麻豆社

The Darkest Hour

Episode 2

Literary critic and author John Sutherland explores the history of insomnia in literature.

• 15 mins

The Darkest Hour

Episode 3

Author AL Kennedy explores why she has always found the nights too thrilling to sleep.

• 15 mins

The Darkest Hour

Episode 4

Poet Michael Symmons Roberts examines why he has been so fascinated by insomnia.

• 15 mins

The Darkest Hour

Episode 5

Actor Juliet Stevenson on why a creative life often means a life in want of sleep.

• 15 mins

Explaining the Explicit

Julian Barnes

Writer Julian Barnes asks 'Is writing about sex the same as writing about anything?'.

• 15 mins

Explaining the Explicit

David Bellos

Writer and academic David Bellos on why translating sex in literature is so difficult.

• 15 mins

Explaining the Explicit

Sarah Churchwell

Sarah Churchwell examines the tradition of depicting sex in popular fiction.

• 15 mins

Explaining the Explicit

Vicki Feaver

Vicki Feaver reflects on how the poet can explore their own sexuality.

• 15 mins

Explaining the Explicit

Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson asks if we are all too ready to leap to judgement about writing about sex.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

Homage to Catalonia

Alan Johnston explains how Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell inspired him.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

The Wrench

Potter and writer Edmund de Waal explains how Primo Levi's book The Wrench inspired him.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

Scientist Colin Blakemore praises a lesser-known work by Charles Darwin.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

Pride and Prejudice

Academic Mona Siddiqui explores her affection for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

The Smoking Diaries

Ed Smith explains how Simon Gray's The Smoking Diaries liberated him as a wordsmith.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

Othello

Poet Musa Okwonga on how Shakespeare's Othello mirrored his experience of isolation.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

In the Land of Israel

Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner on Amos Oz's book In the Land of Israel.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

The Silent Spring

Journalist Julian Pettifer on how Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring inspired him.

• 15 mins

The Book that Changed Me

Chocky

Space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock on how Chocky by John Wyndham inspired her.

• 15 mins

A Taste for the Baroque

Alexandra Harris

Alexandra Harris discusses the legacy of Baroque style in 20th-century English design.

• 15 mins

A Taste for the Baroque

Paul Farley

Paul Farley, poet and professor of creative writing, discusses 'baroque 'n' roll'.

• 15 mins

A Taste for the Baroque

Ed Hollis

Former architect Ed Hollis discusses 20th-century architecture's battle with the Baroque.

• 15 mins

A Taste for the Baroque

Chloe Aridjis

Mexican novelist Chloe Aridjis discusses the survival of Baroque in her country.

• 15 mins

A Taste for the Baroque

Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley on Henry James's sentences and jokes. Is there such a thing as Baroque prose?

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Vortigern

Discussion on Vortigern, the king often blamed for inviting the first Anglo-Saxon invaders

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

The Peasant Farmer

Portrait of the peasant farmers who have shaped the English landscape as we know it today.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

St Augustine

Rowan Williams focuses on St Augustine, the first-ever Archbishop of Canterbury.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Three Alpha Females

Martin Carver recreates the lives of three powerful pagan women.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

King Raedwald

Martin Carver discusses the inhabitant of the Sutton Hoo ship burial.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

King Edwin

Discussing King Edwin, the ruler of Northumbria famous for his conversion to Christianity.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Penda

Historian Michael Wood celebrates Penda, the much-maligned last pagan king of England.

• 15 mins