Hannah Rothschild - award winning writer, documentary filmmaker and businesswoman - returns to 5x15 to discuss her latest acclaimed novel, House of Trelawney - about an eccentric, dysfunctional family of English aristocrats, and their crumbling stately home that reminds us how the lives and hopes of women can still be shaped by the ties of family and love. Her previous novel, The Improbability of Love, won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for best comic novel and was shortlisted for the Ba...
Nov 23, 2021•12 min
Why do we consume the way we do? Aja Barber is a writer and stylist with over 230,000 followers on Instagram, whose work explores the connections between contemporary consumerism, colonial oppression and climate change. Her new book is called Consumed. Through her own story, she explores the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and confronts the uncomfortable history of the textile industry- challenging us to become citizens not consumers and to recognise the need for collective action ...
Nov 22, 2021•14 min
For years Lucy Kellaway’s life was the model of success- a columnist at the Financial Times, married to the same husband for decades, she appeared happy with an outwardly enviable life. But she began to realise that the life she had built for herself no longer suited her. Her book, Re-educated: How I changed my job, my home, my husband and my hair is a celebration of education's power to transform lives, an exploration of our schools today, and a reminder that there can be new beginnings at any ...
Nov 19, 2021•11 min
Four thousand weeks is the amount of time the average person can expect to spend on this planet. But what, exactly, should we do with our brief spell on earth? That’s the question that broadcaster and author Oliver Burkeman, author of the Guardian’s much-loved ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’, explores in Four Thousand Weeks. Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, he sets out to realign our relationship with time – and in ...
Nov 15, 2021•14 min
Lara Maiklem is the founder of The London Mudlark and author of Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames, which was the story of the river told through the objects she has found - a tale of obsession, tide-watching, mud-walking and endless hours of searching in all weathers. Mudlarking was a Sunday Times Bestseller, an Observer Book of the Year, Radio 4 Book of the Week and Winner of the 2020 Indie Book Award for Non Fiction. Her new book is A Field Guide to Larking - a practical, interact...
Nov 13, 2021•15 min
Justine Picardie is the author of six books, including her critically acclaimed memoir, If the Spirit Moves You: Life and Love After Death, and the international bestseller, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life. Her most recent book is Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture, a biography of the sister of legendary fashion designer Christian Dior. She is a contributing editor to Harper’s Bazaar, having previously been its editor-in-chief. She was formerly an investigative journalist for the Sun...
Nov 12, 2021•19 min
Sarfraz Manzoor is a British journalist, documentary maker, broadcaster, and screenwriter of Pakistani origin. Growing up in a working-class Muslim family in Luton, he was raised to believe that ‘they’ – white people – would never accept him. In today’s Britain, we are often told that ‘they’ – Muslims – will never accept this country. In his new book, They, Manzoor tells the story of modern Muslim Britain, and searches for a more positive future that bridges the chasm of mutual mistrust. 'Extrao...
Nov 08, 2021•15 min
With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet? Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His most recent book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fict...
Nov 02, 2021•45 min
The writer-director Mike Leigh is one of world cinema’s pre-eminent figures, a multi-award winning writer-director and one of Britain’s most internationally recognised and critically acclaimed filmmakers. He joins 5x15 to talk about his life and work in an unmissable online conversation with the long-time presenter of The Film Programme, Francine Stock. In Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, the director reflects on films including his much-loved Mr Turner and recent epic Peterloo; classic films including...
Nov 01, 2021•1 hr 2 min
A 5x15 and Penguin Classics series of Green Ideas special event with Jared Diamond who discusses his short book The Last Tree on Easter Island. Life on earth has become irrevocably altered by humans. What can we do to acknowledge our impact on the earth and pave the way for a fairer, saner, greener world? The Last Tree on Easter Island is Jared Diamond's haunting account of visiting the mysterious stone statues of Easter Island. As the multi-award winning author and geographer proposes in his be...
Oct 30, 2021•46 min
Award-winning journalist Dan Saladino discusses his new book and call to arms Eating to Extinction with Rosie Boycott. A captivating and urgent exploration of some of the world's most endangered foods, Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino is essential reading for our times, an astonishing journey through the past, present and future of food, a love letter to the diversity of global food cultures, and a work of great urgency and hope. From a tiny crimson pear in the west of England to great chunk...
