In this episode Neil speaks to Guardian reporter Amelia Gentleman. She was named journalist of the year (Press Gazette) and won the 2018 Paul Foot journalism award for her reportage on the Windrush scandal, which led to the downfall of the Home Secretary and the government loosening its ‘hostile environment’ policy for migrants. She tells Neil about her new book The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 26, 2019•29 min•Ep. 618
David Keenan was born in Glasgow and grew up in Airdrie, in the west of Scotland, in the late-70s and early-1980s. He is the author of two novels, the cult classic This Is Memorial Device , which won the Collyer Bristow/London Magazine Award for Debut Fiction 2018 and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, and For The Good Times which won the Gordon Burn Prize. He is also the author of England's Hidden Reverse , a history of the UK's post-punk/Industrial underground. Hosted on Acast. See aca...
Nov 19, 2019•32 min
Téa Obreht is the author of The Tiger's Wife , winner of the Orange Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award, and her latest novel is Inland . She was born in Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia, in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. She currently lives in New York City and teaches at Hunter College. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 15, 2019•31 min
Padraig Reidy hosts this week, speaking to Guardian journalist and author Henry McDonald about his novel Two Souls . They talk punk, football and paramilitary activity in 70s and 80s Belfast, and how a few wrong choices changed the path of young men's lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 12, 2019•30 min•Ep. 615
This week Neil speaks to Sarah Perry, author of the bestselling The Essex Serpent , which won Waterstones Book of the Year 2016 and Book of the Year 2017 at the British Book Awards. Her latest novel is Melmoth . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 05, 2019•30 min
Elle Nash is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine and a fiction editor at Hobart Pulp. Her work has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Elle, NAILED, Reality Beach, Hobart, and other places. She was a member of the Denver Press Club and now lives in Arkansas. Occasionally she reads tarot in exchange for money. Her debut novel is Animals Eat Each Other . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 29, 2019•29 min
Casey Cep is a writer from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in English, she earned an M.Phil in theology at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker , and her work has appeared in The New York Times and The New Republic , among other publications. She is the author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 24, 2019•48 min
Author and music journalist David Stubbs joins Neil to talk about his latest book Mars by 1980: The Story of Electronic Music . They chat about the evolution of synthesisers, the women who pioneered electronic music and where the genre is now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 21, 2019•32 min•Ep. 611
Fatima Bhutto was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and grew up between Syria and Pakistan. She is the author of five previous books of fiction and nonfiction. Her debut novel, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon , was long listed for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction and the memoir about her father’s life and assassination, Songs of Blood and Sword , was published to acclaim. Her most recent novel is The Runaways , and her latest book is New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-...
Oct 14, 2019•32 min
Lillian Li joins Neil to talk about her debut novel, Number One Chinese Restaurant , which was longlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 10, 2019•30 min
Novelist Ben Fergusson joins Neil to talk about An Honest Man , the final book of his Berlin Trilogy. They discuss writing against the backdrop of 1989 Berlin, the summer after leaving school, and the novel's parallels between relationships, infidelity and espionage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 07, 2019•33 min
Madeline Stevens joins Neil to talk about her first novel, Devotion . They discuss the drafts and graft that come before a debut novel, how Madeline's seven years spent working as a nanny in New York influenced her writing, and how what started out as a short story became Devotion . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 30, 2019•29 min•Ep. 607
Julian Hoffman joins Neil to talk about his latest book Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places . They discuss the aborted attempt by Boris Johnson to build an airport on the marshland of Kent's Hoo peninsula, what 'protection' really means when it comes to preservation, and why we owe it to future generations to maintain the habitats of threatened species. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 23, 2019•33 min•Ep. 606
Niven Govinden joins Neil to talk about his new novel This Brutal House , about family and protest in the vogue ball community of 1980s New York. Govinden's previous novels include All The Days And Nights , Graffiti My Soul and Black Bread White Beer . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 16, 2019•37 min
Ben Smith is a lecturer in creative writing at Plymouth University, specializing in environmental literature and focusing particularly on oceans, climate change and the ‘Anthropocene’. He joined Neil to talk about his first novel, Doggerland , writing rooted in place, and the enjoyment of writing a character who is "really just a git". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 12, 2019•29 min•Ep. 604
Poet Richard Osmond joins Neil to talk about his latest collection, Rock, Paper, Scissors , inspired by his experiences during the London Bridge terrorist attack on 3rd June 2017. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 10, 2019•44 min•Ep. 603
Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the essay collection Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion is her first book. She joined Neil to talk about how we're all forced to perform and monetize ourselves on the internet, the culture and industries around optimization and life-hacking, and the American tradition of self-reinvention. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 02, 2019•29 min
Rachel DeLoache Williams is an ex-Vanity Fair photo editor and author of My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress . She tells Neil about her friendship with Anna Delvey, the 'Russian heiress' who deceived New York's art scene for a year, and how she became her mark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 26, 2019•31 min•Ep. 601
It's the 600th Little Atoms! and Neil welcomes Laura Cumming back to the show. Laura Cumming has been chief art critic of the Observer since 1999. Her book, The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez , was Book of the Week on Radio 4, Wall Street Journal Book of the Year and a New York Times bestseller. It won the 2017 James Tait Black Biography Prize and was published to critical acclaim (‘A riveting detective story: readers will be spellbound’ Colm Tóibín). Her first book, A Face to the World:...
