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“A terrific overview of Japan’s long and rich history that covers an astonishing amount of ground. A gem of a book that is as engaging as it is readable.” Peter Frankopan
This week on the Goldster Magazine Show, Lucinda Hawksley will be joined by author Lesley Downer who will take us on a captivating journey into the heart of one of Asia’s most enigmatic countries, via her latest book, The Shortest History of Japan.
Zen, haiku, martial arts, sushi, anime, manga, film, video games ... Japanese culture has long enriched our Western way of life. Yet from a Western perspective, Japan remains a remote island country that has long had a complicated relationship with the outside world. Lesley’s previous books, including The Shogun’s Queen, The Courtesan and the Samurai, and Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World, offered unique insights into a little-understood world, and with this latest title, Lesley delves even deeper into Japan’s fascinating past.
Even at the nearest point, Japan – an archipelago strung like a necklace around the Asian mainland – is considerably farther from Asia than Britain is from mainland Europe. The sea provides an effective barrier against invasion and has enabled the culture to develop in unique and distinctive ways. During the Edo period, the Tokugawa shoguns successfully closed the country to the West. After Japan opened up to the world again, it swung in the opposite direction, adopting Western culture wholesale. Both these strategies enabled it to avoid colonization, one of the very few non-Western countries to do so, and to retain its traditions and way of life. -
Peter Abrahams is fascinated in the human body. As a young man he worked with the Peace Corp in the jungles of Sarawak, went on to train as a doctor, planned to become a surgeon but got side-tracked into writing a ground-breaking book, praised by his medical peers: Clinical Anatomy of Practical Procedures. He has taught and researched around the world, a pioneer in explaining how our body is pieced together. His work includes an Apple App, Aspects of Anatomy, used worldwide by medical students and doctors. He has been designing 3D anatomy for downloading onto mobile phones as well as doing 3D printing of human prosected specimens to preserve detailed knowledge for generations to come. He used his intricate knowledge of the human body to co-curate two exhibitions for the Royal collection
Leonardo – Mechanics of Man at the Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh and Leonardo- anatomist at Buckingham Palace in London. He was also invited by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to help assess a collection of bronze statues believed to be the work of Michaelangelo. From there, he carried out the first ever in-depth scientific analysis of the anatomy of Michelangelo’s nude figures and made an anatomically labelled 3D video film for the exhibition. Peter’s latest book is the more down-to-earth TheHuman Body Colouring Book: Human Anatomy in 215 Illustrations for twelve-year-olds and over. How do our bodies work? How do all our bits fit together. -
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How do we place a value on happiness? Can we measure our sense of well-being and fulfilment through science? Richard Layard is founder and former director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. He has been editor of the annual World Happiness Report which examines the state of happiness at various stages of life. Richard’s latest co-authored book is Wellbeing: Science and Policy which uses science to establish what matters most to us. The book shows how well-being can be scientifically measured, what creates it and how feeling good it can be made even better throughout the whole span of human life. In 2011, he launched a campaign called Action for Happiness, asking the question: Why can’t we all be more content? And he takes on politicians who consistently argue that people are mainly interested in the economy and their incomes.
“It’s not the economy, stupid,” he argues. “It’s people’s wellbeing.” Richard is campaigning for a shift in how public money is spent, balancing what makes people feel good against what they believe are their material needs. “We can be happier if our individual aim is to make others happy,” he says. “Let each of us be, as best we can, a creator of happiness.” Can you measure your own happiness? Does it matter?
To find out join the Goldster Magazine Show with Professor Lord Layard and Humphrey Hawksley -
Psychotherapist Jennifer Cox believes that women are never allowed to truly express their anger, and this is making them ill. After a lifetime of being told to repress it, to hide away and fear it, anger has begun to manifest in female bodies in myriad ways that cannot be controlled. Do you agree? Jennifer has drawn her conclusions from talking to women from all walks of life and ages in her work as a therapist. The tendency of women to shrug off anger and not make a fuss is dangerous because an autoimmune condition ravages and, she witnesses the devastation daily. The symptoms include anxiety, depression, migraine and depression. Women are twice as likely as men to suffer depression and three times more likely to experience migraines. “Anger is eating us up, from the inside out,” she writes.
“We’ve been conditioned not to recognise our rage, so it burns behind the scenes. And from there, it’s destroying us.” Last year, Jennifer founded the Women and Mad movement which gained more then 10,000 followers in the first six months. Are you angry? How do you identify it? And what do you do about it?
To find out from a true, charismatic expert in this alarming issue join Jennifer Cox with Humphrey Hawksley on the Goldster Magazine Show... -
Until last year, Professor Alf Collins was NHS England’s Clinical Director for personalised care. His mission in health and well-being is to build around an individual’s needs bringing in shared decision-making, care planning, self-management support, social prescribing and that Goldster concept of ‘rethinking medicine.” Alf worked for a decade with the Health Foundation, helping lead applied research and implementation programmes in person-centred care.
He has researched and written widely on the changing the relationship between patients and healthcare professionals and he led on the NHS’s implementation of ‘Universal Personalised Care’ one of key initiatives to change thinking in the way we view our health. Alf has also been a community consultant for many years in pain management. How can we best live with chronic pain? Alf has honorary fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners and is a Visiting Professorship in Healthcare Policy at Coventry University. -
Iain McGilchrist is a leading psychiatrist with a vast body of work and connections around the world. In his latest book The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, Iain asks blunt questions that rattle around in many of our minds. Who are we? What is the world? How can we understand consciousness, matter, space and time? Is the cosmos without purpose or value? Can we really neglect the sacred and divine? He knows how different sides of our brain work to feed into what is our character, our emotions and each of us as a person. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains.
