Little Atoms

Juliet Jacques is a freelance writer, best known for the Guardian’s “Transgender Journey”—the first time the gender reassignment process had been serialised for a major British publication. Her column was longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011. She was included in the Independent’s Pink List for the last four years, and is a regular contributor to the New Statesman. She has also written for Granta, TimeOut, Filmwaves, 3am, the London Review of Books, the New Humanist, the New Inquiry, and many other publications. She is the author of Trans: A Memoir. This is the 400th edition of Little Atoms, and Neil is joined by former host Becky Hogge in conversation with Juliet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lucy Inglis is a historian, novelist, and occasional television presenter. In 2009 she created the Georgian London blog, which became the largest free body of work on the eighteenth century city online, which became a book, Georgian London: Into the Streets. She’s currently working on a book about Opium. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Pomerantsev is an award-winning TV producer and a contributor to the London Review of Books. His writing has been published in the Financial Times,New Yorker,Wall Street Journal,Foreign Policy,Daily Beast, Newsweek,Le Monde Diplomatique, among others. He has also worked as a consultant for the EU and World Bank. He is the author of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon Savage is the author of England's Dreaming: Sex pistols and Punk Rock and Teenage: The Creation of Youth, 1875 - 1945. He is the writer of the award winning film documentaries The Brian Epstein Story (1998) and Joy Division (2007) as well as the feature film of Teenage (2014). His latest book is 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Max Porter is a senior editor at Granta. His first book Grief is the Thing With Feathers has been shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize 2015 and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2015. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s Little Atoms podcast, Man Booker shortlisted novelist Hanya Yanagihara on A Little Life and journalist Antony Loewenstein on Disaster Capitalism.Hanya Yanagihara is the author of The People in the Trees, which was shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. Her latest novel A Little Life was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. She was until recently the Deputy Editor at the New York Times’ T Magazine, and she lives in New York City.Antony Loewenstein is an independent Australian journalist, documentary maker and blogger who has written for the BBC, the Nation and the Washington Post. He’s a weekly Guardian columnist and the author of three best-selling books, My Israel Question,The Blogging Revolution and Profits of Doom: How Vulture Capitalism is Swallowing the World. His latest book is Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe, and he’s currently working on a documentary about disaster capitalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, a Live Little Atoms event. Authors Emma Jane Unsworth and Zoe Lambert in conversation with Neil Denny at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester on Friday 25th September. Zoe Lambert is a Manchester based writer. She lectures in creative writing at Lancaster University, and has published numerous short stories in anthologies. Her debut […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale University, and has written and edited a number of critically acclaimed and prize-winning books about twentieth-century European history: Bloodlands won the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award in the Humanities and the literature award of the American […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The last of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, ahead of the award ceremony on Thursday 24th September. This week Neil Denny talks with Matthew Cobb, and there’s a repeat of our interview with Alex Bellos from May 2014. The show also includes a short […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The second of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. This week Neil Denny talks with David Adam, and there’s a repeat of our interview with Gaia Vince from August 2014. This show also marks the 10th anniversary of Little Atoms. We first broadcast on […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The first of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. This week Neil Denny talks with shortlisted authors Jim Al-Khalili & Johnjoe Mcfadden, and Jon Butterworth. Professor Jim Al-Khalili, OBE is an academic, author and broadcaster. He is a leading theoretical physicist based at the […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her debut story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book Prize in 2009. Her debut novel is The Book of Memory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Higgs is the author of I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary, The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, and the novel The Brandy of the Damned. His latest book is Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michela Wrong is a distinguished international journalist, and has worked as a foreign correspondent covering events across the African continent for Reuters, the BBC and the Financial Times. She writes regularly for Foreign Policy magazine and the Spectator. Based on her experiences in Africa, In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz, her first book, won the […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stephen Grey is a journalist based in London, who writes mainly about national security issues. He is best known for breaking the international exclusive story of the CIA’s secret rendition program. A former editor on the Sunday Times’ investigations unit, the Insight team, he continues to contribute to that newspaper, as well to the New […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha is