Better Known
Each week, a guest makes a series of recommendations of things which they think should be better known. Our recommendations include interesting people, places, objects, stories, experiences and ideas which our guest feels haven't had the exposure that they deserve.
Episodes
Roie Oknin
Roie Oknin discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Roie Oknin is an author, multidisciplinary artist, and medical student. He is the author of Ramen, Existential Crises, his debut novel, which is available at https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Ramen-Existential-Crises-by-Oknin-Roie/9789655962765. Alongside his literary and artistic practice, he works as an ophthalmology
Kevin McManus
Kevin McManus discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Kevin McManus is an Irish writer and poet from Co. Leitrim whose work is rooted in place, memory, and the quiet emotional currents of everyday life. He has published several works of fiction and poetry, often focusing on crime fiction and the rural Irish landscape.
The Light at Evening is semi-autobiographical as it reflect
Norman Lamb
Norman Lamb discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Sir Norman Lamb is the former Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk and a former Minister of State for Care and Support. Knighted in 2019 for services to mental health, he also chaired South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust from 2020 to 2025. His new book is Be More Human, which is available at https://www.hachette.co.uk/
Chris Wilkins
Chris Wilkins is a political consultant, strategist and writer and co-founder of global campaigns & advisory firm the Hanwell Group.
Beginning his career as a political advisor to the Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe in Westminster, Chris went on to become the youngest Director of the renowned Conservative Research Department (CRD) in over 30 years. He later served in the government of David Cameron be
Joseph Millson
Actor Joseph Millson discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Joseph Millson has been a busy and well known actor for over thirty years, an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare company, he has won many awards for his work on stage and screen. His film and TV work includes Casino Royale, The Last Kingdom, Holby City, Banished, The Sarah Jane adventures, Peak Practice and ma
Rob Temple
Rob Temple discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Rob Temple is a journalist and creator of Very British Problems. His @SoVeryBritish Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts have more than 5.6 million combined followers. He’s the consultant on the official Channel 4 Very British Problems series, producer of the Very British Problems Live Show, and a columnist for the Telegra
Molly Mahon
Printmaker Molly Mahon discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Molly Mahon is a distinguished British printmaker and textile designer renowned for her vibrant and original block prints. Offering a range of uplifting collections, each rooted in Molly’s passion for the traditional and transformative craft of block printing, designs merge classic techniques with a fresh, modern a
Anna Heyward
Anna Heyward discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Anna Heyward is a former editorial staffer of The New Yorker. She is a graduate student in animal behaviour and welfare science at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and is working as a dog trainer. Her writing has also been published by the New York Times, New York Times Book Review, T Magazine, Pa
Minette Batters
Minette Batters was the first woman to be elected President of the National Farmers’ Union in 113years. She worked with four Prime Ministers - three of them in one year - and six Defra Secretaries of State. She stood down from the post in February 2024.
In 2020 she led the NFU on one of the most successful campaigns ever seen, bringing together a coalition of chefs, including Jamie Oliver, farmers
Nick Freudenberg
Nick Freudenberg discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Nicholas Freudenberg is distinguished professor emeritus of public health at the City University of New York School of Public Health. His expertise includes childhood lead poisoning, AIDS prevention, urban food policy, community organization for health, and mass incarceration. Since the 1970s, Freudenberg has studied, ev
Ian Green
Ian Green discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Ian Green is a writer from Northern Scotland with a PhD in epigenetics. His debut fantasy trilogy The Rotstorm began with the Sunday Times bestseller The Gauntlet and the First Beneath. His short fiction has been widely published and he won the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines competition, the Futurebook Future Fiction Prize, and was
Matt Hill
Matt Hill discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Matt Hill is the Philip K. Dick Award-nominated author of Lamb, The Breach, Zero Bomb, Graft, and The Folded
Man. He lives in Glossop, on the edge of the Peak District. His new novel is Wrecks, which is available at https://deadinkbooks.com/products/wrecks-matt-hill.
You have to rinse the suds off your dishes when you’ve was
Joel Christensen on The Odyssey
Joel Christensen discusses with Ivan six things about The Odyssey which should be better known.
