The Best French Novel of the 20th Century

More than 90 per cent of transactions in the UK are now cashless, yet there is more cash in circulation than ever before. In the UK, there’s about £1300 circulating for every individual; in the US it’s more than $7000, and the majority of this exists in the highest-denomination b ...  Show more

Is AI taking us into a world where computer programmers, and perhaps the rest of us too, are obsolete? And if so, how quickly is it taking us there? Paul Taylor has been looking at code since the time when computer games didn't even have screens, and in this episode he talks to T ...  Show more

Si sa vie a tout d’une légende, Giacomo Casanova a bel et bien existé. Au XVIIIe siècle, ce libertin irrésistible partage la couche de plus d’une centaine de femmes. Mais sa destinée ne se limite pas à ses conquêtes : de conseiller d'un roi à prisonnier dans la plus cruelle des c ...  Show more

One hundred years after his birth this month’s World Book Club, will be discussing Albert Camus' seminal novel The Outsider with his acclaimed biographer Oliver Todd, and Professor of French at Sheffield University, David Walker. And appropriately the programme comes from the hea ...  Show more

Coquette, Marguerite sait comment plaire et collectionne les amants. Sa vie sexuelle sulfureuse provoque le scandale à la cour, mais aussi en Europe. Visionnaire, la reine Margot va avoir une grande influence sur la mode de l’époque.  "Secrets d'Histoire" est un podcast d'Initial ...  Show more

Listen to author and critic Erica Wagner in conversation with Harriet Constable, writer of “The Instrumentalist”, her first novel published by Bloomsbury in 2024, in which she retraces the story of musical prodigy Anna Maria della Pietà, student of Antonio Vivaldi. Through thi ...