a journalist and broadcaster based in London. He is science correspondent for ITN and, before that, was science correspondent at the Guardian. He has presented science programmes for BBC2 and BBC Radio 4. Alok received a science-writing award from the American Institute of Physics in 2014, was named European Science Writer of […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Helen Scales is a marine biologist, a freelance researcher and broadcaster; she appears regularly on BBC Radio 4, Sky News and the BBC World Service, and has presented documentaries on topics such as whether people will ever live underwater, the science of making and surfing waves and the intricacies of sharks’ minds. Her doctorate involved […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Iain Sinclair a poet, film-maker, essayist and the author of many acclaimed books, including Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize), Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital, Edge of Orison, Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire, Dining on Stones, Ghost Milk and American Smoke and London Overground, his account of a one-day walk around […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Antony Beevor was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst, where he studied under John Keegan. A regular officer with the 11th Hussars, he left the Army to write. He has published four novels, and numerous works of non-fiction. His books include The Spanish Civil War; Crete — The Battle and the Resistance, which was awarded a […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s Little Atoms, Dylan Evans on The Utopia Experiment, and Andrew Mueller on his memoir It’s Too Late to Die Young Now. Dylan Evans is an academic, philosopher and journalist. He has written several popular science books, was named by the Independent as one of the 20 best young writers in Britain, and […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nell Zink was born in 1964 in southern California and grew up in rural Virginia. She attended Stuart Hall School and the College of William and Mary, where she majored in philosophy. Rather late in life she got a doctorate in Media Studies from the University of Tübingen, Germany. She works as a translator for […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emma Jane Unsworth is a journalist and won the Betty Trask Award for her novel Hungry, the Stars and Everything, and was shortlisted for the 2012 Portico Prize. Her short story ‘I Arrive First’ was included in The Best British Short Stories 2012. Emma’s latest novel Animals has won a 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. After […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nick Lane is a biochemist in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London and leads the UCL Origins of Life Programme. His first book, Oxygen, was one of the Sunday Times Books of the Year in 2002. Power, Sex, Suicide was named as a book of the year in The Economist in 2005 and was short-listed for The Aventis […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's Little Atoms Podcast, Joanna Biggs on her book All Day Long: A Portrait of Britain at Work, and Stevan Alcock on his novel Blood Relatives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's Little Atoms, Neil Denny talks to Dr Gavin Francis about his latest book is Adventures in Human Being. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's Little Atoms, Pulitzer Prize-winning Photojournalist Lynsey Addario on her Memoir It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s Little Atoms podcast, two books about Death. Brandy Schillace on Death’s Summer Coat, and Caitlin Doughty on Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Dr Brandy Schillace writes about culture, the history of medicine, and the intersections of medicine and literature. She is Research Associate and guest curator for the Dittrick Medical History Center […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The day before the most uninspiring General Election in Decades, we talk to Zoe Williams about her new book Get it Together: Why We Deserve Better Politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Denny talks to two more shortlisted writers, Henry Marsh and Marion Coutts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Wednesday 29th April the winner of the 2015 Wellcome Book Prize will be announced. In the first of two special editions of Little Atoms, Neil Denny talks to three of the shortlisted writers. This week: Miriam Toews, Scott Stossell and Sarah Moss. Miriam Toews was born in 1964 in the small Mennonite town of […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's Little Atoms, Neil Denny talks to New York writer Christopher Bollen about his new novel Orient. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s Little Atoms, Susan Pinker on her book The Village Effect, and Gary Wilson on his book Your Brain on Porn. Susan Pinker is a developmental psychologist and award-winning newspaper columnist who writes about psychology and social science in the Globe and Mail. She has worked as a clinical psychologist for twenty-five years […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew Scull is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies, University of California, San Diego. He has previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Princeton. His many publications include Museums of Madness; Social Order/Mental Disorder; The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain, 1700–1900; Masters of Bedlam; Madhouse: A Tragic Tale […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Dennis Reuter is a New Horizons co-investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the instrument scientist for Ralph, the New Horizons color imager and infrared spectrometer. New Horizons launched on 19th January 2006 and is scheduled to fly-by Pluto and its moons in July 2015. This is another interview recorded by Little Atoms […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s Little Atoms podcast, Hannah Fry on The