Little Atoms - podcast cover

Little Atoms

Neil Dennylittleatoms.com
Little Atoms is a weekly show about books, with authors in conversation. Produced and presented by Neil Denny.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Episodes

Little Atoms 700 - Jonathan Meades' Pedro and Ricky Come Again

It's the 700th episode of Little Atoms, and writer and filmmaker Jonathan Meades returns for the tenth time to talk to Neil about his new collection of journalism Pedro and Ricky Come Again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 28, 202130 min

Little Atoms 699 - Juliet Jacques' Variations

Juliet Jacques is a writer and filmmaker based in London, and a fellow contributor to Resonance FM. She is the author of Trans: A Memoir , and now a collection of short stories Variations, which uses "found" documents and real-life events to rewrite and reinvigorate a history of transgender Britain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 21, 202134 min

Little Atoms 698 - Cherie Jones and Kate Mosse

Neil talks to Cherie Jones about her Women's Prize shortlisted debut novel How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, and to Kate Mosse about the Women's Prize Trust Discoveries programme. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 14, 202159 min

Little Atoms 697 - Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms

Natasha Pulley talks to Neil about time travel, slavery and the UK under French occupation in her latest novel The Kingdoms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 07, 202129 min

Little Atoms 696 - Jonathan Ames' A Man Named Doll

Jonathan Ames talks to Neil about A Man Named Doll, the first in a series of detective novels about "A troubled man, aged 50", as coincidentally Neil is this week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 31, 202130 min

Little Atoms 695 - Clare Chambers' Small Pleasures

Clare Chambers talks to Neil about her Women's Prize 2021 longlisted novel Small Pleasures, about repressed love and parthenogenesis in the South East London suburbs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 24, 202129 min

Little Atoms 694 - Tabitha Lasley's Sea State

Tabitha Lasley talks to Neil about her first book Sea State, a study of masculinity in the oil industry, which becomes an accidental memoir when she becomes to close to her story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 20, 202130 min

Little Atoms 693 - Philip Hoare's Albert & The Whale

Philip Hoare returns to Little Atoms and talks to Neil about his fascination with Albrecht Dürer, and Dürer's fascination with painting a whale in his new book Albert & The Whale. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 17, 202125 min

Little Atoms 692 - Helen Scales' The Brilliant Abyss

Helen Scales returns to Little Atoms and talks to Neil about exploring the deep oceans, how creatures survive the great depths, and how human activity threatens even the deepest places in her new book The Brilliant Abyss . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 10, 202130 min

Little Atoms 689 - Cat Jarman's River Kings

Dr Cat Jarman talks to Neil about how an Indian Carnelian bead ends up in a Viking grave in Derbyshire, in her new history of the Vikings, River Kings . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apr 26, 202135 min

Little Atoms 687 - Chris Power's A Lonely Man

Chris Power talks to Neil about Russian oligarchs, paranoia and the ethics of using real life in fiction, in his debut novel A Lonely Man. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apr 19, 202130 min

Little Atoms 686 - Sarah Leipciger's Coming Up For Air

Born and raised in Canada, Sarah Leipciger lives in London with her three children, and teaches creative writing to prisoners. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Asham Award, the Fish Prize and the Bridport Prize. Her first novel, the critically acclaimed The Mountain Can Wait, was published in 2015. Coming Up For Air is her second novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apr 15, 202127 min

Little Atoms 685 - Gavin Francis's Intensive Care

Little Atoms' favourite GP Gavin Francis returns to talk about his new book Intensive Care, which details his experiences of Covid 19. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apr 12, 202131 min

Little Atoms 683 - Sam Byers' Come Join Our Disease

Sam Byers is the author of Idiopathy (2013) and Perfidious Albion (2018). He talks to Neil about ideas of freedom, wellness and degradation in his new novel Come Join Our Disease . NB: For some reason Neil's end sounds like he was recorded at the bottom of a well, but Sam sounds fine and that's the main thing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apr 05, 202132 min

