 2018
Neil talks feminist heroes with author Julia Pierpoint
496 - Liam Drew's I, Mammal
56:16 | Mar 6th, 2018
Liam Drew is a writer, former neurobiologist and mammal. He has a PhD in sensory biology from University College London, and spent twelve years researching the neural and genetic basis of schizophrenia, the biology of pain and the birth of new neuron...Show More
495 - Tim Baker's City Without Stars
35:35 | Feb 27th, 2018
Born in Sydney, Tim Baker lived in Rome and Madrid before moving to Paris, where he wrote about jazz. He has worked on film projects in India, China, Mexico, Brazil and Australia, and currently lives in the South of France with his wife, their son, a...Show More
494 - Abi Andrews' The Word for Woman is Wilderness
28:19 | Feb 20th, 2018
Abi Andrews was born in 1991 in the Midlands, and now lives and works in South East London. She studied English and creative writing at Goldsmiths, and her work has been published in The Dark Mountain Project, Tender, Five Dials and The Bohemyth, amo...Show More
493 - Daniel Pink's When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.
34:42 | Feb 13th, 2018
Daniel H. Pink is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestselling Drive, To Sell is Human and A Whole New Mind. His books have been translated into 35 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. Dan's latest bo...Show More
492 - Mohsin Hamid and Jon McGregor
1:06:18 | Feb 6th, 2018
Mohsin Hamid writes regularly for The New York Times, the Guardian and the New York Review of Books, and is the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moth Smoke, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Discontent and its Civilisations. Born and m...Show More
Little Atoms 491 - Tony White's The Fountain in the Forest
30:06 | Jan 30th, 2018
Tony White is the author of novels including Foxy-T, the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans and editor and co-editor of short story collections including Croatian Nights, with numerous short stories published in journals, exhibition catalo...Show More
490 - Ausma Zehanat Khan & Valeria Luiselli
51:12 | Jan 23rd, 2018
Ausma Zehanat Khan holds a Ph.D. in International Human Rights Law with a specialisation in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. She has practised immigration law and taught human rights law at Northwestern University and York Univers...Show More
489 - Caspar Henderson's New Map of Wonders
30:00 | Jan 16th, 2018
Caspar Henderson is a writer and journalist. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Independent, New Scientist, the New York Review of Books, and other publications. From 2002 to 2005 he was a senior editor at OpenDemocracy. ...Show More
From the archive: Orwell in Tribune
54:16 | Jan 10th, 2018
George Orwell wrote some of his most renowned essays for the British left-wing publication Tribune between 1940 and 1947, including Books vs Cigarettes, You And The Atom Bomb and the regular As I Please column. These works were compiled by Paul Ander...Show More
From the archive: Professor Brian Cox
28:40 | Dec 31st, 2017
A classic Little Atoms from 2010 to ease you into the new year: Professor Brian Cox takes on the big questions, including what happens if you put a cat in a Large Hadron Collider
488 - Celeste Ng and Susie Boyt
59:24 | Dec 19th, 2017
Celeste Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She attended Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her debut novel, Everything I Never Told You,won the Hopwood Award, the Massachusetts Book Aw...Show More
487 - Julie Bindel and John Crace
1:02:59 | Dec 12th, 2017
Julie Bindel is a renowned investigative journalist, and has written extensively on religious fundamentalism, violence against women, the international surrogacy trade, mail order brides, trafficking, and unsolved murders. She writes regularly for Th...Show More
486 John Higgs' Watling Street
58:11 | Dec 5th, 2017
John Higgs is the author of I HAVE AMERICA SURROUNDED: THE LIFE OF TIMOTHY LEARY; THE KLF: CHAOS, MAGIC AND THE BAND WHO BURNED A MILLION POUNDS; STRANGER THAN WE CAN IMAGINE: MAKING SENSE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY; and the novels THE BRANDY OF THE DA...Show More
Converging Cultures - Apocalypse Now
29:00 | Dec 2nd, 2017
Contagion has haunted so much of 20th century culture, from Camus’s Plague to Romero’s zombies. In this episode, we examine real and imagined epidemics, and meet the people whose job it is to stop them.
Little Atom 485 - Judith Matloff's The War Is In The Mountains
1:01:27 | Nov 28th, 2017
Judith Matloff is a Harvard graduate and teaches conflict reporting at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, the Economist and the Financial Times. Matloff has pi...Show More
Converging Cultures Episode 3: Faces of war
25:57 | Nov 25th, 2017
Futurists like Marinetti and D’Annunzio revelled in the destructive energy of battle, but in Weimar Germany after world war 1, artists such as Otto Dix and Hans Fallada documented the horror of disfigurement, while scientists and medics tried to rebu...Show More
Little Atoms 484 - Joshua Cohen's Moving Kings
42:27 | Nov 21st, 2017
Joshua Cohen was born in 1980 in Atlantic City. He has written novels (Book of Numbers), short fiction (Four New Messages), and nonfiction for the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, London Review of Books, n+1, and others. In 2017 he was named one of...Show More
Converging Cultures Episode 2 - All in your head
23:27 | Nov 18th, 2017
“Mesmerism” was a part of mainstream medicine in the 19th century, with many believing the unprovable concept of “animal magnetism”. The idea influenced everyone from Robert Louis Stevenson to Sigmund Freud, creating lurid tales of split personalitie...Show More
Angela Saini's Inferior - How Science Got Women Wrong
48:21 | Nov 14th, 2017
Angela Saini is an award-winning science journalist, author and broadcaster. She is the author of Geek Science: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World, and her latest book is Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong - and the New Research That's Re...Show More
Little Atoms presents...Electric Enlightenment
24:52 | Nov 11th, 2017
Episode 1 of Little Atoms' documentary series "Converging Cultures" explores the influence of science on the Romantic and Gothic imagination. Electricity captivated the greatest minds of the “age of wonder”. Gentlemen amateurs amazed audiences with t...Show More
From the archive - Ann Druyan
1:00:26 | Nov 7th, 2017
Ann Druyan is an author and television and film writer & producer whose work is largely concerned with the effects of science and technology on our civilization. She was co-writer with Carl Sagan and Steven Soter of the Emmy and Peabody Award winning...Show More
482: Marcel Theroux's The Secret Books
35:59 | Oct 31st, 2017
Marcel Theroux is the author of five novels: A Blow to the Heart, A Stranger in the Earth, The Paperchase (winner of the 2002 Somerset Maugham Award), Far North (shortlisted for America's prestigious National Book Award), and Strange Bodies. His late...Show More
481: Marcus Du Sautoy and Jamie Perera's Sound of Proof
1:00:44 | Oct 24th, 2017
Marcus Du Sautoy is Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi Professor for the Public understanding of Science at Oxford University, and Jamie Perera is a composer and sound artist. In this show we talk about and listen to their musical, mathematical col...Show More
480 - David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt's Runaway Species
37:48 | Oct 16th, 2017
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University. His scientific research is published in journals from Science to Nature, and he is also the author of the internationally bestselling books Sum and Incognito. He is the writer and presenter o...Show More
479 - Dallas Campbell's Ad Astra
56:44 | Oct 9th, 2017
Dallas Campbell has presented some of the most ambitious landmark series across the BBC, such as City in the Sky with Dr Hannah Fry and Stargazing Live with Dara O'Brian and Brian Cox, which included broadcasting Astronaut Tim Peake's historic live l...Show More
478 - Christopher Bollen's The Destroyers
33:06 | Oct 2nd, 2017
Christopher Bollen is a writer who lives in New York City. He regularly writes about art, literature, and culture. He is the author of Lightning People and Orient and is currently the Editor at Large at Interview Magazine. Christopher's latest novel ...Show More
477: Sarah Sentilles' Draw Your Weapons
31:17 | Sep 25th, 2017
A former theologian, Sarah Sentilles completed her undergraduate degree at Yale and both a Masters and a Doctorate at Harvard. She was a college professor for over a decade before becoming a full time writer and is now a passionate advocate for life ...Show More
From the archive - Jonathan Meades
29:18 | Sep 18th, 2017
Jonathan Meades is a writer on architecture, culture and food, a novelist and television presenter, and a longtime friend of Little Atoms. This episode, marking the release of a boxset of Jonathan's TV work, was first broadcast in October 2008.
