Gift Horse (Rebroadcast) - 28 December 2020

Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronicling their extraordinary careers becomes a larger meditation on perfectionism and creativity itself. Plus, the military origins of the term ...  Show more

A writer stumbles upon a tiny, motionless creature on a country road and, against all good advice, takes it home. The resulting memoir, Raising Hare, is a lovely meditation on nature and our relationship to it. And: have you ever invented a fake swear word to hide the real ones f ...  Show more

Courntey Maum is not only a talented writer, but an experienced Horse Girl. Today she shares some of the important life lessons she’s learned from riding horses. Her latest book is all about her relationship with horses and is called The Year Of The Horses. This is an excerpt of ...  Show more

Fed up with mice pilfering their grain, farmers in the ancient Middle East turn to a new ally. In early modern Essex, a witch’s familiar is blamed for the murder of her husband. The world’s first cat lady is found living in Victorian London. And a diplomatic mission to Egypt goes ...  Show more

In this week's episode, we're exploring the fun topic of animals, except we're not learning simple animal words or noises they make. This is more advanced.We'll be looking at a few animal idioms, expressions and phrasal verbs that you can use in your daily life. Native speakers u ...  Show more

The Tennessee Walking Horse has a natural gait that's famously smooth. And, if trained in a certain way, it can perform a walk that's even more spectacular, called the Big Lick. But, there's a secret behind how, exactly, these horses are trained to do the crowd-pleasing step they ...  Show more