麻豆社

Published earlier this year, the British Crime survey for 2011/12 showed there were two million victims of domestic abuse - an enormous figure. We find out about the perpetrators and the victims who make up that statistic, and how likely men are to experience what is normally seen as a trauma faced by women and girls. Jane Garvey is joined by Dr Catherine Donovan from Sunderland University, Jane Keeper, Director of Operations at , and Ian McNicholl, a survivor of domestic abuse.

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The summer holidays are fast approaching and many of us will be planning go away somewhere perhaps to unwind, or perhaps to explore a new part of the world or to experience a new culture. But are the joys of travel best experienced with a partner or a friend? Jane speaks to Hilary Linstead and Elizabeth Davies - two old school friends who share a love of travelling and together have visited the Atlas mountains in North Africa, Patagonia, the Galapagos Islands, and the Serengeti.

In the UK roughly one in every four families with dependent children are single parent families, and in the USA around 27 per cent of all children live with one parent. Despite the numbers of people living with this family structure, single mothers are often vilified instead of normalised, not only by politicians and the media, but in their day-to-day lives. So why do these subtle, and not so subtle, prejudices persist? We speak to American journalist and author Katie Roiphe, whose new book In Praise of Messy Lives confronts the negative attitude towards single mothers in the USA. She asks why these attitudes remain so prevalent when 53 per cent of babies born to women under 30 are born to single mothers. Jane is also joined by professional blogger Sally Whittle, who has written about her experience of being a single mother in the UK.

David Mitchell, award winning author of Cloud Atlas, discusses his translation of the Japanese memoir The Reason I Jump, and how it helped him make sense of his son's autism. The teenage author, Naoki Higashida, has severe autism and provides an insight into that world, addressing topics such as beauty, time, noise, and how he feels about the people around him. We also talk to the mother of a profoundly autistic teenager and hear her reaction to the book.

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The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida and translated by K. A. Yoshida and David Mitchell is published on 4 July by Sceptre