476: Nicole Krauss and Kamila Shamsie
1:05:12 | Sep 11th, 2017
Nicole Krauss has been hailed by the New York Times as 'one of America's most important novelists'. She is the author of the international bestsellers, Great House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Orange Prize, and The Histor...Show More
From the archive: Misha Glenny's Dark Market
26:50 | Sep 7th, 2017
Misha Glenny is a distinguished journalist and historian. As the Central Europe Correspondent first for the Guardian and then for the BBC, he chronicled the collapse of communism and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. He won the Sony Gold Award for o...Show More
From the archive: Naomi Alderman's Liars' Gospel
1:03:00 | Aug 29th, 2017
Naomi Alderman grew up in London and attended Oxford University and UEA. Her first novel, Disobedience, was published in ten languages; like her second novel, The Lessons, it was read on BBC radio's Book at Bedtime. In 2006 she won the Orange Award f...Show More
From the archive: Jon Ronson, October 2005
50:28 | Aug 22nd, 2017
Writer Jon Ronson has been one of Little Atoms most regular guests. In his very first appearance on the show in 2005, he talked to Neil Denny and Richard Sanderson about the odd and unusual characters he met in his work, including Omar Bakri Muhammad...Show More
From the archive: Martin Rees - From Here to Infinity
32:45 | Aug 15th, 2017
Martin Rees is Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He was the President of the Royal Society until 2010, and is the Astronomer Royal. A member of the House of Lords, he is a foreign as...Show More
475: Vanessa Potter & Pía Spry-Marqués
52:22 | Aug 8th, 2017
Vanessa Potter spent 16 years as an award-winning broadcast producer in London's advertising industry, before one day fate conspired to turn the lights out on her. Suddenly losing then slowly regaining her sight led Vanessa to change direction, turni...Show More
474: Ryan Gattis & Zinzi Clemmons
50:29 | Aug 1st, 2017
Ryan Gattis is the author of Kung Fu and All Involved, which won the American Library Association’s Alex Award & the Lire Award for Noir of the Year in France. Gattis lives and writes in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the street art crew UGLARw...Show More
473: Jeff Sparrow in Search of Paul Robeson
38:48 | Jul 25th, 2017
Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor, and broadcaster. He writes a fortnightly column for The Guardian and contributes regularly to many other Australian and international publications. Jeff is a member of the 3RRR Breakfasters team and the immediate pas...Show More
472: Elena Lappin's What Language Do I Dream In?
43:41 | Jul 18th, 2017
Elena Lappin is a writer and editor. Born in Moscow, she grew up in Prague and Hamburg, and has lived in Israel, Canada, the United States and – longer than anywhere else – in London. She is the author of Foreign Brides and The Nose, and has contribu...Show More
471: Rachel McCormack's Chasing the Dram
43:29 | Jul 11th, 2017
Rachel McCormack is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4s The Kitchen Cabinet, and has also broadcast on the station's From Our Own Correspondent, the Food Programme and appeared as an expert guest on BBC Radio 2 on both the Simon Mayo show and the Chr...Show More
470: Jean Hanff Korelitz & Kanishk Tharoor
46:59 | Jul 4th, 2017
Jean Hanff Korelitz was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Dartmouth College and Clare College, Cambridge. She is the author of the novels A Jury Of Her Peers, The Sabbathday River, The White Rose and Admission. A film version of Adm...Show More
Little Atoms 469: John Grindrod's Outskirts
56:37 | Jun 27th, 2017
John Grindrod grew up on 'the last road in London' on Croydon's New Addington housing estate, surrounded by the Green Belt. He is the author of Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain, described by the Independent on Sunday as...Show More
468: Jason Hickel's the Divide
58:52 | Jun 20th, 2017
Jason Hickel is an anthropologist at the London School of Economics. Originally from Swaziland, he spent a number of years living with migrant workers in South Africa, studying patterns of exploitation and political resistance in the wake of aparthei...Show More
467: Beau Lotto's Deviate
31:28 | Jun 13th, 2017
Beau Lotto is Professor of Neuroscience at University of London Goldsmiths, and a visiting scholar at NYU, where he specialises in the biology and psychology of perception. He has conducted research on human perception and behaviour for more than 25 ...Show More
466: Hari Kunzru's White Tears
40:15 | Jun 6th, 2017
Hari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions and Gods Without Men, and the story collection Noise. His latest novel is White Tears.
Little Atoms 465 - Ottessa Moshfegh & Lucy Hughes-Hallett
1:05:57 | May 30th, 2017
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from Boston. Her novel Eileen was awarded the 2016 Pen/Hemingway Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Her short fiction has earned her the Paris Review Plimpton Prize, a creative writing fellowship ...Show More
From the archive: Adam Curtis's All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
28:40 | May 23rd, 2017
This interview was first broadcast on 21 November 2008.
