How Jane Austen Changed My Life

In the twenty-first century, Christianity or historically Christian societies have witnessed one of the most extraordinary revolutions in attitudes to sex and gender in human history, bringing liberation for some and fury and fear for others. Understanding the history of Christia ...  Show more

In an age of grinding wars, nuclear brinkmanship, and political volatility, what does strategy really mean - and how do leaders make decisions when the world feels chaotic? In this episode, Lawrence Freedman draws on decades of scholarship and his experience as official historian ...  Show more

Award-winning poet Emily Berry joins us to consider the work and troubled life of Anne Sexton. We focus on her brilliant second collection All My Pretty Ones (1962). Sexton was a trailblazing American poet of the so-called 'confessional' school of the 1960s, one whose writing con ...  Show more

Jane Austen is arguably the most famous female writer in history. Her novels have gone on to inspire countless films, plays, and dramas all over the world, and have been translated into almost 50 different languages. But how did an 18th Century woman create stories that are still ...  Show more

Harold Bloom called Persuasion "the perfect novel." Virginia Woolf said "In Persuasion, Jane Austen is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more romantic than she supposed." In this episode, the first of three parts, Jacke takes a look at Jane Aust ...  Show more

Autumn and Kendra chat with Maggie O'Farrell about her first work of nonfiction, her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am. O'Farrell talks about why she wanted to write a memoir after seven novels and about her own relationship with mortality, which inspired her to share the stories her seven ...  Show more