Mathematics of Love and Jon Ronson on his latest book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. Dr. Hannah Fry is a mathematician and complexity scientist from University College London’s Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis. Fry also regularly presents the Number Hub strand of BBC Worldwide’s YouTube […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s Little Atoms, two interviews. Neil Denny talks to Salena Godden about her memoir Springfield Road, and to Kate Hamer about her debut novel The Girl in the Red Coat. Salena Godden writes and performs poetry, fiction, memoir, radio drama and lyrics. Her latest book of poems, Fishing in the Aftermath, was published in […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s Little Atoms is a special edition recorded at FutureEverything 20 in Manchester on 26th and 27th February 2015. The show features a long interview recorded live in front of an audience with writer, researcher and activist Alice Bell, and shorter interviews with FutureEverything CEO and founder Drew Hemment, Sonic Pi creator Sam Aaron, Hack […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Arthur I. Miller is emeritus professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including Einstein, Picasso, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Empire of the Stars, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Aventis Prize for Science Books, and 137, which we’re discussed on […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Late last year, Little Atoms took part in an audio installation, Mind’s Eye, which consisted of a number of interviews with scientists involved in current space missions. Mind’s Eye is now on tour, and can been heard from 16th to 22nd February as part of Smashfest UK at the Albany Theatre in Deptford. Here are […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greg Jenner is the Historical Consultant to CBBC’s multi-award winning Horrible Histories, Horrible Histories with Stephen Fry, and the various HH spin-offs. As well as contributing sketches and co-writing Stephen Fry’s links, over the past four years he has been solely responsible for the factual accuracy of nearly one thousand comedy sketches with subject matter […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Stubbs joined the music magazine Melody Maker in 1986, where he worked for 12 years. His most famous creation, Mr Agreeable periodically reawakens over at The Quietus. He has also written for The Guardian, NME, The Wire, When Saturday Comes and Uncut, and was a presenter of the Resonance FM football show Café Calcio. […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edward Slingerland is an internationally recognized expert in both early Chinese thought and the links between cognitive science and the humanities. He is Professor of Asian Studies, Associate Member in the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, and holds the Canada Research Chair in Chinese Thought and Embodied Cognition at the University of British Columbia. He […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Johann Hari is a journalist who has written for the New York Times, the LA Times, the Guardian,Le Monde, Slate, the New Republic and The Nation among others. He was a columnist on the Independent for nine years and was twice named Newspaper Journalist of the Year by Amnesty International UK. He has also been named […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ken Hollings is a writer based in London. His work appears in a wide range of journals and publications, including The Wire, Sight and Sound, Strange Attractor, Frieze, Blast and Nude, and in the anthologies The Last Sex, Digital Delirium, Undercurrents, London Noir and Krautrock. His novel Destroy All Monsters was hailed by The Scotsman […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The last Little Atoms of 2014, recorded at QI headquarters in somewhere in Covent Garden, with QI Head of Research James Harkin and the QI Elves – Anne Miller, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Alex Bell. We’re mostly talking about the latest QI book, 1,411 QI Facts to Knock You Sideways, but are often […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Little Atoms, two prize-winning novelists. Celeste Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio, in a family of scientists. Her fiction and essays have appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize. Her debut novel, which has been […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Goldacre is a doctor, academic, broadcaster and science writer who has made his name unpicking the evidence behind dodgy claims from journalists, politicians, quacks and drug companies. His Bad Science column ran in the Guardian from 2003 to 2011. His first book, Bad Science, was a number one bestseller, selling over half a million […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Little Atoms, two philosophical interviews: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein received her doctorate in philosophy from Princeton University. Her award-winning books include the novels The Mind-Body Problem, Properties of Light, and 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction and nonfiction studies of Kurt Gödel and Baruch Spinoza. She has […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Little Atoms, two novels that blur the boundaries between truth and Fiction. David Flusfeder was born in New Jersey but grew up in London. He’s the author of numerous novels, including, A Film by Spencer Ludwig, The Pagan House, The Gift and Like Plastic, which won the Encore Award 1997. He […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Brooks is the author of the bestselling non-fiction titles 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense and Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science. He holds a PhD in quantum physics, is a consultant at New Scientist and writes a weekly column for the New Statesman. His latest book is At the Edge of Uncertainty: […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.