Adam Curtis is a producer, writer and director of documentaries such as Bitter Lake, HyperNormalisation, The Century of the Self, and The Power of Nightmares. In this episode, Adam talks about ...Show More
Little Atoms 464 - Natalie Haynes and The Children of Jocasta
35:08 | May 16th, 2017
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Amber Fury, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award, and a non-fiction book about Ancient History, The Ancient Guide to Modern Life. She has written and ...Show More
Little Atoms 463: Phillip Lewis and The Barrowfields
27:34 | May 9th, 2017
Phillip Lewis was born and raised in a small town called West Jefferson in the mountains of North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later received a law degree from Campbell University. While his law practice i...Show More
Little Atoms 462: Mark O'Connell's To Be A Machine
47:54 | May 3rd, 2017
Mark O'Connell is a writer based in Dublin. He is Slate’s books columnist, a staff writer at The Millions, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker’s “Page-Turner” blog; his work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Time...Show More
461: Neil Wood's Good Cop Bad War
48:26 | Apr 25th, 2017
Neil Woods was an undercover cop whose brief was to infiltrate Britain’s most dangerous drug gangs. Starting out in the early 90s and making the rules up as he went, Neil was at the forefront of police surveillance. He quickly earned a name as the mo...Show More
Little Atoms 460: Wellcome Prize 2017 Special - 2
45:24 | Apr 18th, 2017
The second of two episodes of Little Atoms with shortlisted writers for the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize. This week, Ed Yong on his book I Contain Multitudes, plus a repeat of our interview with the winner of the 2016 Wellcome Book Prize Suzanne O'Sulliv...Show More
459: Wellcome Book Prize 2017 - Part one
56:37 | Apr 11th, 2017
The first of two episodes of Little Atoms with shortlisted writers for the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize. This week, Sarah Moss on her novel The Tidal Zone, David France of his history of AIDS How To Survive a Plague, and novelist Maylis de Kerangal on Me...Show More
From the Little Atoms archive: Sarah Churchwell's Careless People
1:03:44 | Apr 4th, 2017
Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, writes regularly for the Guardian and the New Statesman, and ofte...Show More
From the archive – Noam Chomsky
25:34 | Mar 28th, 2017
In this episode of Little Atoms from 2009, Noam Chomsky examines the Obama administration and asks what has really changed.
Chomsky describes the first term of the Bush administration as “off the spectrum” in both aggression and arrogance. US intern...Show More
458: George Saunders & Kathryn Hughes
1:09:23 | Mar 21st, 2017
458: George Saunders & Kathryn Hughes
George Saunders is the author of nine books, including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the inaugural Folio Prize (for the best work of fiction in English) and the Stor...Show More
Little Atoms 457: Christine Negroni and the Crash Detectives
58:33 | Mar 14th, 2017
A journalist, aviation blogger, documentary producer and crash investigator, Christine Negroni has more than fifteen years' experience observing and participating in the international effort to create safer skies. She currently reports for the New Yo...Show More
456: Brenna Hassett's Built on Bones
49:28 | Mar 7th, 2017
Brenna Hassett is an archaeologist who specializes in using clues from the human skeleton to understand how people lived and died in the past. She has worked on excavation sites all over the world including Roman-period burials near the Giza pyramids...Show More
Little Atoms 455 - Mark Stevenson and Rory Clements
56:25 | Feb 28th, 2017
Mark Stevenson is a writer, broadcaster, futurologist and founder of The League of Pragmatic
Optimists. He has written for Radio 4, The Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian and New Statesman,
and is the author of the critically acclaimed An Optimis...Show More
454: Sheena Kamal & Kate Hamer
52:16 | Feb 21st, 2017
Sheena Kamal has been a stunt double (for children), a stand-in (most notably Archie Panjabi) and a film/TV extra. She has been a producer’s assistant and most recently, a researcher for a gritty TV crime drama series set in Toronto. Sheena’s debut n...Show More
453: Cordelia Fine & Nichi Hodgson
59:01 | Feb 14th, 2017
Cordelia Fine is a Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of much-acclaimed A Mind of Its Own (Icon, 2006) and Delusions of Gender (Icon, 2010), described as ‘a truly startling book’ by th...Show More
Two Cultures: The power in our genes
1:01:15 | Feb 9th, 2017
The third and final Little Atoms Two Cultures in Conversation events took place in London on 17 January 2017, when Little Atoms’ Neil Denny was joined by novelist Naomi Alderman and science writer Adam Rutherford. Neil began by asking Naomi about her...Show More
452: Olivia Laing & Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
1:07:10 | Feb 7th, 2017
Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. Her work appears in numerous publications, including the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Frieze and New York Times. She's a Yaddo and MacDowell Fellow and was 2014 Eccles Writer in Residence at...Show More
451: Peter Swanson's Her Every Fear
32:13 | Jan 31st, 2017
Peter Swanson's debut novel, The Girl With a Clock for a Heart (2014), was described by Dennis Lehane as 'a twisty, sexy, electric thrill ride' and was nominated for the LA Times book award. His follow up The Kind Worth Killing (2015), a Richard and ...Show More
450: Chibundu Onuzo & Alexandra Kleeman
58:40 | Jan 24th, 2017
Chibundu Onuzo was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1991. Her first novel, The Spider King's Daughter, won a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and ...Show More
Little Atoms 449 - Laura Cumming's Vanishing Man
59:46 | Jan 17th, 2017
Laura Cumming has been the art critic of the Observer since 1999. Previously, she was Arts Editor for the New Statesman, presenter of Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3, and arts producer at the BBC World Service. Her previous book, A Face to the World: On Se...Show More
448: Luke Dormehl's Thinking Machines
56:25 | Jan 10th, 2017
Luke Dormehl is a journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film. He writes and has written for Fast Company, Wired, The Observer, Empire, SFX, The Sunday Times, Politico and Cult of Mac. He is the author of The Formula: How Alg...Show More
447: Michael Palin’s A Sackful of Limericks
46:26 | Dec 20th, 2016
Recorded live at Waterstones Piccadilly on 1 December 2016, here's the last Little Atoms of 2016. Neil Denny chats with comedy legend Michael Palin about his book A Sackful of Limericks, followed by an audience Q&A.
446: Raoul Martinez's Creating Freedom
57:58 | Dec 13th, 2016
Raoul Martinez is a writer, artist, and award-winning filmmaker. Creating Freedom is his first book. It is informed by over a decade of research and is accompanied by a documentary series of the same name. Episode One, The Lottery of Birth - produced...Show More
Something as Simple as a star with Simon Barraclough and Lucie Green
39:30 | Dec 12th, 2016
With performance, presentation, music and discussion, Lucie Green and Simon Barraclough look at the different ways of understanding "a thing so simple a thing as a star".
Poet Simon Barraclough, whose series Sunspots is the culmination of four years...Show More
445: Helen Czerski's Storm in a Teacup
34:12 | Dec 6th, 2016
Helen Czerski is a lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at University College London. As a physicist she studies the bubbles underneath breaking waves in the open ocean to understand their effects on weather and climate.
