Blackwell Online Podcasts

If there is a common thread running through Alain de Botton's bestselling oeuvre, it is surely the question how are we to live richly, meaningfully, well. And in seeking answers to that question he has frequently had recourse to the wisdom of the great thinkers and philosophers of the past.

Michael Hofmann has translated a selection of Roth's letter that describe his turbulent life as a peripatetic journalist often beset with money and drink problems in the early decades of last century. Hofmann says he "likes the idea of a sort of accidental biography, told in the subject's own words, the sort of book that isn't nine parts starch, that is always medias in res".

Last year, writer and journalist Stephen Armstrong retraced the journey George Orwell made through the north of England in 1936 during the Depression, which he wrote about in The Road to Wigan Pier. Orwell wanted to see for himself the effects of poverty on working class communities, and seventy-five years on, Stephen Armstrong wanted to discover what had changed.

In this first podcast of 2012, George Miller talks to James Palmer about his new account of a momentous year in Chinese history - 1976. Not only did the year witness the death of Chairman Mao, who had ruled the country for over three decades, it also was the year of the Tangshan earthquake, one of the most devastating natural disasters in human history.

At the age of fifteen, Philip Oltermann's parents told him that the family was relocating from their native Germany to England. Philip's new book, Keeping up with the Germans, is an entertaining account of his experiences getting to grips with a new culture.

According to our guest in this podcast, Mark Lynas, many current Green preoccupations are simply wrong.

In our latest book podcast, host George Miller talks to the immensely popular social historian, Juliet Gardiner, about her panoramic account of The Thirties, which has just come out in paperback. The book covers everything from hunger marches to greyhound racing, seaside holidays to the preparations for war. So does Gardiner share W. H. Auden's view of the thirties as a 'low, dishonest decade'?

We talk to historian of the English language, Henry Hitchings, about The Language Wars. Why do notions of 'proper' English arouse such strong feelings and such heated controversy? Are we still living with Victorian attitudes to language? And why were we taught that we shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition?

Our guest on this podcast is Hugh Aldersey-Williams, whose Periodic Tales explores the cultural history of the elements and puts the fun back into chemistry. In the interview he talks about our often bizarre relationship with elements such as radium, which in the early twentieth century experienced a great surge in popularity and led to miracle claims being made for all sorts of household products - even shoe polish.

In this podcast, Robin Osborne, who is Professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge, tells George Miller about the importance of "joined-up thinking" when it comes to considering how Greek democracy actually worked.

Having peered into the distant future in his previous book, The Earth after Us, Geologist Jan Zalasiewicz winds back the clock of the earth's history in his latest publication to tell the story of The Planet in a Pebble.

Science journalist Mary Roach takes us on a trip to Mars, in one of this year's funniest popular science books, Packing for Mars, boldly going where other writers fear to tread. Among the questions she tackles are: what's it like to spend two weeks in the same spacesuit? And is there sex in space?

Francis Spufford is a former Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. His previous books include I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination and a memoir, The Child that Books Built. His new book, Red Plenty, skilfully blends fact and fiction to explore the heady years in the early 'sixties when the USSR entertained ambitions of becoming a Soviet paradise on earth.

Professor of psychology, Jan van Vugt, talked to us from his home in Amsterdam about his latest book, Selected, which looks at why human groups function best with leaders, but why we don't always choose the best people to fill the role, whether in the workplace or as heads of state.

Catharine Arnold is an author, journalist and popular historian who joins our show for the second time. With her 'London Trilogy', Catharine has explored the darker sides of the capital from Roman times through to present day. Starting with London's dead in 'Necropolis', via its insane in 'Bedlam', Catharine finishes her trilogy with 'City of Sin', a book that focuses squarely on the history of London's shocking sexual underground.