Joel P. Christensen is Professor of Classics at the CUNY Graduate Center where he also serves as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. Joel has previously taught at UT San Antonio and Brandeis University. His research interests include early Greek poetry, myth, and literary theory. Wit
Jessica Fellowes
Jessica Fellowes discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Jessica Fellowes is an author, journalist and public speaker. The Mitford Murders is her debut series as a novelist and has been nominated for awards in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and sold into eighteen territories. Jessica is also the author of five official companion books to ‘Downton Abbey,’ various of which
Sarah Wilson
Sarah Wilson discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Sarah Wilson is a multi-New York Times bestselling author, journalist, social philosopher, international keynote speaker and philanthropist. Sarah leads dynamic, global conversations about modern philosophy, creativity, existential risk, and climate change via her keynote speaking, Wild podcast, and her Substack and social c
Ian Proud
Ian Proud discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Ian Proud is an expert in strategic thinking, politico-economic analysis and diplomatic tradecraft. He was a member of His Majesty's Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. During that time, he was one of the Foreign Office's most accomplished crisis experts and was Chair of the Crisis Committee at the British Embassy in Moscow w
Sahar Hashemi
Sahar Hashemi discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Sahar Hashemi OBE has enjoyed a successful career as an entrepreneur, bestselling author and business thought leader. Initially forging her success as the Co-Founder and former CEO of Coffee Republic, the UK’s first American-style coffee bar chain, Sahar has since built great authority as a business leader and earned an app
Eleanor Anstruther
Eleanor Anstruther discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Eleanor Anstruther was educated at Westminster School but dropped out of university to travel the world where she was lost and found for twelve years. When she inherited a farm in southern England she set up a commune and began to write. Her debut, A Perfect Explanation (Salt Books) was a finalist for the Desmond Eliot
Mark Leonard
Mark Leonard discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Mark Leonard is Co-Founder and Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think-tank. His new book is Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics When The Rules Fail, which is available at https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=surviving-chaos-geopolitics-when-the-rules-fail--9781509575220.
Xi
Tahmima Anam
Tahmima Anam discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Tahmima Anam is the author of the Bengal trilogy and a recipient of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and the O. Henry Award. Her short story ‘Garments’ was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She is a Granta Best of Young British Novelist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Bor
Séamas O'Reilly
Séamas O'Reilly discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Séamas O'Reilly is a writer and author who has worked as a columnist for the Observer, the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner. He is Features Editor of London satirical magazine, The Fence and his writing has appeared in The Guardian, the New Statesman and the New York Times. His memoir Did Ye Hear Mammy Died topped the I
Ed Maklouf
Ed Maklouf discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Ed Maklouf attended school in England before moving to the USA to study at Stanford University, where he conducted specialized research into group communication and how people make decisions together. After graduating, he went on to found several start-up companies in the emerging field of “democracy technology,” building tool
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen discuss with Ivan six things which they think should be better known.
Emer McLysaght & Sarah Breen are co-authors of the Aisling series. Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling was the bestselling fiction title of 2017 in Ireland and its sequel, The Importance of Being Aisling, won the award for best popular fiction book at the 2018 Irish Book Awards. The third book i
Charles Moore
Charles Moore discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known.
Charles Moore was editor of the Daily Telegraph from 1995 to 2003, editor of the Sunday Telegraph from 1992 to 1995 and editor of the Spectator magazine from 1984 to 1990. He is now the Chairman of The Spectator. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020. He wrote the authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher,
Sean Murphy
Sean Murphy discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Sean Murphy is founder of the non-profit 1455 Lit Arts and directs the Center for Story at Shenandoah University. He has been publishing fiction, poetry, reviews (of music, movie, book, food), and essays on the technology industry for over twenty years. His latest book is red, white, and blues, his fourth poetry collection, w
Steven Seidenberg
Steven Seidenberg discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Steven Seidenberg is the author of Anon (Omnidawn, 2022), plain sight (Roof Books, 2020), Situ
(Black Sun Lit, 2018) Null Set (Spooky Action Books) and Itch (RAW ArT Press, 2015). His books have been published in Italian, Portuguese and Swedish translation, and his collections of photographs include The Architecture of
Daniel Hahn
Daniel Hahn discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Daniel Hahn is an award-winning translator, author and editor of numerous fiction and non-fiction works. He is one of the editors of The Ultimate Book Guide, the first volume of which won the Blue Peter Book Award. Other titles include children’s works such as Happiness Is a Watermelon on Your Head (a picture-book for childre
Joanna Jensen
Joanna Jensen discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Joanna Jensen is the founder of the British multi-award-winning baby and child personal care brand, Childs Farm which she created in 2010 as a result of her own daughters’ sensitive and eczema prone skin.