Little Atoms 682 - Melanie Challenger's How To Be Animal

Melanie Challenger talks to Neil about her new book How To Be Animal , which combines popular science, history and moral philosophy in a wide-ranging and radical new take on the human story and what it means for us today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apr 01, 202135 min

Little Atoms 681 - Jess Walter's The Cold Millions

Jess Walter talks to Neil about his new novel The Cold Millions, which features union organising, riots and the suppression of protest. Set in Spokane in 1909, but seemingly ripped out of today's headlines. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 29, 202131 min

Little Atoms 680 - Courttia Newland's A River Called Time

Courttia Newland is the author of The Scholar , Snakeskin and The Gospel According to Cane . He co-edited The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain , and his short stories have featured in various anthologies. He talks to Neil about working with Steve McQueen on Little Axe, and about taking 20 years to write his multiverse spanning, world decolonising novel A River Called Time . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Mar 26, 202127 min

Little Atoms 679 - Yaa Gyasi's Transcendent Kingdom

The Author of Homegoing Yaa Gyasi talks to Neil about the American opioid epidemic, finding meaning through both faith and science, and growing up in Alabama in her latest novel Transcendent Kingdom , which is long-listed for the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction. Featuring an appearance by Yaa's dog. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 23, 202130 min

Little Atoms 678 - Kat Arney's Rebel Cell

Dr Kat Arney talks about how cancer breaks the rules, via naked mole rats, nazi scientists and chimney sweep's scrotums in her new book Rebel Cell. See her website for more details: https://www.rebelcellbook.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 19, 202131 min

Little Atoms 677 - Sebastian Barry's A Thousand Moons

For the week of St Patrick's Day Neil talks to the current Laureate for Irish Fiction Sebastian Barry on the paperback release of his latest novel A Thousand Moons . Sebastian talks about finding his family through fiction, and how an Arshile Gorky painting, a pet dog, the writings of Peter Matthiessen and watching RuPaul's Drag Race all influenced Days Without End and A Thousand Moons . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Mar 16, 202130 min

Little Atoms 676 - Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets

Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer from Brooklyn, N.Y. He earned both his B.F.A. in creative writing and M.F.A. in fiction from Brooklyn College. His work has been featured in The New York Times , Essence and The Paris Review . He is the creator of the social justice social media community, Son of Baldwin. He talks to Neil about his debut novel The Prophets. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 09, 202132 min

Little Atoms 675 - Rebecca Watson's little scratch

Rebecca Watson talks to Neil about her debut novel little scratch , which was published recently to critical acclaim. She is one of The Observer’s 10 best debut novelists of 2021. Watson writes for publications including the TLS, Granta and the Guardian, and is part-time Assistant Arts Editor at the Financial Times. In 2018, she was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Mar 05, 202129 min

Little Atoms 673 - Sara Seager's The Smallest Lights in the Universe

Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and a professor of physics and planetary science at MIT. She talks about her new memoir The Smallest Lights in the Universe, about juggling being a MacArthur award winning astrophysicist with being a widowed single-mother, and brings Neil up to speed with the latest news in the hunt for exo-planets. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Feb 26, 202128 min

Little Atoms 672 - Max Porter's The Death of Francis Bacon

Max Porter is the author of Lanny , longlisted for the Booker Prize, and Grief Is the Thing with Feathers , winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. He is the recipient of the Sunday Times /Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year award. He talks to Neil about painting with words in his latest book The Death of Francis Bacon . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Feb 23, 202129 min

Little Atoms 671 - Torrey Peters' Detransition, Baby

Torrey Peters lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Masters in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She is the author of two novellas, Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker. She talks to Neil about ideas of motherhood, ethical surgery, the politically fraught concept of detransitioning and what trans women and divorced cis women have in common in her debut novel Detransition, Baby . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Feb 16, 202142 min
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