Helen regularly...Show More
Little Atoms 444: Tim Marshall on the Power and Politics of Flags
56:53 | Nov 29th, 2016
Tim Marshall is a leading authority on foreign affairs with more than 25 years of reporting experience. He was diplomatic editor at Sky News, and before that was working for the BBC and LBC/IRN radio. He has reported from forty countries and covered...Show More
Little Atoms 443 - Adam Rutherford's Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived
55:57 | Nov 22nd, 2016
Dr Adam Rutherford is a science writer and broadcaster. He studied genetics at University College London, and during his PhD on the developing eye, he was part of a team that identified the first genetic cause of a form of childhood blindness. He has...Show More
442 – Simon Ings' Stalin and The Scientists
59:35 | Nov 15th, 2016
Simon Ings began his career writing science fiction stories, novels and films, before widening his brief to explore perception (The Eye), 20th-century radical politics (The Weight of Numbers), the shipping system (Dead Water) and augmented reality (W...Show More
401 – Hadley Freeman's Life Moves Pretty Fast
59:32 | Nov 8th, 2016
Recorded live at the first London Podcast Festival at King’s Place, Guardian writer Hadley Freeman brings us her personalised guide to American movies from the 1980s – why they are brilliant, what they meant to her, and how they influenced movie-maki...Show More
440 – Naomi Alderman and Petina Gappah
1:04:04 | Nov 1st, 2016
Naomi Alderman is the author of four novels. In 2006 she won the Orange Award for New Writers, and in 2007 she was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, as well as being selected as one of Waterstones' 25 Writers for the Future. All of her nov...Show More
239 – Mike Massimino's Spaceman
56:00 | Oct 25th, 2016
Mike Massimino served as an astronaut for NASA between 1996 and 2014, going on two Space Shuttle missions to service the Hubble telescope, spending more than 30 hours on spacewalks. He has appeared as himself on The Big Bang Theory and is now a profe...Show More
438 – Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal or, Whatever Happened to The Party of The People
37:27 | Oct 18th, 2016
Thomas Frank is the author of Pity the Billionaire, The Wrecking Crew, and What's the Matter with Kansas? A former columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Harper's and a regular contributor to The Guardian, Frank is the founding editor of The Baffl...Show More
437 – Mark Greif's Against Everything
58:04 | Oct 11th, 2016
Mark Greif studied history and literature at Harvard, and English at Oxford as a British Marshall Scholar. In 2004, he co-founded the literary journal n+1 in New York and has been a principal at the magazine since then. He earned a PhD in American st...Show More
Little Atoms 436 - Colonel Alfred “Al” Worden
56:16 | Oct 4th, 2016
After graduating from West Point with a degree in Military Science, and from The University of Michigan with a Masters in Astronautical/Aeronautical Engineering, Colonel Alfred “Al” Worden had a career in the US Air Force as a fighter pilot and a tes...Show More
From the archive: Nick Cohen's What's Left?
59:41 | Sep 28th, 2016
In this interview from 2007, Neil and Padraig talked to journalist Nick Cohen about his book What's Left?, which examines the ideas of the British far left and their effects on mainstream politics.
Francis Wheen - Strange Days Indeed
28:00 | Sep 21st, 2016
First broadcast 11 September 2009, Francis Wheen discusses Strange Days Indeed, his brilliant book on the mad, paranoid world of 70s politics.
Francis Spufford - Red Plenty
25:46 | Sep 14th, 2016
First broadcast on 14th January 2011
Hailed as one of the most original non-fiction books in recent years, Francis Spufford's Red Plenty tells the story of the men and women who strived to deliver technological and economic Utopia for the Soviet Uni...Show More
Little Atoms 435 - Mary Roach and the science of humans at war
58:02 | Sep 7th, 2016
Mary Roach is the New York Times bestselling author of several popular science books, including Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Packing for Mars and Gulp. She has written for the Guardian, Wired, BBC Focus, GQ and Vogue. Her latest book is Grunt: The Curious Sci...Show More
Little Atoms 434 - Science and the City with Laurie Winkless
1:06:55 | Aug 24th, 2016
Laurie Winkless is a physicist and writer, currently based in London.
Following a degree at Trinity College Dublin, a placement at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre, and a masters in Space Science at UCL, Laurie worked at the National Physical Laboratory...Show More
Little Atoms 433 - Travis Elborough’s Walk In The Park
1:02:22 | Aug 17th, 2016
Travis Elborough is the author of four acclaimed books: The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus; The Long Player Goodbye, which lamented the passing of vinyl; Wish You Were Here, a history of the British beside the seaside; and London Brid...Show More
432 - Alex Cox's Introduction to Film
50:06 | Aug 10th, 2016
Maverick British filmmaker Alex Cox is responsible for directing a host of acclaimed films including Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, Walker and Highway Patrolman. From 1987 to 1994, he presented the acclaimed BBC TV series ‘Moviedrome’, brin...Show More
Little Atoms 431 - Dan Richards and Cal Flyn
1:18:37 | Aug 3rd, 2016
Cal Flyn is a freelance journalist from the Highlands of Scotland. She has been a reporter for the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph, and a contributing editor at The Week magazine. She has been published in the New Statesman, The Observer, The In...Show More
Little Atoms 430 - Alex Marshall’s Republic or Death
59:53 | Jul 27th, 2016
Alex Marshall is a journalist who writes about music and politics. He has written previously for the BBC, Guardian and New York Times. Alex is the author of Republic or Death! Travels in Search of National Anthems.
Little Atoms 429 - Miranda Sawyer's Out Of Time
59:21 | Jul 20th, 2016
Miranda Sawyer is a journalist and broadcaster. Formerly of Smash Hits and Select, she currently writes features and radio criticism for the Observer, and her writing has also appeared in GQ, Vogue and the Guardian. She is a regular arts critic in pr...Show More
Little Atoms 428 - Marcus Du Sautoy's What We Cannot Know
59:23 | Jul 13th, 2016
Marcus Du Sautoy is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. In 2008 he was appointed to Oxford University’s prestigious professorship as the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, a post previously held by Richard Dawkin...Show More
Little Atoms 427 - Louise Dougty's Black Water
43:10 | Jul 6th, 2016
Louise Doughty is the author of seven novels, most recently the top 5 bestseller Apple Tree Yard, which was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club, shortlisted for the Specsavers National Book Awards Crime & Thriller of the Year and the CWA Ian Flem...Show More
Little Atoms 426 - Francis Spufford's Golden Hill
56:44 | Jun 29th, 2016
Francis Spufford was born in 1964. He is the author of five highly-praised books of non-fiction, most frequently described by reviewers as either 'bizarre' or 'brilliant', and usually as both. Unapologetic, has been translated into three languages; t...Show More
Little Atoms 425 - Kate Moore's Radium Girls
50:45 | Jun 22nd, 2016
Kate Moore is a Sunday Times bestselling writer with more than a decade's experience in writing across varying genres, including memoir and biography and history. She is the author of The Radium Girls, and previously she was the director of the criti...Show More
Little Atoms 424 - John Wray's Lost Time Accidents
59:03 | Jun 14th, 2016
John Wray is the author of The Right Hand of Sleep, which won a Whiting Writers' Award, Canaan's Tongue and the critically-acclaimed Lowboy. He was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. His latest novel is The Lost Time Acc...Show More
Little Atoms 423 - Eagles of podcasting!
59:11 | Jun 8th, 2016
Recorded live at the Stoke Newington Literary festival, we gathered together the crème of UK literary podcasting and put them on the same stage, and inevitably they talked about books; With Andy Miller (Backlisted), Carrie Plitt & Octavia Bright (Lit...Show More
Little Atoms 422 - Lucy Jones and Foxes Unearthed
48:35 | Jun 1st, 2016
Little Atoms 421 - Sean Carroll and the Big Picture
56:51 | May 25th, 2016
Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California, where he researches the foundations of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, and the emergence of complexity.
He received his PhD in 1983 from Harvard University, and has b...Show More
Little Atoms 420 - Katie Roiphe's Violet Hour
56:03 | May 18th, 2016
Katie Roiphe is the author of several books, including The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism, Uncommon Arrangements, and In Praise of Messy Lives. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Harpe...Show More
Little Atoms 419 - Duncan Campbell's We’ll All Be Murdered in Our Beds!
