麻豆社

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

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Hild of Whitby

The story of Hild of Whitby, an abbess who held great power in the seventh century.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Cuthbert

Historian Tony Morris explores the life of Cuthbert, the popular saint of the Northeast.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Eadfrith the Scribe

Richard Gameson explores the everyday working lives and vital contribution of scribes.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

The Beowulf Bard

Nobel Prize-winner the late Seamus Heaney's portrait of the great Anglo-Saxon Beowulf bard

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Bede, the Father of English History

Scholar of the Anglo-Saxons Lilian Groves explores the life and times of St Bede.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Caedmon, the Oldest Surviving English Poet

Writer David Almond discusses Caedmon, the earliest English poet whose name is known.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

The Court of King Alfred

Jinty Nelson explains how the court of King Alfred was run and how he rewarded his thegns.

• 15 mins

Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Offa, King of the Mercians

Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards discusses Offa, who was King of Mercia from 757 to 796 AD

• 15 mins