Little Atoms

Ziya Tong is on the board of WWF International and was formerly the Vice Chair of WWF Canada. She presented Daily Planet, Discovery Channel's flagship science programme, until its final season in 2018. Tong also hosted the CBC's Emmy-nominated series ZeD, PBS' national prime-time series, Wired Science, and worked as a correspondent for NOVA scienceNOW. She is the author of The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Susannah Cahalan is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, a memoir about her struggle with a rare autoimmune disease of the brain, which was made into a film by Netflix. Her latest book is The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed our Understanding of Madness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Romesh Gunesekera is the author of many acclaimed works of fiction including Reef, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Sandglass, winner of the inaugural BBC Asia Award, and The Match, the ground-breaking cricket novel. His fiction has been translated into over a dozen languages and he is the recipient of many awards including a Premio Mondello in Italy. He was born in Colombo and lives in London. His latest novel is Suncatcher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Meek is the author of six novels including The People's Act of Love which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won both the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Award. It has been published in more than thirty countries. Meek's last novel The Heart Broke In was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and he has also written two collections of short stories and two books of non-fiction, Private Island, which won the 2015 Orwell Prize and Dreams of Leaving and Remaining. He is a Contributing Editor to the London Review of Books and writes regularly for the Guardian and New York Times. His latest novel is To Calais, In Ordinary Time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Padraig Reidy hosts this episode, joined by Caleb Klaces to discuss his debut novel Fatherhood. They talk about the place of being a father today, the value of home and the novel as an adult bildungsroman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emma Forrest has published three novels, an essay collection and the memoir Your Voice In My Head. An Anglo-American currently based in London, she recently wrote and directed her feature debut, Untogether. Her latest novel is Royals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil speaks to Guardian reporter Amelia Gentleman. She was named journalist of the year (Press Gazette) and won the 2018 Paul Foot journalism award for her reportage on the Windrush scandal, which led to the downfall of the Home Secretary and the government loosening its ‘hostile environment’ policy for migrants. She tells Neil about her new book The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Keenan was born in Glasgow and grew up in Airdrie, in the west of Scotland, in the late-70s and early-1980s. He is the author of two novels, the cult classic This Is Memorial Device, which won the Collyer Bristow/London Magazine Award for Debut Fiction 2018 and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, and For The Good Times which won the Gordon Burn Prize. He is also the author of England's Hidden Reverse, a history of the UK's post-punk/Industrial underground. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Téa Obreht is the author of The Tiger's Wife, winner of the Orange Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award, and her latest novel is Inland. She was born in Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia, in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. She currently lives in New York City and teaches at Hunter College. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Padraig Reidy hosts this week, speaking to Guardian journalist and author Henry McDonald about his novel Two Souls. They talk punk, football and paramilitary activity in 70s and 80s Belfast, and how a few wrong choices changed the path of young men's lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Neil speaks to Sarah Perry, author of the bestselling The Essex Serpent, which won Waterstones Book of the Year 2016 and Book of the Year 2017 at the British Book Awards. Her latest novel is Melmoth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elle Nash is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine and a fiction editor at Hobart Pulp. Her work has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Elle, NAILED, Reality Beach, Hobart, and other places. She was a member of the Denver Press Club and now lives in Arkansas. Occasionally she reads tarot in exchange for money. Her debut novel is Animals Eat Each Other. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Casey Cep is a writer from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in English, she earned an M.Phil in theology at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and her work has appeared in The New York Times and The New Republic, among other publications. She is the author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Author and music journalist David Stubbs joins Neil to talk about his latest book Mars by 1980: The Story of Electronic Music. They chat about the evolution of synthesisers, the women who pioneered electronic music and where the genre is now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fatima Bhutto was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and grew up between Syria and Pakistan. She is the author of five previous books of fiction and nonfiction. Her debut novel, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, was long listed for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction and the memoir about her father’s life and assassination, Songs of Blood and Sword, was published to acclaim. Her most recent novel is The Runaways, and her latest book is New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lillian Li joins Neil to talk about her debut novel, Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was longlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Novelist Ben Fergusson joins Neil to talk about An Honest Man, the final book of his Berlin Trilogy. They discuss writing against the backdrop of 1989 Berlin, the summer after leaving school, and the novel's parallels between relationships, infidelity and espionage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Madeline Stevens joins Neil to talk about her first novel, Devotion. They discuss the drafts and graft that come before a debut novel, how Madeline's seven years spent working as a nanny in New York influenced her writing, and how what started out as a short story became Devotion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julian Hoffman joins Neil to talk about his latest book Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places. They discuss the aborted attempt by Boris Johnson to build an airport on the marshland of Kent's Hoo peninsula, what 'protection' really means when it comes to preservation, and why we owe it to future generations to maintain the habitats of threatened species. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Niven Govinden joins Neil to talk about his new novel This Brutal House, about family and protest in the vogue ball community of 1980s New York. Govinden's previous novels include All The Days And Nights, Graffiti My Soul and Black Bread White Beer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Smith is a lecturer in creative writing at Plymouth University, specializing in environmental literature and focusing particularly on oceans, climate change and the ‘Anthropocene’. He joined Neil to talk about his first novel, Doggerland, writing rooted in place, and the enjoyment of writing a character who is "really just a git". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Poet Richard Osmond joins Neil to talk about his latest collection, Rock, Paper, Scissors, inspired by his experiences during the London Bridge terrorist attack on 3rd June 2017. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the essay collection Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion is her first book. She joined Neil to talk about how we're all forced to perform and monetize ourselves on the internet, the culture and industries around optimization and life-hacking, and the American tradition of self-reinvention. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachel DeLoache Williams is an ex-Vanity Fair photo editor and author of My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress. She tells Neil about her friendship with Anna Delvey, the 'Russian heiress' who deceived New York's art scene for a year, and how she became her mark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the 600th Little Atoms! and Neil welcomes Laura Cumming back to the show. Laura Cumming has been chief art critic of the Observer since 1999. Her book, The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez, was Book of the Week on Radio 4, Wall Street Journal Book of the Year and a New York Times bestseller. It won the 2017 James Tait Black Biography Prize and was published to critical acclaim (‘A riveting detective story: readers will be spellbound’ Colm Tóibín). Her first book, A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits, was described by Nick Hornby as ‘Brilliant, fizzing with ideas not just about art but human nature’ and by Julian Barnes as ‘that rare item: an art book where the text is so enthralling that the pictures almost seem like an interruption’. Laura’s latest book is On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Claire McGlasson is a journalist who works for ITV News and enjoys the variety of life on the road with a TV camera. She lives in Cambridgeshire. The Rapture is her debut novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lee Jackson is a Victorian enthusiast, creator of the popular online resource on the social history of Victorian London, www.victorianlondon.org, and currently working on a PhD entitled 'Dickensland'. His book Dirty Old London was described by The Times as 'a tightly argued, meticulously researched history of sanitation that reads like a novel' and by the Lancet as 'a triumph of popular scholarship'. His latest book Palaces of Pleasure: How the Victorians Invented Mass Entertainment covers topics as diverse as the origins of modern public house, football, music hall, the Victorian seaside, dance halls and pleasure gardens. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for women writers in 2011 and was selected for the Africa 39, a 2014 Hay Festival project to identify the best African writers under 40. Her first published story, 'Muzungu', was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009 and shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize for African writing. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for her story 'The Sack'. The Old Drift is her first novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Caroline Crampton is a writer and editor who contributes regularly to the Guardian, the Mail on Sunday and the New Humanist. She has appeared as a broadcaster on Newsnight, Sky News and BBC Radio 4. Her first book is The Way to The Sea: The Forgotten Histories of The Thames Estuary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded live at the Idler Festival 2019 at Fenton House, Hampstead. Josh Cohen is a psychoanalyst in private practice, and Professor of Modern Literary Theory at Goldsmiths University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles on modern literature, psychoanalysis and cultural theory. His books include How to Read Freud and The Private Life: Why We Remain in the Dark. He is a regular contributor to Guardian, New Statesman and TLS. His latest book is Not Working: Why We Have To Stop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carolina Setterwall was born in 1978 in Sala, Sweden. She studied Media and Communication in Uppsala, Stockholm and London and has worked within the music and publishing industries as an editor and writer. Setterwall lives in Stockholm with her son. Let's Hope for the Best is her first novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Angela Saini is an award-winning British science journalist and broadcaster. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Observer, New Scientist, Wired, New Humanist among others, and she regularly presents science programmes on BBC radio. She has won awards from the Association of British Science Writers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And she was named European Science Journalist of the Year. She has a Masters degree in Engineering from Oxford University and was a fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Angela is the author of Geek Nation and Inferior, and her latest book is Superior: The Return of Race Science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Keith Kahn-Harris is a sociologist and writer. He is a senior lecturer at Leo Baeck College, associate lecturer at Birkbeck College, and associate fellow of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research where he runs the European Jewish Research Archive. His previous books include Uncivil War: The Israel Conflict in the Jewish Community. His latest book is Strange Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and the Limits of Diversity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anna Sherman was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She studied Greek and Latin at Wellesley College and Oxford before moving to Tokyo in 2001. The Bells of Old Tokyo is her first book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard King is the author of the acclaimed How Soon Is Now?, which was named Sunday Times Music Book of the Year, and Original Rockers. His writing has appeared in the Observer, Vice, Guardian, Caught by the River and many other publications. He was co-editor of Loops, an occasional journal of music writing published jointly by Faber & Faber and Domino Records. His latest book is The Lark Ascending: The Music of the British Landscape. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wayétu Moore is the founder of One Moore Book and is a graduate of Howard University, Columbia University, and the University of Southern California. She teaches at the City University of New York's John Jay College and lives in Brooklyn. She Would Be King is her debut novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nathaniel Rich is the author of the novels Odds Against Tomorrow and The Mayor’s Tongue. His short fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and VICE, among other publications. He is a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The Atlantic. Rich lives with his wife and son in New Orleans. His latest book is Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pete Brown is a British author, journalist, blogger and broadcaster specialising in food and drink, especially the fun parts like beer and cider. His broad, fresh approach takes in social history, cultural commentary, travel writing, personal discovery and natural history, and his words are always delivered with the warmth and wit you'd expect from a great night down the pub. He writes for newspapers and magazines around the world and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's Food Programme. He was named British Beer Writer of the Year in 2009 and 2012, and Fortnum and Mason Online Drinks Writer of the Year in 2015. He blogs at petebrown.net and his latest book is Pie Fidelity: In Defence of British Food. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joanne Ramos was born in the Philippines and moved to Wisconsin when she was six. She graduated with a BA from Princeton University. After working in investment banking and private-equity investing for several years, she wrote for the Economist as a staff writer. Her debut novel is The Farm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born in 1954 in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, Hamid Ismailov is an Uzbek journalist and writer who was forced to flee Uzbekistan in 1992 due to what the state dubbed `unacceptable democratic tendencies'. He came to the United Kingdom, where he took a job with the BBC World Service. His works are banned in Uzbekistan. Several of his Russian-original novels have been published in English translation, including The Railway, The Dead Lake, which was long listed for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and The Underground. The Devils' Dance is the first of his Uzbek language novels to appear in English, and the translation by Donald Rayfield won the 2019 ERBD Literature Prize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrea Lawlor lives in Western Massachusetts and teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College. Lawlor is a fiction editor for Fence and the author of a chapbook, Position Papers (Factory Hollow Press, 2016). Paul Takes The Form of A Mortal Girl is their debut novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Season Butler is a writer, artist and dramaturg born in Washington, DC. Through her work, she explores her interest in identity and otherness, the opportunities and traps of hindsight and hope, and what it means to look forward to an increasingly wily future. An early draft of of her debut novel Cygnet was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Prize for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian Women. She lives and works between London and Berlin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood) and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews and Climbing Days. He has written for the Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar, Caught by the River, Monocle and the Quietus. He is an RLF Fellow at Bristol University. Dan's latest book is Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Children of Jocasta and The Amber Fury, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award, and a non-fiction book about Ancient History, The Ancient Guide to Modern Life. She has written and presented two series of the BBC Radio 4 show,Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. In 2015, she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience. Her latest novel is A Thousand Ships. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Iain Reid is the author of two critically acclaimed, award-winning books of nonfiction. His internationally bestselling debut novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, has been published in more than twenty countries. Oscar-winner Charlie Kaufman is writing and directing a film based on the novel, which Reid will co-produce. His second novel, Foe, was an instant bestseller and feature film rights have been acquired by Anonymous Content, with Reid set to executive produce. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bret Easton Ellis is the author of several novels, including Imperial Bedrooms, Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Glamorama and Lunar Park, and a collection of stories, The Informers. Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho and The Informers have all been made into films. His first work of non-fiction, White, was  published in 2019. He is the host of the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast available on Patreon. He lives in Los Angeles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bev Thomas was a clinical psychologist in the NHS for many years. She currently works as an organisational consultant in mental health and other services. A Good Enough Mother is her debut novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jarett Kobek is a Turkish-American writer living in California. His novella ATTA, a psychedelic biography of the 9/11 bomber Mohamed Atta, was an unexplained bestseller in parts of Canada. His first novel, I Hate the Internet, was a bestseller everywhere, doing especially well in Serbia. His second novel, The Future Won't Be Long, wasn't a bestseller anywhere, but was published in the United States by a company that printed propaganda for Nazi Germany. His latest novel is Only Americans Burn in Hell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Isabella Hammad was born in London. She won the 2018 Plimpton Prize for Fiction for her story 'Mr. Can’aan'. Her writing has appeared in Conjunctions and the Paris Review. The Parisian is her first novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Ashon is the author of Strange Labyrinth (Granta, 2017) and two novels. He previously ran BIG DADA records where his artists included Roots Manuva, MF DOOM, Kate Tempest and Diplo. Will's latest book is Chamber Music: About the Wu-Tang (in 36 Pieces). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.