56:56 | May 11th, 2016
Duncan Campbell is a former crime correspondent of the Guardian, former chairman of the Crime Reporters’ Association and winner of the Bar Council’s newspaper journalist of the year. He has also written for the Observer, New Statesman, London Review ...Show More
Little Atoms 418 - Rowan Moore's Slow Burn City
48:43 | May 4th, 2016
Rowan Moore is the architecture critic for the Observer and previously for the Evening Standard.
He is also a trained architect, and between 2002 and 2008 was the Director of the Architecture Foundation.
His award winning book Why We Build was pu...Show More
London election special #3 - housing
39:43 | May 3rd, 2016
Josh Neicho speaks to Ben Judah, Heather Kennedy and Martin Skinner about housing, the hottest issue of the London mayoral campaign.
Ben Judah is a journalist and author of This Is London, about the migrant experience of London
Heather Kennedy is a...Show More
London election special #2 - Youth, diversity and equality
39:15 | Apr 28th, 2016
In our second London mayoral election special, Josh Niecho and his panel discuss the issues affecting London's young and diverse community.
Featuring:
Kenny Imafidon is author of the award-winning Kenny Reports and Partnerships & Programmes Co-ordi...Show More
Little Atoms 417 - Stephen Trombley's Wise Words
59:27 | Apr 27th, 2016
Stephen Trombley's most recent books are Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World (2012) and A Short History of Western Thought (2011). For 15 years he co-edited The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought with Alan Bullock. His latest book is Wise Wo...Show More
London election special part 1 - transport infrastructure and environment
49:07 | Apr 26th, 2016
Alexander Jan leads the City Economics team at engineering and consultancy firm Arup and is a columnist for City AM
Alex Ingram is a cycling campaigner with groups in Lewisham and Islington and with national campaigns. He blogs at Alex in the Cities...Show More
Little Atoms 416 - Steve Silberman and Sarah Moss
44:41 | Apr 22nd, 2016
The last of our three shows for the 2016 Wellcome Book Prize, with shortlisted authors Steve Silberman & Sarah Moss. The Wellcome Book Prize 2016 winner will be announced on Monday 25th April. Thanks again to Chris, Alice and Fiona at FMcM Associates...Show More
Little Atoms 415 - Suzanne O'Sullivan and Amy Liptrot
47:37 | Apr 20th, 2016
Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan has been a consultant in neurology since 2004, first working at The Royal London Hospital and now as a consultant in clinical neurophysiology and neurology at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and for a speci...Show More
Little Atoms 414 - Cathy Rentzenbrink & Alex Pheby
59:57 | Apr 13th, 2016
The first of three shows for the 2016 Wellcome Book Prize, with shortlisted authors Cathy Rentzenbrink & Alex Pheby.
Cathy Rentzenbrink was born in Cornwall, Grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in London. A former bookseller at Waterstones, she was u...Show More
Little Atoms 413 - Molly Crabapple and Paul Mason
58:57 | Apr 6th, 2016
A recording of the first Little Atoms live event at Waterstones Piccadilly in which we host the launch of Mollly Crabapple’s book Drawing Blood. An acclaimed artist and journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Pa...Show More
Little Atoms 412 - The Penderyn Music Book Prize special
58:56 | Mar 30th, 2016
The Penderyn Music Book Prize is organised by Richard Thomas, founder of the Laugharne Weekend Festival, and is the only UK-based book prize specifically for music titles including history, theory, biography and autobiography. The winner will be anno...Show More
Littlle Atoms 411 - Ioan Grillo and Gangster Warlords
56:04 | Mar 23rd, 2016
Ioan Grillo has reported on Latin America since 2001 for international media including Time magazine, Reuters, CNN, the Associated Press, the Houston Chronicle, the BBC World Service and the Sunday Telegraph.
His first book, El Narco: Inside Mexico’...Show More
Little Atoms 410 - DJ Taylor and The Prose Factory
50:33 | Mar 16th, 2016
DJ Taylor is the author of two acclaimed biographies, Thackerary (1999), and Orwell: The Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 2003.
He has written eleven novels, the most recent being The Windsor Faction. He’s also well known as a crit...Show More
Little Atoms special: Andrew Solomon and Marion Coutts
1:10:58 | Mar 11th, 2016
For the last two years Little Atoms has partnered with the Wellcome Book Prize, broadcasting interviews with the shortlisted authors.
We’ll be doing the same this year, and to mark the announcement of the 2016 shortlist on Monday 14th March, here’s...Show More
Little Atoms 409 Harry Parker Andrew Hankinson
56:17 | Mar 9th, 2016
Harry Parker grew up in Wiltshire. He was educated at Falmouth College of Art and University College London. He joined the British Army when he was 23 and served in Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2009 as a Captain. He is now a writer and artist and ...Show More
Little Atoms 408 - Jo Marchant and the science of mind over body
59:56 | Mar 2nd, 2016
Jo Marchant is an award-winning science journalist based in London. She has a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology from St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College in London, and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London. She has...Show More
Little Atoms 407: Maria Konnikova and The Confidence Game
57:55 | Feb 24th, 2016
Maria Konnikova was born in Moscow, Russia and came to the United States when she was four years old. She is a contributing writer for The New Yorker, where she writes a regular column with a focus on psychology and culture, and has written for The A...Show More
Little Atoms 406 - Kathryn Harkup and A is for Arsenic
59:40 | Feb 17th, 2016
Kathryn Harkup is a chemist and author. Kathryn completed a PhD then a postdoc at the University of York before realising that talking, writing and demonstrating science appealed far more than spending hours slaving over a hot fume-hood. She went on ...Show More
Little Atoms 405 - Helen Fitzgerald's Viral
59:08 | Feb 10th, 2016
Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of Dead Lovely (2007) and nine other adult and young adult thrillers, including My Last Confession (2009), The Donor (2011) and most recently The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakston's Old Pecu...Show More
Little Atoms 310 – Matthew Kneale & Suzanne Moore
1:04:53 | Feb 5th, 2016
Matthew Kneale studied Modern History at Oxford University. He is the author of several novels, including English Passengers which won the Whitbread Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His latest book is An Atheist’s History of Belief: Un...Show More
Little Atoms 311 – Philip Hoare & Deborah Orr
1:03:40 | Feb 4th, 2016
Philip Hoare is the author of seven works of non-fiction, including an acclaimed biography of Noel Coward, and Leviathan or, The Whale, which won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. An experienced broadcaster, Hoare wrote and presented...Show More
Little Atoms 316 – Rana Dasgupta & Sarah Ditum
1:07:23 | Feb 3rd, 2016
Rana Dasgupta won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book for his debut novel Solo. He is also the author of a collection of urban folktales, Tokyo Cancelled, which was shortlisted for the 2005 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Capital: A Portrai...Show More
Little Atoms 404 - The Ministry of Nostalgia and Landscapes of Communism
59:54 | Feb 3rd, 2016
Owen Hatherley writes regularly on architecture and cultural politics for Architects Journal, Architectural Review,Icon, The Guardian, The London Review of Books and New Humanist, and is the author of several books, including Militant Modernism, A Gu...Show More
Little Atoms 312 – Is Music Journalism in a Critical Condition?
