PODULARITY

Simon Winder has just published a personal and highly entertaining history of Germany and the Germans. In his preface to Germania, he writes:
“[this] is an attempt to tell the story of the Germans starting from their notional origins in the sort of forests enjoyed by gnomes and heroes and ending at the time of […]

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In this month’s edition of Le Monde diplomatique I have a piece about US journalist and campaigner Barbara Ehrenreich and her latest book, called Smile or Die in the UK and Brightsided in the US.
I interviewed Barbara on a snowy evening in Bristol last month before she appeared at the Festival of Ideas to explore […]

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My guest in this first Le Monde diplomatique podcast of 2010 is Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts.
In his article in the January edition of the paper, “US turns persuader not policeman”, Professor Klare asks whether disappointment with the first year of Obama’s foreign policy is the […]

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 Stephen Asma: On Monsters [19:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I first became aware of Stephen Asma’s book on the fine Washington Post Book World podcast (which sadly is no more). The Post also chose the book as one of its top non-fiction titles of the year for 2009, calling it “a safari through the many manifestations of our idea of the monstrous”. Their reviewer […]

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Michael Bywater is an author and broadcaster whose recent books include Lost Worlds (Granta, 2004), Big Babies (Granta, 2006), and - with Kathleen Burk - Is This Bottle Corked?: The Secret Life of Wine. He writes regularly for the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and numerous other publications. He is a regular broadcaster […]

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 Moran: A Country in the Moon [21:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My guest on this week’s programme is Michael Moran, author of A Country in the Moon: Travels in Search of the Heart of Poland.
Michael first visited Poland in the early 1990s after the collapse of Communism as leader of an ill-assorted crew of British teachers charged with introducing the Poles to the delights of market […]

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Andrew Kelly is the Director of the Bristol Festival of Ideas and other projects. He is the author and editor of 12 books including Filming All Quiet on the Western Front, Cinema and the Great War, Queen Square: biography of a place, Brunel: in love with the impossible.
Of the many hundreds of books I […]

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 Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall [55:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’m delighted to say that the first Podularity podcast of 2010 is devoted to an in-depth interview with 2009 Booker prize winner, Hilary Mantel in which she talks about her remarkable novel, Wolf Hall. As far as I can tell, this is the most extensive interview about the book available anywhere on the web.
Here’s Hilary […]

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Mary Beard is no stranger to Podularity. In fact, she may have appeared on it more times than any other author. This however is her Podularity video debut.
Last autumn, after recording an audio interview with Mary about her book-of-the-blog, It’s a Don’s Life, I asked her to take part in my “Three Questions for” series […]

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On Wednesday 16th December 2009, Trafalgar Square will host a free feast of biblical proportions: a modern day Feeding the 5000. In this short film, Tristram Stuart, author of Waste, explains the problem – and outlines some solutions.

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