A former Investment Banker in both London and Hong Kong, Jensen transformed an emotional need into a commercial brand f
Alexandra Tolstoy live
Alexandra Tolstoy returns to the podcast with a special live episode, recorded at a school. She discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Kyrgyzstan https://alexandratolstoytravel.com/
Female Explorers (Lady Jane Digby, Isabel Burton and the Decembrist Wives) https://www1.essex.ac.uk/history/documents/conferences/hero-soroka.pdf
Sailor’s Valentines https://www.worldofinte
Natalie Kyriacou
Natalie Kyriacou discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Natalie Kyriacou OAM is an award-winning environmentalist, writer, professional public speaker and charity director with a passion to spark curiosity about the natural world. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and the Forbes 30 Under 30 honour for her services to wildlife and environmental conservation i
Danny Bate
Danny Bate discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Danny Bate is a linguist, writer, broadcaster and podcaster who is fascinated by the study of historical languages and etymology. He took his BA and MPhil degrees from the University of York and the University of Cambridge respectively, and his PhD in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh. He can be found at dannybate.c
Deepa Anappara
Deepa Anappara discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Deepa Anappara’s debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was named as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Guardian and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian literature. It h
Nigel Biggar
Nigel Biggar discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor in the University of Oxford and Fellow of Christ Church. He founded in Oxford the MacDonald Institute for the study of Ethics and Empire. He is now a Fellow of St Cross College Oxford, and an author, lecturer and broadcaster throughout the English-speaking world. After many acclaimed
Matt Kaplan
Matt Kaplan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at the Economist. He is the author of The Science of Monsters and Science of the Magical, and co-author of David Attenborough’s First Life: A Journey Through Time. His new book is I Told You So! Scientists who were Ridiculed, Exiled and Imprisoned for Being Right, which is available at
Jane Dougherty
Jane Dougherty discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Jane Dougherty, of Irish origin, grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in France. She began writing by coming up with short stories and a YA series for her teenage children. Her first novel was published by an American publisher Musa in 2014. Since then, her poetry and short stories have been published online, in anthologies
Adam Steiner
Adam Steiner discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Adam Steiner is a swim-teacher, freelance journalist and author. When not saving lives he sits dreaming about all the books he will never write.
He has written several books of music criticism: Into The Never: Nine Inch Nails And The Creation Of The Downward Spiral, Silhouettes And Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie
Erin Somers
Erin Somers discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Erin Somers is a reporter and news editor at Publishers Lunch. Her first novel, Stay Up with Hugo Best was a Vogue Best Book of the Year in 2019. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, New York Times Book Review, New Republic, New York Magazine, Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, Best American Short Stories and many ot
Tharik Hussain returns
Tharik Hussain, who previously appeared on the podcast in 2022, discusses with Ivan six further things which should be better known.
Tharik Hussain is an award-winning author and journalist specialising in global Muslim heritage and culture. He has written for newspapers such as The Times, Guardian and Telegraph, magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, and broadcast media such as Al Jazeer
Richard Johnson and Lee Evans
Richard Johnson and Lee Evans discuss with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Richard Johnson is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary University of London. With Lee Evans, he is the co-host of the 'Since Attlee and Churchill' podcast. He is the author of several books on British and US politics, including The End of the Second Reconstruction: Obama, Trump, and the Crisis of Civil R
Brooke Newman
Historian Brooke Newman discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Dr. Brooke Newman is an Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She specializes in the history of early modern Britain and the British Atlantic, with a focus on slavery and its legacies. She is the author of the award-winning book, A Dark Inheritance: B
Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Dean Koontz won an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition when he was a senior in college, and has been writing ever since. Fourteen of his novels have risen to number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list (One Door Away From Heaven, From the Corner of His Eye, Midnight, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Hideaway, Dragon
Ryan Gingeras
Ryan Gingeras discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Ryan Gingeras is a professor in the Institute of Regional and International Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School and is an expert in modern Eastern European and Middle East history. He is the author of seven books, including The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire and Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of th
Stuart Jeffries
Stuart Jeffries discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Stuart Jeffries was born in Wolverhampton in 1962. He was educated in Dudley, Oxford and London.