1:28:56 | Feb 2nd, 2016
A special edition of Little Atoms for Resonance FM’s fundraising week. Recorded live at The Slaughtered Lamb on 10th February 2014.
Is Music Journalism in a Critical Condition?
The UK music scene once supported four weekly music papers, which wield...Show More
Little Atoms 304 – Aleks Krotoski & Matthew Sweet
1:15:34 | Feb 1st, 2016
Aleks Krotoski is an academic and journalist who writes about and studies technology and interactivity. She is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Researc...Show More
Little Atoms 319 – FutureEverything 2014 – James Bridle & Eleanor Saitta
1:16:35 | Jan 29th, 2016
James Bridle is a writer, artist, publisher and technologist usually based in London, UK. His work covers the intersection of literature, culture and the network. He has written for WIRED, ICON, Domus, Cabinet, the Atlantic and many other publication...Show More
Little Atoms 322 – Irving Finkel & Lucianne Walkowicz
1:27:29 | Jan 28th, 2016
Irving Finkel is an archaeologist and Assyriologist, currently Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian Script, Languages and Cultures in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. He’s also an expert on the history of board games, and ...Show More
Little Atoms 323 – FutureEverything – 65daysofstatic & The Space Lady
1:08:46 | Jan 27th, 2016
Paul Wolinski and Joe Shrewsbury are one half of 65daysofstatic, an instrumental band from Sheffield, as comfortable crashing samplers to mine glitches as they are putting guitars through too much distortion. Influenced by a technologically dystopian...Show More
Little Atoms 403 - Tim Baker's Fever City
57:33 | Jan 27th, 2016
Born into a showbiz milieu in Sydney, Tim Baker left Australia to travel in his early 20s and lived in Rome and Madrid before moving to Paris, where he wrote about music and worked in film. He later ran consular operations in France and North Africa ...Show More
Little Atoms 325 – FutureEverything 2014 – Alex Fleetwood & Anab Jain
1:09:41 | Jan 26th, 2016
Alex Fleetwood is the founder and director of Hide&Seek, a game design studio dedicated to inventing new kinds of play. Hide&Seek started life in 2007 as a festival of social games and playful experiences on London’s South Bank, and built into a stud...Show More
Little Atoms 336 – Olivia Laing & The Trip to Echo Spring
57:30 | Jan 25th, 2016
Olivia Laing‘s first book, To the River, was a book of the year in the Evening Standard, Independent and Financial Times and was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Olivia is the form...Show More
Little Atoms 340 – Andy Miller & The Year of Reading Dangerously
1:25:08 | Jan 22nd, 2016
Andy Miller is a reader, author and editor of books. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, Esquire and Mojo. He’s the author of Tilting at Windmills: How I Tried to Stop Worrying and Love...Show More
Little Atoms 341 – Cara Hoffman & Be Safe I Love You
38:33 | Jan 21st, 2016
Cara Hoffman is the author of the critically acclaimed 2011 novel So Much Pretty. She grew up in northern Appalachia, where she dropped out of high school to work full time. Hoffman spent three years travelling and working as an agricultural labourer...Show More
Little Atoms 402: Lisa Randall and Francesca Kay
56:44 | Jan 20th, 2016
On this week’s Little Atoms podcast, Neil Denny talks to Theoretical physicist Lisa Randall about her new book Dark Matter and The Dinosaurs, and then Francesca Kay on her latest novel The Long Room.
Lisa Randall is one of the world's leading theore...Show More
Little Atoms 343 – Lee Rourke & Vulgar Things
57:06 | Jan 19th, 2016
Lee Rourke is the author of the short story collection Everyday, and the novel The Canal, which won the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize in 2010. He is writer in residence at Kingston University, where he is an MFA lecturer in creative writing and cri...Show More
Little Atoms 401 - Kat Arney Herding Hemingway's Cats
55:53 | Jan 13th, 2016
Following a doctorate and subsequent research career in genetics, Kat Arney is now Science Communications Manager for Cancer Research UK, where she translates science into plain English to help people understand more about the disease. Kat is also a ...Show More
From the archive - Christopher Hitchens
59:50 | Jan 6th, 2016
In this interview, recorded in Oxford ahead of the release of "God Is Not Great", Christopher Hitchens spoke to Neil Denny and Padraig Reidy about Richard Dawkins, Karl Marx, religion, blasphemy and nuclear apocalypse
Little Atoms 400 - Juliet Jacques
57:20 | Dec 16th, 2015
Juliet Jacques is a freelance writer, best known for the Guardian’s “Transgender Journey”—the first time the gender reassignment process had been serialised for a major British publication.
Her column was longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011. Sh...Show More
Little Atoms 399 - Lucy Inglis and Georgian London
56:39 | Dec 9th, 2015
Lucy Inglis is a historian, novelist, and occasional television presenter. In 2009 she created the Georgian London blog, which became the largest free body of work on the eighteenth century city online, which became a book, Georgian London: Into the ...Show More
Little Atoms 398. Peter Pomerantsev - Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible
59:10 | Dec 2nd, 2015
Peter Pomerantsev is an award-winning TV producer and a contributor to the London Review of Books. His writing has been published in the Financial Times,New Yorker,Wall Street Journal,Foreign Policy,Daily Beast, Newsweek,Le Monde Diplomatique, among ...Show More
Little Atoms 397 - Jon Savage - 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded
58:42 | Nov 18th, 2015
Jon Savage is the author of England's Dreaming: Sex pistols and Punk Rock and Teenage: The Creation of Youth, 1875 - 1945. He is the writer of the award winning film documentaries The Brian Epstein Story (1998) and Joy Division (2007) as well as the ...Show More
Litle Atoms 396 Max Porter: Grief Is The Thing With Feathers
50:10 | Nov 11th, 2015
Max Porter is a senior editor at Granta. His first book Grief is the Thing With Feathers has been shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize 2015 and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2015.
Little Atoms 395 – Hanya Yanagihara & Antony Loewenstein
1:25:51 | Nov 5th, 2015
On this week’s Little Atoms podcast, Man Booker shortlisted novelist Hanya Yanagihara on A Little Life and journalist Antony Loewenstein on Disaster Capitalism.
