Author: podmeister

19. Mark Vernon on: What is wellbeing?

Published by podmeister

Mark Vernon has just brought out a book on wellbeing in a new series of which he’s general editor. But this isn’t a run-of-the-mill self-help series. The series is called The Art of Living  and it’s published by independent philosophy specialist, Acumen. Their stated aim is to “open up philosophy’s riches to a wider public once again”. Consequently, authors have been asked to tackle the big question “How should we live?” in relation to a diverse selection of topics, including hunger, illness, work and sex. (You can hear my interview with Raymond Tallis on Hunger in a couple of weeks.) So the books have practical ambitions, but they’re rooted in an understanding of philosophical tradition (though this isn’t limited to the western canon). In the interview I was keen to get Mark to tease apart wellbeing and happiness. Happiness has been the subject of many books recently, whereas we tend to think of wellbeing as more of a Sunday supplement concept that embraces getting a good night’s sleep and drinking less caffeine. So what exactly …

18. Julian Baggini: Mistrust the lucky ducky

Published by podmeister

“In marketing and in politics people have got more sophisticated in their manipulation techniques, so more than ever we need to know what they are, so that we can spot the truth when we see it.” Julian Baggini is the first guest to pay a return visit to the Podularity studio. I last interviewed him back in March in programme 8, A Philosopher in Everytown, when he talked to me about the folk philosophy of the English.

Andrew Sean Greer on San Francisco in the 50s

Published by podmeister

My latest podcast for Faber & Faber is now available on their site and on iTunes. In it I talk to American novelist Andrew Sean Greer about his latest book, The Story of a Marriage. It’s a beautifully realized depiction of what happens to the relationship between two people when a third appears on the scene – but in almost every way unexpected. “We think we know the ones we love,” the book begins, but it turns out that our knowledge is often imperfect. The book is full of surprises without straining credibility and it’s also a marvellous depiction of the fog-bound suburbs of San Francisco during the Korean War, when people were dealing with a new war while still living in the shadow of the previous one. In the interview, Andrew also tells me how he became a dog owner…

17. “Unstitching the carefully tailored suit” – among the dead philosophers

Published by podmeister

“The book is written against the view that a philosopher’s biography is of no importance and that philosophy can be reduced to a series of systems of thought. It’s really an attempt to rewrite the history of philosophy as a history of philosophers. That was the way that philosophy was taught until the eighteenth century. So in a way it’s a revival of a rather ancient idea of philosophy being taught through exemplary biography or the idea of philosophy as a way of life.” In this week’s podcast I talk to Simon Critchley about his recently published Book of Dead Philosophers. The book might at first seem like one of those forgettable book of quirky lists and miscellaneous bizzareries, but in fact it’s much more than that. As Jonathan Derbyshire put it in his Guardian review: “These descriptions aren’t just intended to be diverting, however (though they are certainly that); Critchley says that they are also meant to challenge a conception of philosophy which holds that it is a form of abstract, conceptual inquiry that …

First Four for Faber

Published by podmeister

Over the last few months I’ve been producing a new podcast for Faber and Faber, which you can find on their recently relaunched website here. In the first four podcasts, which are now available on iTunes, I talk to – among others – Hanif Kureishi, Peter Carey, Sebastian Barry (pictured left) and Junot Díaz. The podcast will be a regular monthly feature of the Faber site and there will be “specials” every so often too. I’m hoping to interview Paul Auster about his latest novel, Man in the Dark, in the autumn, for example.

Troubled Rainbow Nation

Published by podmeister

The third podcast I’ve recorded for Le Monde diplomatique has just gone up on their site. In it I interview Johann Rossouw, editor of the publication’s Afrikaans edition, about the recent violent events in his country. He talks about what sparked those events, but looks behind the proximate causes to the deeper roots in the way in which South Africa emerged from its colonial and apartheid-governed past. Listen to the podcast by clicking here. The abstract-looking image that accompanies this post was taken in Durban’s Botanical Gardens by Robbie Ribeiro.

The White Tiger’s Cautionary Tale

Published by podmeister

“I see this in a sense as a cautionary tale. What my narrator is is a white tiger – he’s unusual for his time. Very few servants in India actually kill their masters and take their money…” Aravind Adiga’s debut novel was recently selected for the Booker long-list, so I thought I’d make available this interview which I did with him earlier this year in London. Click here to listen to the interview.

16. “Our sweaty ape hands on the thermostat”

Published by podmeister

“The chemistry of this is more than a century old… The basic physics of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases has been known for a very long time. In fact some back-of-the-envelope calculations were made then which more or less stand the test of time a century later.” A few weeks back I met Mark Lynas in Oxford to talk about his book, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, shortly before the book won this year’s Royal Society Science Book Prize. The book looks degree by degree at the consequences for the Earth, its biodiversity and its inhabitants, as average global temperatures continue to rise throughout this century. The book is alarming without being alarmist, sobering without being defeatist. As the Royal Society recognized, the book represents a magnificent achievement on Mark’s part, who sifted through a huge amount of scientific data in order to construct such readable and readily comprehensible scenarios. Average rises in global temperature of up to two degrees have serious consequences; above that, the consequences range from the dramatic …

Privatizing war

Published by podmeister

I recently interviewed Stephen Armstrong for Faber about his new book, War plc. The book takes the reader into the world of the private security companies, which have mushroomed in the last few years to the extent that the military effort in Afghanistan and Iraq would be impossible without them. The development is not accidental. To get a sense of the ideological drive that lies behind the emergence of these private companies on the battlefield, here is an extract from an extraordinary speech (quoted in Stephen’s book) which US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave the day before 9/11: “The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating 5 year plans. From a single capital it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defence of the United States and …

What’s the big idea?

Published by podmeister

In May I made a number of recordings for this year’s Bristol Festival of Ideas, a series of very popular events which brought some high-powered thinkers to the city to stimulate discussion on subjects as diverse as the legacy of ’68 to why the human brain is not quite ‘fit for purpose’. I’m editing my interviews now for a series of podcasts sponsored by The Philosophers’ Magazine, which will be appearing over the next few months. The first one is downloadable now from iTunes here.