Little Atoms

Mark Greif studied history and literature at Harvard, and English at Oxford as a British Marshall Scholar. In 2004, he co-founded the literary journal n+1 in New York and has been a principal at the magazine since then. He earned a PhD in American studies from Yale in 2007. Since 2008, he has been on the faculty of the New School in New York, where he is currently an associate professor. His previous book, The Age of the Crisis of Man: Thought and Fiction in America, 1933–1973, was published in 2015. Greif has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and, for 2016–17, is a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Mark’s latest book is the essay collection Against Everything.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After graduating from West Point with a degree in Military Science, and from The University of Michigan with a Masters in Astronautical/Aeronautical Engineering, Colonel Alfred “Al” Worden had a career in the US Air Force as a fighter pilot and a test pilot, before joining NASA and becoming part of the Apollo program. Having served as a member of the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 9 flight and as backup Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 12 flight, Al Worden was chosen as Command Module Pilot for Apollo 15, becoming one of only 24 people to have flown to the moon.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this interview from 2007, Neil and Padraig talked to journalist Nick Cohen about his book What's Left?, which examines the ideas of the British far left and their effects on mainstream politics.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First broadcast 11 September 2009, Francis Wheen discusses Strange Days Indeed, his brilliant book on the mad, paranoid world of 70s politics.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First broadcast on 14th January 2011 Hailed as one of the most original non-fiction books in recent years, Francis Spufford's Red Plenty tells the story of the men and women who strived to deliver technological and economic Utopia for the Soviet Union in the Kruschev era  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mary Roach is the New York Times bestselling author of several popular science books, including Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Packing for Mars and Gulp. She has written for the Guardian, Wired, BBC Focus, GQ and Vogue. Her latest book is Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Laurie Winkless is a physicist and writer, currently based in London. Following a degree at Trinity College Dublin, a placement at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre, and a masters in Space Science at UCL, Laurie worked at the National Physical Laboratory, specialising in materials. Laurie has been communicating science to the public for more than a decade, working with schools and universities, the Royal Society, Forbes, and the Naked Scientists, amongst others. She's given TEDx talks, hung out with astronauts, and appeared in The Times magazine as a leading light in STEM. Science and the City is her first book  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Travis Elborough is the author of four acclaimed books: The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus; The Long Player Goodbye, which lamented the passing of vinyl; Wish You Were Here, a history of the British beside the seaside; and London Bridge in America, which tells the transatlantic story of the sale of the world's largest antique. Travis regularly appears on Radio 4 and writes for the Guardian. His latest book is A Walk in The Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Maverick British filmmaker Alex Cox is responsible for directing a host of acclaimed films including Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, Walker and Highway Patrolman. From 1987 to 1994, he presented the acclaimed BBC TV series ‘Moviedrome’, bringing unknown or forgotten films to new audiences. He’s also the author of X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker, 10,000 Ways to Die, and The President and the Provocateur, and has written on the subject of film for publications including Sight and Sound, The Guardian, The Independent and Film Comment. His latest book is Alex Cox’s Introduction to Film.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cal Flyn is a freelance journalist from the Highlands of Scotland. She has been a reporter for the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph, and a contributing editor at The Week magazine. She has been published in the New Statesman, The Observer, The Independent, Telegraph Magazine and FT Weekend, and won the 2013 Brandt/Independent on Sunday travel writing prize. Her first book is Thicker Than Water. Dan Richards studied at UEA and Norwich Arts School. He is co-author of Holloway with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood, and The Beechwood Airship Interviews, a book about the creative process and the importance of art for art’s sake, which we talked about last year on Little Atoms. His latest book is Climbing Days.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alex Marshall is a journalist who writes about music and politics. He has written previously for the BBC, Guardian and New York Times. Alex is the author of Republic or Death! Travels in Search of National Anthems.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Miranda Sawyer is a journalist and broadcaster. Formerly of Smash Hits and Select, she currently writes features and radio criticism for the Observer, and her writing has also appeared in GQ, Vogue and the Guardian. She is a regular arts critic in print, on television and on radio. The author of Park and Ride, a book about suburbia, her latest is Out of Time: Midlife, If You Still Think You’re Young.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Marcus Du Sautoy is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. In 2008 he was appointed to Oxford University’s prestigious professorship as the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, a post previously held by Richard Dawkins. In 2009 the Royal Society awarded him the Faraday Prize for excellence in communicating science to the public, and in 2010 he received an OBE from the Queen for his services to science. He’s also recently been made a fellow of the Royal Society. Marcus is the author of The Music of The Primes, Finding Moonshine and The Number Mysteries; He’s presented numerous programs on TV and radio including the internationally acclaimed BBC series The Story of Maths and in 2006 gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. His latest book is What We Cannot Know.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Louise Doughty is the author of seven novels, most recently the top 5 bestseller Apple Tree Yard, which was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club, shortlisted for the Specsavers National Book Awards Crime & Thriller of the Year and the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, longlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize, and translated into over twenty languages. Her other novels include Whatever You Love, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She is a critic and cultural commentator for UK and international newspapers and broadcasts regularly for the BBC. Her latest novel is Black Water.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Francis Spufford was born in 1964. He is the author of five highly-praised books of non-fiction, most frequently described by reviewers as either 'bizarre' or 'brilliant', and usually as both. Unapologetic, has been translated into three languages; the one before, Red Plenty, into nine. He has been longlisted or shortlisted for prizes in science writing, historical writing, political writing, theological writing, and writing 'evoking the spirit of place'. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and lives near Cambridge. His latest book is his first novel, Golden Hill.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kate Moore is a Sunday Times bestselling writer with more than a decade's experience in writing across varying genres, including memoir and biography and history. She is the author of The Radium Girls, and previously she was the director of the critically acclaimed play about The Radium Girls called 'These Shining Lives'.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Wray is the author of The Right Hand of Sleep, which won a Whiting Writers' Award, Canaan's Tongue and the critically-acclaimed Lowboy. He was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. His latest novel is The Lost Time Accidents.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Recorded live at the Stoke Newington Literary festival, we gathered together the crème of UK literary podcasting and put them on the same stage, and inevitably they talked about books; With Andy Miller (Backlisted), Carrie Plitt & Octavia Bright (Literary Friction), our own Neil Denny, and occasional remote interjections from Robin Ince (Book Shambles).  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lucy Jones is a nature writer and journalist based in London. She was Deputy Editor at NME.com and previously worked at the Daily Telegraph. Her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife, the Guardian, TIME and the New Statesman, and she has contributed to programmes on BBC Radio 4, 6 Music and Radio 1, the BBC World Service, VICE, Channel 5 and Channel 4. She runs the Wildlife Daily blog, featuring wildlife, nature and environment news from around the world, and is the recipient of the Society of Authors’ Roger Deakin Award for Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain, which is her first book.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California, where he researches the foundations of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, and the emergence of complexity. He received his PhD in 1983 from Harvard University, and has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Sloan Foundation and the Royal Society. He is the author of From Eternity to Here, and The Particle at the End of the Universe among other books, his latest being The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.