The first Podularity podcast of 2009 is an interview with polymath Raymond Tallis about his most recent book, Hunger, which appears in the Art of Living series from Acumen Publishing.
The Times has described Tallis as “the Lennox Lewis of the intellectual world – a formidable heavyweight” and, as you might expect from such a wide-ranging thinker, his essay on hunger goes beyond the satisfaction of our physiological desires to look at a whole range of human appetites and desires.
But the title of this post (a quote from Brecht) is a reminder, as Tallis shows, that the ways in which the affluent world satisfies its “higher-order” appetites has real consequences for the parts of the world where not having enough to eat is an everyday reality.
To hear my conversation with Raymond Tallis click on the player above.
I also recommend Sharman Apt Russell’s book on hunger (also called simply Hunger), which looks at the effects of hunger on the human body (and mind) and also tackles the profound way in which hunger affects what it means to be human.
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