Aug 19, 2019•37 min
Claire McGlasson is a journalist who works for ITV News and enjoys the variety of life on the road with a TV camera. She lives in Cambridgeshire. The Rapture is her debut novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 12, 2019•31 min•Ep. 599
Lee Jackson is a Victorian enthusiast, creator of the popular online resource on the social history of Victorian London, www.victorianlondon.org , and currently working on a PhD entitled 'Dickensland'. His book Dirty Old London was described by The Times as 'a tightly argued, meticulously researched history of sanitation that reads like a novel' and by the Lancet as 'a triumph of popular scholarship'. His latest book Palaces of Pleasure: How the Victorians Invented Mass Entertainment covers topi...
Aug 05, 2019•31 min
Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for women writers in 2011 and was selected for the Africa 39, a 2014 Hay Festival project to identify the best African writers under 40. Her first published story, 'Muzungu', was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009 and shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize for African writing. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for her story 'The Sack'. The Old Dri...
Jul 29, 2019•34 min
Caroline Crampton is a writer and editor who contributes regularly to the Guardian , the Mail on Sunday and the New Humanist . She has appeared as a broadcaster on Newsnight, Sky News and BBC Radio 4. Her first book is The Way to The Sea: The Forgotten Histories of The Thames Estuary . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 22, 2019•29 min
Recorded live at the Idler Festival 2019 at Fenton House, Hampstead. Josh Cohen is a psychoanalyst in private practice, and Professor of Modern Literary Theory at Goldsmiths University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles on modern literature, psychoanalysis and cultural theory. His books include How to Read Freud and The Private Life: Why We Remain in the Dark . He is a regular contributor to Guardian, New Statesman and TLS. His latest book is Not Working: Why We Have To S...
Jul 18, 2019•43 min
Carolina Setterwall was born in 1978 in Sala, Sweden. She studied Media and Communication in Uppsala, Stockholm and London and has worked within the music and publishing industries as an editor and writer. Setterwall lives in Stockholm with her son. Let's Hope for the Best is her first novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 15, 2019•29 min
Angela Saini is an award-winning British science journalist and broadcaster. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Observer, New Scientist, Wired, New Humanist among others, and she regularly presents science programmes on BBC radio. She has won awards from the Association of British Science Writers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And she was named European Science Journalist of the Year. She has a Masters degree in Engineering from Oxford University and was a fello...
Jul 08, 2019•40 min
Keith Kahn-Harris is a sociologist and writer. He is a senior lecturer at Leo Baeck College, associate lecturer at Birkbeck College, and associate fellow of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research where he runs the European Jewish Research Archive. His previous books include Uncivil War: The Israel Conflict in the Jewish Community . His latest book is Strange Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and the Limits of Diversity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 04, 2019•34 min
Anna Sherman was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She studied Greek and Latin at Wellesley College and Oxford before moving to Tokyo in 2001. The Bells of Old Tokyo is her first book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 01, 2019•27 min
Richard King is the author of the acclaimed How Soon Is Now? , which was named Sunday Times Music Book of the Year, and Original Rockers . His writing has appeared in the Observer , Vice , Guardian , Caught by the River and many other publications. He was co-editor of Loops , an occasional journal of music writing published jointly by Faber & Faber and Domino Records. His latest book is The Lark Ascending: The Music of the British Landscape . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...
Jun 24, 2019•39 min
Wayétu Moore is the founder of One Moore Book and is a graduate of Howard University, Columbia University, and the University of Southern California. She teaches at the City University of New York's John Jay College and lives in Brooklyn. She Would Be King is her debut novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 17, 2019•32 min