Stuart started his journalistic career as a cub reporter at the Birmingham Post and Mail in 1985. He used to edit the Walsall Observer's children's page under the pseudonym Uncle Tom. Later he was the jazz critic of the Mornin
Pete Brown
Pete Brown discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Pete Brown (https://petebrown.net/) is a British author, journalist, broadcaster and consultant specialising in food and drink. Since February 2025, he has been the Sunday Times Magazine’s weekly beer columnist – the only regular broadsheet newspaper or magazine beer columnist in the UK.
He is currently Chair of Judges for the
Sandy Pentland
Sandy Pentland discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Alex Pentland is a Stanford HAI Fellow and MIT Toshiba Professor. Named one of the “100 People to Watch This Century” by Newsweek and “one of the seven most powerful data scientists in the world” by Forbes, he is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, an advisor to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority Lab, and an ad
Jaime Davila
Jaime Davila discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Jaime Dávila earned an engineering degree in the United States. Choosing a career in the creative industries, he worked primarily in broadcasting and eventually led operations at Mexico’s largest media company. He became intrigued by the creation of the first mechanised sawmill by Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593. This inventio
400th episode
To celebrate the 400th episode of Better Known, previous guest Richard Elwes discusses with Ivan Wise six aspects of the Better Known podcast which Ivan thinks should be better known.
Many thanks to Caroline Crampton and Laurence Bergreen for adding their choices of things which should be better known.
This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm
Christopher Hill
Christopher Hill discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Christopher Hill was working in finance in London when, in 2002, he took a trip to South Africa which changed his life. He left his job, moved to Canada, and worked on the business plan for what became Hands Up Holidays. He spent the next two years traveling the world, building relationships with communities, formed a te
Eleanor Doughty
Eleanor Doughty discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Eleanor Doughty began her career in journalism at the Daily Telegraph, before going freelance to focus on writing. She has written the 'Great Estates' column in the Telegraph since 2017, and specialises in writing about the British moneyed and titles classes. Her first book Heirs and Graces, a history of the modern Britis
Sasha Butler
Sasha Butler discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Sasha Butler is a Birmingham based writer. Her first novel, The Marriage Contract (Salt, 2025), was shortlisted for the Cheshire Novel Prize 2022 and the Bath Novel Award 2022, under the former title As Soft as Dreams. In addition to novels, she occasionally writes short stories. Her short story ‘Map of an Affair’ features i
Doug Lemov
Doug Lemov discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Doug Lemov is a former teacher and school principal whose books describe the techniques of high-performing teachers. His best-known book, Teach Like a Champion (now in its 3.0 version) has been translated into more than a dozen languages. The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading, out in July and co-written wit
Sudhir Hazareesingh
Sudhir Hazareesingh discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Professor Sudhir Hazareesingh was born in Mauritius. He is a Fellow of the British Academy a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, His books include The Legend of Napoleon (Granta, 2004), In the Shadow of the General (OUP, 2012) and How the French Think (Allen Lane, 2015). He won the Prix du Mémorial d’Ajac
Ana Schnabl
Ana Schnabl discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Ana Schnabl is a Slovenian writer and editor. She writes for several Slovenian media outlets and is a monthly columnist for the Guardian. Her collection of short stories Razvezani (Beletrina, 2017) met with critical acclaim. Three years later Schnabl published her first novel Masterpiece (Mojstrovina, Beletrina, 2020). Her se
Adam Lind
Adam Lind discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Through living on a narrowboat on the British waterways, Adam Lind has unexpectedly built a large online community of over 900,000 loyal and engaged like-minded souls who enjoy soaking up his passion to live a life of meaning. Adam has appeared on Channel 4’s Narrow Escapes and has been featured in publications including The Ne
Andrew Turvil
Food critic Andrew Turvil discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Described by The Independent as one of the UK’s ‘arbiters of taste’, Andrew Turvil is the former editor of The Good Food Guide, AA Restaurant Guide and Which? Pub Guide. As a freelance restaurant critic, writer, and editor, he has spent his career writing about pubs and restaurants, and, undeterred, bought a pub
Andy Reid speaks negatively about six films
Andy Reid discusses with Ivan six films chosen by previous guests which he thinks should not, after all, be better known. With apologies to Daria Lavelle, Steve Cross, Neil Brand, Tom Newman, Adam Higginbotham and Sam Sedgman.
