Episode 10: History Special with Al Murray, J...

What are the best books get you out of a reading slump? How did Snakes on a Plane inspire a literary sensation? What did James Joyce and Pakistani rap teach one of our debut novelists? And does a writer need to be completely delusional to finish writing a novel? This week on Ask ...  Show more

How does artist Kae Tempest inspire Dawn French? Do editors always know best? What is the impact of grief on those we love most? And what really happened when Dawn French came face to face with a hippo while filming Harry Potter? In this episode of Ask Penguin, Rhianna Dhillon si ...  Show more

In this episode, Jacke talks to author David Denby about his new book, Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer, a group biography (loosely inspired by Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians) that describes how four larger-than-life figures upended the restrained culture of ...  Show more

Julia Farley, Curator of British and European Iron Age Collections, once again joins Iszi Lawrence to examine the early years of the Roman conquest. Iszi puts your questions to Julia as they examine life in Roman Britain – from female warriors to druids. Highlighting fascinati ...

Iszi Lawrence talks to Historian James Delbourgo all about his new biography of Hans Sloane, Collecting the World. They discuss Sloane's pursuit of 'universal knowledge', how he contributed to the founding of The British Museum and his association with the slave trade ...

Responding to a special request from a listener, Jacke discusses Fyodor Dostoevsky, his novel The Brothers Karamazov, and the search for meaning in a meaningless world. This episode was originally released as episode #250 on October 7, 2020. For reasons Jacke discusses, it has no ...  Show more