Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the concentration, distribution and morality of wealth now and look back at An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published by the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith in 1776, which gives an early account of what ...Show more
Free Thinking at the Hay Festival: Responsibility
Freedom is one of the leading values of our society. But with freedom comes responsibility, which is a much more contested principle. Deciding where responsibility lies, and what it means to take it, is the job of the courts. It is also debated in Parliament and in the media. It ...Show more
Agatha Christie put her decision to become a writer down to a lack of education and a capacity for day-dreaming. Her murder mysteries, full of ingenious plot twists, are still regarded by many as the finest examples of crime fiction and have sold in their billions in the English ...Show more
In his TED Talk, “Be Human(e),” Dr. Jeremy Richman said, “We felt the world was spinning out of control and that if we didn't find something to hold on to, some reason to go on, that we'd get spun right off into this great darkness.” Jeremy delivered this message as both a neuros ...Show more
Deborah Levy is a writer whose novels Swimming Home and Hot Milk were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Last year she published the final instalment of her ‘living autobiography’ trilogy of memoirs, and her earlier work includes plays for the RSC as well as short story colle ...Show more
Harriett Gilbert talks to the multi-award-winning Trinidadian-British author Monique Roffey about her enchanting novel The Mermaid of Black Conch, which won the 2020 Costa Book of the Year. Roffey spins the mesmerising tale of a cursed mermaid and the lonely fisherman who falls i ...Show more