Hanya Yanagihara is the author of The People in the Trees, which was shortlisted for the ...Show More
Little Atoms 394 – Zoe Lambert & Emma Jane Unsworth Little Atoms Live
57:09 | Oct 7th, 2015
This week, a Live Little Atoms event. Authors Emma Jane Unsworth and Zoe Lambert in conversation with Neil Denny at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester on Friday 25th September. Zoe Lambert is a Manchester based writer. She lec...Show More
Little Atoms 393 – Timothy Snyder & Black Earth
56:04 | Sep 30th, 2015
Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale University, and has written and edited a number of critically acclaimed and prize-winning books about twentieth-century European history: Bloodlands won the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Leipzig Book P...Show More
Little Atoms 392 – Royal Society Winton Prize 2015 Three
1:07:10 | Sep 23rd, 2015
The last of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, ahead of the award ceremony on Thursday 24th September. This week Neil Denny talks with Matthew Cobb, and there’s a repeat of our in...Show More
Little Atoms 391 – Royal Society Winton Prize 2015 Two
59:28 | Sep 16th, 2015
The second of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. This week Neil Denny talks with David Adam, and there’s a repeat of our interview with Gaia Vince from August 2014. This show also...Show More
Little Atoms 390 – Royal Society Winton Prize 2015 One
57:58 | Sep 9th, 2015
The first of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. This week Neil Denny talks with shortlisted authors Jim Al-Khalili & Johnjoe Mcfadden, and Jon Butterworth. Professor Jim Al-Khalil...Show More
Little Atoms 389 – Petina Gappah & The Book of Memory
33:35 | Sep 2nd, 2015
Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her debut story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book Prize in 2009. Her debut novel is The Book of Memory.
Little Atoms 388 – John Higgs & Stranger Than We Can Imagine
1:00:38 | Aug 26th, 2015
John Higgs is the author of I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary, The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, and the novel The Brandy of the Damned. His latest book is Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of...Show More
Little Atoms 387 – Michela Wrong & Borderlines
53:51 | Aug 19th, 2015
Michela Wrong is a distinguished international journalist, and has worked as a foreign correspondent covering events across the African continent for Reuters, the BBC and the Financial Times. She writes regularly for Foreign Policy magazine and the S...Show More
Little Atoms 386 – Stephen Grey & Dan Richards
1:14:37 | Aug 12th, 2015
Stephen Grey is a journalist based in London, who writes mainly about national security issues. He is best known for breaking the international exclusive story of the CIA’s secret rendition program. A former editor on the Sunday Times’ investigations...Show More
Little Atoms 385 – Alok Jha & The Water Book
57:31 | Aug 5th, 2015
Alok Jha is a journalist and broadcaster based in London. He is science correspondent for ITN and, before that, was science correspondent at the Guardian. He has presented science programmes for BBC2 and BBC Radio 4. Alok received a science-writing a...Show More
Little Atoms 384 – Helen Scales & Spirals in Time
57:30 | Jul 29th, 2015
Helen Scales is a marine biologist, a freelance researcher and broadcaster; she appears regularly on BBC Radio 4, Sky News and the BBC World Service, and has presented documentaries on topics such as whether people will ever live underwater, the scie...Show More
Little Atoms 383 – Iain Sinclair – London Overground & Black Apples of Gower
58:06 | Jul 22nd, 2015
Iain Sinclair a poet, film-maker, essayist and the author of many acclaimed books, including Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize), Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital, Edge of Orison, Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire, Dinin...Show More
Little Atoms 382 – Antony Beevor & Ardennes 1944
57:19 | Jul 15th, 2015
Antony Beevor was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst, where he studied under John Keegan. A regular officer with the 11th Hussars, he left the Army to write. He has published four novels, and numerous works of non-fiction. His books include The Spa...Show More
Little Atoms 381 – Dylan Evans & Andrew Mueller
1:20:33 | Jul 8th, 2015
On this week’s Little Atoms, Dylan Evans on The Utopia Experiment, and Andrew Mueller on his memoir It’s Too Late to Die Young Now. Dylan Evans is an academic, philosopher and journalist. He has written several popular science books, was named by the...Show More
Little Atoms 380 – Nell Zink & The Wallcreeper and Mislaid
57:29 | Jul 1st, 2015
Nell Zink was born in 1964 in southern California and grew up in rural Virginia. She attended Stuart Hall School and the College of William and Mary, where she majored in philosophy. Rather late in life she got a doctorate in Media Studies from the U...Show More
Little Atoms 379 – Emma Jane Unsworth & Alex Hourston
57:23 | Jun 24th, 2015
Emma Jane Unsworth is a journalist and won the Betty Trask Award for her novel Hungry, the Stars and Everything, and was shortlisted for the 2012 Portico Prize. Her short story ‘I Arrive First’ was included in The Best British Short Stories 2012. Emm...Show More
Little Atoms 378 – Nick Lane & The Vital Question
56:27 | Jun 17th, 2015
Nick Lane is a biochemist in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London and leads the UCL Origins of Life Programme. His first book, Oxygen, was one of the Sunday Times Books of the Year in 2002. Power, Sex, Su...Show More
Little Atoms 377 – Joanna Biggs & Stevan Alcock
58:23 | Jun 10th, 2015
On this week's Little Atoms Podcast, Joanna Biggs on her book All Day Long: A Portrait of Britain at Work, and Stevan Alcock on his novel Blood Relatives.
Little Atoms 376 – Gavin Francis & Adventures in Human Being
56:38 | Jun 3rd, 2015
On this week's Little Atoms, Neil Denny talks to Dr Gavin Francis about his latest book is Adventures in Human Being.
Little Atoms 375 – Lynsey Addario & It’s What I Do
1:04:42 | May 20th, 2015
On this week's Little Atoms, Pulitzer Prize-winning Photojournalist Lynsey Addario on her Memoir It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War.
Little Atoms 374 – Brandy Schillace & Caitlin Doughty
1:19:14 | May 13th, 2015
On this week’s Little Atoms podcast, two books about Death. Brandy Schillace on Death’s Summer Coat, and Caitlin Doughty on Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Dr Brandy Schillace writes about culture, the history of medicine, and the intersections of medicine ...Show More
Little Atoms 373 – Zoe Williams & Get it Together
57:22 | May 6th, 2015
The day before the most uninspiring General Election in Decades, we talk to Zoe Williams about her new book Get it Together: Why We Deserve Better Politics.
Little Atoms 372 – Wellcome Book Prize 2105 Part Two
56:39 | Apr 29th, 2015
Neil Denny talks to two more shortlisted writers, Henry Marsh and Marion Coutts.
Little Atoms 371 – Wellcome Book Prize 2015 Part One
57:30 | Apr 22nd, 2015
On Wednesday 29th April the winner of the 2015 Wellcome Book Prize will be announced. In the first of two special editions of Little Atoms, Neil Denny talks to three of the shortlisted writers. This week: Miriam Toews, Scott Stossell and Sarah Moss. ...Show More
Little Atoms 370 – Christopher Bollen & Orient
56:52 | Apr 15th, 2015
On this week's Little Atoms, Neil Denny talks to New York writer Christopher Bollen about his new novel Orient.