Andy Reid is the founder of Buddy Up, a mentoring charity for young people across south London and Surrey. He has worked in the youth sector for over 20 years delivering pro
Matt Greene
Matt Greene discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Matt Greene is an author, teacher, former screenwriter, and stay-at-home dad. His first novel, Ostrich, won a Betty Trask Award and his memoir Jew(ish) was described by Booker-shortlisted author Nadifa Mohamed as ‘wonderful’ and ‘acerbically funny’. He teaches critical and creative writing in South London, where he lives with
Danny Scott
Danny Scott discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Danny Scott grew up in an East Midlands mining village, serving his apprenticeship as an engineer on leaving school, before moving to London in the 1980s. After a job in counter (industrial) espionage, he became a private investigator, then a painter and decorator, then an engineer again, before becoming a journalist and inte
Alan Green
Alan Green grew up on the north coast of Cornwall and now lives in south London. As an environmental science graduate, he remains passionate about protecting and preserving the natural world. Alan spent nearly three decades at a Magic Circle law firm in the City of London, where he led a copy-editing team. A committed daily runner for over 35 years, Alan combines his love of nature with a commitme
Laurence Bergreen
Laurence Bergreen discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Laurence Bergreen is an award-winning biographer, historian, and chronicler of exploration. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages. They include Columbus: The Four Voyages, a New York Times bestseller, published by Viking in 2011. In 2007, Knopf published his Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu. For th
Sam Sedgman
Sam Sedgman discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Sam Sedgman is a bestselling children's author, confirmed nerd and enthusiastic ferroequinologist. Co-creator of the award-winning 'Adventures on Trains' and 'Isaac Turner Investigates' series, he writes fact-based mystery and adventure stories for the young and young at heart.
Before writing stories for children, Sam worked
Jordan Prosser
Jordan Prosser discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Jordan Prosser is a writer, filmmaker and performer from Victoria, Australia. He is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, and his short films and screenplays have won multiple international accolades. His short story Eleuterio Cabrera’s Beautiful Game won the Peter Carey Short Story Award in 2022 and was publish
Michel-Yves Bolloré
Michel-Yves Bolloré discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Michel-Yves Bolloré is an engineer and entrepreneur whose career spans industrial innovation and philanthropic investment in education. A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieur de Toulouse and Paris-Dauphine University (Master of Science and Doctorate in Business Administration), he began his career in
Simon Hall
Simon Hall discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Simon Hall studied history at Sheffield and Cambridge, and held a Fox International Fellowship at Yale, before moving to the University of Leeds, where he is currently Professor of Modern History. His previous books include 1956: The World in Revolt and Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s. His new book
Kasim Ali
Kasim Ali discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Kasim Ali was born and raised in Alum Rock, Birmingham, where he spent the first eighteen years of his life, at which point he left to study a degree in English. Over the years, he has lived in London, Nottingham, and Newcastle, but still thinks of Birmingham as the place he’s from. He has had a short story long-listed for the
Sally Smith
Sally Smith discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Sally Smith spent all her working life as a barrister and later KC in the Inner Temple. After writing a biography of the Edwardian barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall KC, she retired from the bar to write full time. A Case of Mice and Murder, her first novel, was inspired by the historic surroundings of the Inner Temple in whi
Hal LaCroix
Hal LaCroix discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Hal LaCroix lives outside Boston with his wife, Elahna. He has worked as a journalist at newspapers in New England, a reporter and editor at Harvard Medical School, a conservation writer for non-profits and an instructor at Boston University. Here and Beyond is his first novel, which is available at https://www.bloomsbury.com
Peter Lamont
Peter Lamont discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Peter Lamont is Professor of History and Theory of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. He has written about a variety of curious topics such as magic, belief, wonder and critical thinking. He is also a former professional magician and an Associate of the Inner Magic Circle. His new book is Radical Thinking, which is a
Sarah Stein Lubrano