Oct 27, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Mathematics is full of better ways of thinking, and with over 2,000 years of knowledge to draw on, Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy interrogates his passion for shortcuts in this fresh and fascinating guide in conversation with Roger Highfield. After all, shortcuts have enabled so much of human progress, whether in constructing the first cities around the Euphrates 5,000 years ago, using calculus to determine the scale of the universe or in writing today’s algorithms that help us find a new...
Oct 25, 2021•1 hr
Drawing on her first-hand experience of the high-pressure, starkly white world of book publishing, novelist Zakiya Dalila Harris joins us from America to talk about The Other Black Girl. At once a gripping thriller and a witty and shrewd piece of social commentary, The Other Black Girl was an instant New York Times bestseller and is one of the most talked about debut novels of the year. 'The funniest, wildest, deepest, most thought-provoking ride of a book' Attica Locke. Learn more about 5x15 ev...
Oct 22, 2021•11 min
Pioneering neuroscientist, Anil Seth, discusses Being You: A New Science of Consciousness in conversation with Adam Rutherford at 5x15. Join 5x15 for an electrifying discussion about consciousness that will turn what you thought you knew about yourself on its head. Anil Seth, will be in conversation with broadcaster Adam Rutherford to discuss a radical new theory of consciousness that challenges our understanding of perception and reality. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: w...
Oct 14, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Step into the extraordinary and mysterious world of Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Susanna Clarke as she discusses her spectacular novel, Piranesi, with the one and only Neil Gaiman live and online exclusively for 5x15. An unmissable conversation between two of our best loved, most powerfully imaginative writers. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories
Sep 13, 2021•1 hr 3 min
In her frank and funny talk for 5x15, Jess Phillips MP discusses her new book Everything You Really Need to Know About Politics with Rosie Boycott and lifts the lid on what a career in politics is really like and why it matters – to all of us. From agonizing decisions on foreign air strikes to making headlines about orgasms, from sitting in on history-making moments at the UN to eating McCain’s potato smiles at a black-tie banquet in China, the life of a politician is never dull. And it’s also n...
Aug 19, 2021•1 hr 1 min
In this 5x15 short talk, Nick Crane discusses his new book Latitude: The True Story of the World's First Scientific Expedition and shares a story of courage, collaboration, initiative and adversity. Nick Crane is an award-winning writer, journalist, geographer and explorer, as well as the presenter of the prime-time BAFTA-winning BBC TV series Coast, Great British Journeys, Map Man and Town. Born in Norfolk, his career has seen him travel extensively in Tibet, China, Afghanistan and Africa. He a...
Aug 16, 2021•17 min
In our latest 5x15 podcast, award winning poet Hollie McNish will take you on a whistle stop tour of her funny, frank and timely new poetry and prose collection Slug: And Other Things I’ve Been Told to Hate From Finnish saunas and soppy otters to grief, grandparents and Kellogg's anti-masturbation pants, Slug is a book which holds a mirror lovingly up to the world, past and present, through Hollie's driving, funny, hopeful poetry and prose. Slug is about the human condition: of birth and death a...
Aug 09, 2021•14 min
Lionel Shriver discusses the complexities of life and the politics of death in her darkly funny new novel Should We Stay or Should We Go? at 5x15. Lionel Shriver was christened ‘the Cassandra of American letters’ by the New York Times in recognition of her writing’s unerring prescience. Her first novel, The Female of the Species, was published in 1987, but it was with the Orange Prize-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin that she took up her position as one of our leading novelists and social com...
Aug 05, 2021•13 min
What can the planet’s oldest plants teach us about our humanity and our place in the world? In this special 5x15 podcast, journalist Lucy Jones, author of the best-selling book Losing Eden, is joined by acclaimed thinker, writer and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment conversation Robin Wall Kimmerer, who explains the biology of mosses, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, dec...
Aug 03, 2021•1 hr 2 min
In this funny and poignant talk for 5x15, Jack Guinness takes us on a short journey through queer history. He speaks about his incredible project, The Queer Bible, and discusses the value of freeing oneself from the trappings of narrow identity. Jack Guinness is a model and fashion commentator, a contributing editor at British GQ, and has also contributed to Sunday Times Style, the Guardian, the Gentleman’s Journal and Tatler. In The Queer Bible – published this June to celebrate Pride Month – h...