Little Atoms 369 – Susan Pinker & Gary Wilson
1:07:55 | Apr 8th, 2015
On this week’s Little Atoms, Susan Pinker on her book The Village Effect, and Gary Wilson on his book Your Brain on Porn. Susan Pinker is a developmental psychologist and award-winning newspaper columnist who writes about psychology and social scienc...Show More
Little Atoms 368 – Andrew Scull & Madness in Civilization
1:09:31 | Apr 1st, 2015
Andrew Scull is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies, University of California, San Diego. He has previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Princeton. His many publications include Museums of Madness; Social Order...Show More
Little Atoms 367 – Mind’s Eye Interviews Five – Dennis Reuter
55:33 | Mar 25th, 2015
Dr. Dennis Reuter is a New Horizons co-investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the instrument scientist for Ralph, the New Horizons color imager and infrared spectrometer. New Horizons launched on 19th January 2006 and is scheduled to...Show More
Little Atoms 366 – Hannah Fry & Jon Ronson
57:56 | Mar 18th, 2015
On this week’s Little Atoms podcast, Hannah Fry on The Mathematics of Love and Jon Ronson on his latest book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. Dr. Hannah Fry is a mathematician and complexity scientist from University College London’s Center for Advanc...Show More
Little Atoms 365 – Salena Godden & Kate Hamer
57:02 | Mar 11th, 2015
On this week’s Little Atoms, two interviews. Neil Denny talks to Salena Godden about her memoir Springfield Road, and to Kate Hamer about her debut novel The Girl in the Red Coat. Salena Godden writes and performs poetry, fiction, memoir, radio drama...Show More
Little Atoms 364 – FutureEverything 20 Special
1:13:44 | Mar 4th, 2015
This week’s Little Atoms is a special edition recorded at FutureEverything 20 in Manchester on 26th and 27th February 2015. The show features a long interview recorded live in front of an audience with writer, researcher and activist Alice Bell, and ...Show More
Little Atoms 363 – Arthur I. Miller & Colliding Worlds
57:54 | Feb 25th, 2015
Arthur I. Miller is emeritus professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including Einstein, Picasso, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Empire of the Stars, which...Show More
Little Atoms 362 – Mind’s Eye Interviews Four
59:53 | Feb 18th, 2015
Late last year, Little Atoms took part in an audio installation, Mind’s Eye, which consisted of a number of interviews with scientists involved in current space missions. Mind’s Eye is now on tour, and can been heard from 16th to 22nd February as par...Show More
Little Atoms 361 – Greg Jenner & A Million Years in a Day
57:27 | Feb 11th, 2015
Greg Jenner is the Historical Consultant to CBBC’s multi-award winning Horrible Histories, Horrible Histories with Stephen Fry, and the various HH spin-offs. As well as contributing sketches and co-writing Stephen Fry’s links, over the past four year...Show More
Little Atoms 360 – David Stubbs & Future Days
58:07 | Feb 4th, 2015
David Stubbs joined the music magazine Melody Maker in 1986, where he worked for 12 years. His most famous creation, Mr Agreeable periodically reawakens over at The Quietus. He has also written for The Guardian, NME, The Wire, When Saturday Comes and...Show More
Little Atoms 359 – Edward Slingerland & Trying Not to Try
56:49 | Jan 28th, 2015
Edward Slingerland is an internationally recognized expert in both early Chinese thought and the links between cognitive science and the humanities. He is Professor of Asian Studies, Associate Member in the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, a...Show More
Little Atoms 358 – Johann Hari & Chasing the Scream
1:15:57 | Jan 21st, 2015
Johann Hari is a journalist who has written for the New York Times, the LA Times, the Guardian,Le Monde, Slate, the New Republic and The Nation among others. He was a columnist on the Independent for nine years and was twice named Newspaper Journalis...Show More
Little Atoms 357 – Ken Hollings & The Bright Labyrinth
56:42 | Jan 14th, 2015
Ken Hollings is a writer based in London. His work appears in a wide range of journals and publications, including The Wire, Sight and Sound, Strange Attractor, Frieze, Blast and Nude, and in the anthologies The Last Sex, Digital Delirium, Undercurre...Show More
Little Atoms 356 – A QI Christmas Show
54:59 | Dec 17th, 2014
The last Little Atoms of 2014, recorded at QI headquarters in somewhere in Covent Garden, with QI Head of Research James Harkin and the QI Elves – Anne Miller, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Alex Bell. We’re mostly talking about the latest...Show More
Little Atoms 355 – Celeste Ng & Ben Okri
58:21 | Dec 10th, 2014
In this episode of Little Atoms, two prize-winning novelists. Celeste Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio, in a family of scientists. Her fiction and essays have appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Revi...Show More
Little Atoms 354 – Ben Goldacre & Eric Schlosser
59:12 | Nov 26th, 2014
Ben Goldacre is a doctor, academic, broadcaster and science writer who has made his name unpicking the evidence behind dodgy claims from journalists, politicians, quacks and drug companies. His Bad Science column ran in the Guardian from 2003 to 2011...Show More
Little Atoms 353 – Rebecca Newberger Goldstein & Kenan Malik
1:14:11 | Nov 19th, 2014
In this episode of Little Atoms, two philosophical interviews: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein received her doctorate in philosophy from Princeton University. Her award-winning books include the novels The Mind-Body Problem, Properties of Light, and 36 A...Show More
Little Atoms 352 – David Flusfeder & Jeff Jackson
1:24:24 | Nov 12th, 2014
In this episode of Little Atoms, two novels that blur the boundaries between truth and Fiction. David Flusfeder was born in New Jersey but grew up in London. He’s the author of numerous novels, including, A Film by Spencer Ludwig, The Pagan House, Th...Show More
Little Atoms 351 – Michael Brooks & At The Edge of Uncertainty
56:03 | Nov 5th, 2014
Michael Brooks is the author of the bestselling non-fiction titles 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense and Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science. He holds a PhD in quantum physics, is a consultant at New Scientist and writes a weekly column for th...Show More
Little Atoms 350 – Marina Keegan & The Opposite of Loneliness
49:55 | Oct 29th, 2014
Marina Keegan (1989 – 2012) was an author, journalist, playwright, poet, actress and activist, and for two years a research assistant to Harold Bloom, all before she graduated from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New Y...Show More
Little Atoms 349 – Travis Elborough & London Bridge + How We Used to Live
58:50 | Oct 22nd, 2014
Travis Elborough has been a freelance writer, author and cultural commentator for more than a decade now. His books include The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus; The Long Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records; and Wish You Were Here, ...Show More
Little Atoms 348 – Rachel Cooke & Her Brilliant Career
1:06:04 | Oct 15th, 2014
Rachel Cooke is a journalist, writing for The Observer, where her features and interviews have won several awards. She is also the television critic of the New Statesman. Her first book is Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties.
Little Atoms 347 – James Ward & Adventures in Stationery
56:04 | Oct 8th, 2014
James Ward‘s blog, I Like Boring Things, has featured in the Independent, Observer and on the BBC website. He is co-founder of Stationery Club and London’s annual Boring Conference, a one-day celebration of the ordinary and the overlooked, as feature...Show More
Little Atoms 346 – Mind’s Eye Interviews Three
1:36:18 | Oct 3rd, 2014
The last of three special editions of Little Atoms from Mind’s Eye, an audio installation at Brighton Digital Festival, featuring a number of interviews with space people. The third show features interviews with former Space Shuttle astronaut Gerhard...Show More
Little Atoms 345 – Mind’s Eye Interviews Two
1:12:26 | Sep 24th, 2014
The second of three special editions of Little Atoms from Mind’s Eye, an audio installation at Brighton Digital Festival, featuring a number of interviews with space people. The second show features interviews with Sandra Cauffman, Deputy Project Ma...Show More
