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

Is Wuthering Heights the perfect novel or the perfect work of art? Why do we fall in love with villains? Is all love doomed? And if Emerald Fennell could adapt another book to film, what would she choose? In this special episode of Ask Penguin, we speak to the director of Wutheri ...  Show more

In this special bonus episode, and to mark Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, we step inside her home in Alton to uncover the life she lived there and the objects she treasured most. From first editions to her own annotated books which formed her personal library, we explore how her s ...  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 ...

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

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death." - William Shakespeare. Dunsinane, Scotland, the year is 1053, Macbeth is king. But why has T ...  Show more