Sarah Stein Lubrano discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Dr Sarah Stein Lubrano holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge. Her thinking often reaches the public through the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab. She was previously the Head of Content at The School of Life, tutored in prisons and
Sarah Dunant
Sarah Dunant discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Sarah Dunant studied history at Newnham College, Cambridge from where she went on to become a writer, broadcaster, teacher and critic. She has written twelve novels, four of which have been short-listed for awards, and edited two books of essays. She is an accredited lecturer with The Arts Society, lecturing on Italian histo
AE Gauntlett
AE Gauntlett discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
AE Gauntlett completed an MA in English Literature at King’s College London in 2010. He then went on to find success as a literary agent with Peters Fraser and Dunlop, earning himself a prestigious Shooting Star nomination from The Bookseller in 2017. The Stranger at the Wedding, written secretly as he represented the work o
Simon Tolkien
Simon Tolkien discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Simon Tolkien is the grandson of JRR Tolkien and a director of the Tolkien Estate. He is also series consultant for the Amazon series, The Rings of Power. Simon studied Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford and went on to become a barrister specializing in criminal defence. He left the law to become a writer in 2001 and
Daria Lavelle
Daria Lavelle discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Daria Lavelle was born in Kyiv, immigrated to the US with her family as a child and now lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three children. She holds a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She writes fiction, with short stories published in a variety of US outlets. Aftertaste is he
Michelle Young
Michelle Young discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Michelle Young, a journalist and professor of architecture at Columbia University, spent four years researching The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland, which is available at https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-art-spy-michelle-young?variant=43046200836130. A veritable female
Roisin Lanigan
Róisín Lanigan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Róisín Lanigan is an editor and writer based in London and Belfast. Her work has appeared in i-D, VICE, The Atlantic, New Statesman, The Fence and Prospect, amongst other publications. She was longlisted for the Curtis Brown First Novel Prize in 2019, and won the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award in 2020. I Want to Go H
Laura Spinney
Laura Spinney discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Laura Spinney is a writer and science journalist. Her writing on science has appeared in The Guardian, The Economist, Nature and National Geographic, among others. She is the author of two novels, The Doctor (2001) and The Quick (2007), and a collection of oral history, Rue Centrale (2013). Her bestselling non-fiction accou
Sara Leila Sherman and Mort Sherman
Sara Leila Sherman and Mort Sherman discuss six things which should be better known.
Sara Leila Sherman is a distinguished classical musician and educator, renowned for her work in making music accessible to young audiences through her children's concert series, Mozart for Munchkins, and the non-profit Little Mozart Foundation.
Morton Sherman, PhD is the retired Senior Associate Executive Direct
Jo Harkin
Jo Harkin discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Jo Harkin studied literature at university. She daydreamed her way through various jobs in her twenties before becoming a full-time writer. Her debut novel Tell Me an Ending was a New York Times book of the year. Her new novel is The Pretender, which is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-pretender/jo-harkin/97815
Madeleine Gray
Madeleine Gray discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. She was a 2021 Finalist for the Walkley Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism, and has written for publications including the Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review and the Times Literary Supplement. She has a MSt in English Literature from the University of Oxford and
Alex Conner
Alex Conner discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Alex Conner is an ADHD coach and brain scientist who combines his personal experience with ADHD to be a trusted voice in psychoeducation. He is co-founder and co-host of The ADHD Adults podcast, one of the UK’s most popular ADHD resources. Alongside James Brown, Alex co-founded ADHDadultUK, a registered charity, and Focusmag.
Recommended
The Bread and Banter Podcast
Suspense OTR
Ghost Stories For The End Of The World
Old Time Radio Mystery, Suspense, & Horror
The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament
Busted Open
Deadline: White House
Learn English Fast! English Snacks with Amber - Short Lessons to Speak English Like a Native
Panda Show - Picante
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Stuff You Should Know
Steamy Sex Stories for Her