Jul 29, 2021•13 min
In this special 5x15 podcast, Join George Monbiot, Franny Armstrong on their quest to restore our rivers to their rightful place - not only in the nation’s imagination - but also to make them clean, swimmable, a rich diverse home to fish, birds and animals. Franny and George will be discussing their innovative, "live documentary"- Rivercide- and from other leading experts and campaigners. To find out more about Rivercide and how you can watch the live documentary on 14th July at 7pm on rivercide...
Jul 23, 2021•1 hr 15 min
Kate Mosse joins interviewer Rosie Boycott to discuss An Extra Pair of Hands: A story of caring, ageing and everyday acts of love. Kate Mosse is an international bestselling novelist, playwright and nonfiction author with sales of more than eight million copies in 38 languages. Renowned for bringing unheard and under-heard histories to life, she is a champion of women's creativity. Kate is the Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Fiction, sits on the Executive Committee of Women of the Worl...
Jul 20, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Best selling author and Oscar nominated documentary film maker Sebastian Junger discusses his new book Freedom with Jon Lee Anderson at 5x15. Throughout history, humans have been driven by the quest for two cherished ideals: community and freedom. The two don’t coexist easily. We value individuality and self-reliance yet are utterly dependent on community for our most basic needs. In this 5x15 podcast Sebastian Junger examines the tension that lies at the heart of what it means to be human with ...
Jul 20, 2021•1 hr
Human beings have relied on plants throughout our evolved history - to alter consciousness, to stimulate, to calm and to radically alter the way we see the world. For this unmissable 5x15 event, award-winning author, activist and journalist, Michael Pollan joins us to talk about his groundbreaking new book This Is Your Mind On Plants in conversation with gardener and broadcaster Monty Don who for years has been leading us down all kinds of garden paths to show us why our relationship to the natu...
Jul 15, 2021•1 hr
Gillian Tett is editor-at-large at the Financial Times and bestselling author of Fool’s Gold. Now she’s returning to her early training to explain how anthropology can help us understand the corporate world. Join Gillian in conversation with undercover economist Tim Harford, author of How To Make the World Add Up, as they discuss Anthro-Vision. For over a century, anthropologists have immersed themselves in unfamiliar cultures, uncovering the hidden rituals that govern how people act. Now, a new...
Jul 13, 2021•56 min
Lawrence Wright has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. He is also an author, a screenwriter and a playwright. Wright has published twelve books, including The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda's Road to 9/11 (2006), which was translated into twenty-four languages and won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. In 2018, the book was adapted into a Hulu original drama starring Jeff Daniels, Alec Baldwin, and Tahar Rahim. In April, 2020, Wright published his second novel, The End of October...
Jul 11, 2021•10 min
What can artists offer in response to climate change? The experience of the pandemic has shown us that a profound reimagining of many aspects of society are entirely possible. In what ways can we rethink our relationship to the environment? How can we effect change with our every action? Join us to hear from artists and thinkers delivering an urgent and innovative response to the climate emergency. Back to Earth, the Serpentine’s major environmental programme is a multi-year initiative which inv...
Jul 07, 2021•1 hr 4 min
5x15 podcast with two leading environmentalists, who have helped us to understand the complex cycle of forest life and why it must be preserved before it's too late. World-renowned scientist Suzanne Simard is author of Finding the Mother Tree, a dazzling scientific detective story from the ecologist who first discovered the hidden language of trees. No one has done more to transform our understanding of trees and now she shares the secrets of a lifetime spent uncovering startling truths about tr...
Jun 25, 2021•1 hr
Arifa Akbar is the Guardian's chief theatre critic. A journalist for over twenty years, she is the former literary editor of the Independent, where she also worked as arts correspondent and news reporter. She has previously contributed to the Observer and the Financial Times. She is on the board of trustees for the Orwell Foundation and English PEN. Short pieces of her non-fiction have appeared in several anthologies. Consumed is her first book. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals ...
Jun 23, 2021•11 min