Philip Pullman named The Matter with Things as his book of the year. And the questions keep coming: Is the world essentially inert and mechanical – nothing but a collection of things for us to use? Are we ourselves nothing but the playthings of chance, embroiled in a war of all against all? Why, indeed, are we engaged in destroying everything that is valuable to us? Join The Goldster Magazine Show for this fascinating conversation when Humphrey Hawksley will be talking to Iain McGilchrist at 1pm UK time on Tuesday August 13th 2024. -
“My son’s death will never make sense to me. But it has taught me that it’s possible to find meaning, collectively and individually, in the loss of what we love.” Liz Jensen
On 3 September, Lucinda Hawksley was joined by Liz Jensen, the best-selling author of eight novels including The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, which was adapted by Hollywood into a box-office feature film starring Jamie Dornan. Before becoming a full-time novelist, Liz Jensen was a print and radio journalist in Hong Kong and Taiwan. She then spent four years as a freelance writer, translator and sculptor in France, and ten years as a BBC producer.
Liz, who lives in Copenhagen, has been short-listed for the Guardian Fiction Award, nominated three times for the Women’s Fiction prize, and has had her work adapted for theatre and radio, and translated into twenty languages. Much of her work revolves around the environment and impact of climate change. She is a founder member of Extinction Rebellion’s Writers Rebel, a literary movement which includes writers such as Margaret Drabble, Ben Okri, Amitav Ghosh and Zadie Smith.
Four years ago, Liz’s life changed in an instant, with the devastating loss of her son, Raph. Known to many by the name of Iggy Fox, Raph was a leading figure of Extinction Rebellion. Following his unexpected death while filming an environmental campaign in South Africa, Liz abandoned the novel she was working on and wrote a book about grief. She will be discussing Your Wild and Precious Life: on grief, hope and rebellion on Goldster.
Join Liz and Lucinda Hawksley to find out how, after Raph’s death, Liz rebuilt herself, reoriented her life and rediscovered the enchantment of the living world. Your Wild and Precious Life is set against the backdrop of climate and ecological catastrophe, it’s an argument for agency, legacy and the wild possibility of hope after devastation. -
We rely on our doctors as a first port of call if we feel sick or down and, very often, the last port of call toward life’s end for ourselves or our loved ones. But what is really going through our doctors’ minds? How do they cope with the stress and trauma in their everyday working lives?
Betsy Gall is a widow who was once living the American dream. Married to an oncologist with three healthy children, she was living a great life. That all changed on Thanksgiving Day of 2019 when her husband took his own life. Dr Matthew Taylor Gall who had devoted his entire life to saving lives, was dead at the young age of 49. Outwardly, Matthew had always been the life and soul of the party, holding everything together. From her loss, Betsy wrote The Illusion of the Perfect Profession, drawn from her diaries and her journey with faith throughout her horrific traumatic experience that left her family shattered and asking: How could Matthew’s suicide ever have happened?
Betsy discovered that doctors’ suicides is becoming a trend. In America, up to four hundred physicians kill themselves every year. In Britain, 72 medical professionals (including doctors, nurses, therapy professionals, dentists and midwives) took their own lives in 2020 – that is more than one per week. Are we asking too much from our doctors? Can we detect when they are facing a breakdown? Join Betsy Gall with Humphrey Hawksley to discuss this sad, yet incredibly important issue on Goldster Magazine Show. -
Sarah Stacey is one of the most knowledgeable and connected journalists in the field of health and well-being. Back in the 1990s, she detected a paradigm shift in healthcare toward lifestyle, nutrition and generally healthier living that prevented sickness rather than tackle it once it took grip. First at the Telegraph, as long-time health editor of the Mail-on-Sunday and at the Express, Sarah reported on how patients’ health concerns were often triggered by non-medical factors; housing, debt, loneliness, anxiety, lack of exercise, poor diet and as one doctor put it ‘joylessness’. In 1994, she became the first chair of the Guild of Health Writers. On the Express she launched the first Mind, Body & Spirit pages in a national newspaper.
She co-founded the Beauty Bible, Real Health and Beauty for Grown Ups and is now a driving force behind the Beyond Pills All Party Parliamentary Group campaign to stop the over prescribing of medicines. Sarah’s experience is not only professional. In her twenties, she was dangerously addicted to alcohol and prescribed pills and became lonely and filled with shame. Alcoholics Anonymous showed her how to escape. Later she met I know two suicidal women who were helped to transform their lives not through drugs, but by singing in a choir and learning to draw and paint. This is exactly the Goldster Way to Wellbeing. -
Tim Eggebraaten is a retired police chief whose advice to all around is to identify the rhythm unique to each of us and use the gifts we have for the good of people around us. It’s a tactic that wins every time, he says – looking for our beat. The course of our lives can be made better with the thinking: “I am. I can. I will.” Tim sees himself as a messenger of optimism. With a bundle of heartwarming stories and practical wisdom, he reveals how he finds beauty amidst the chaos and the resilience within. In conversation with Humphrey Hawksley. Tim will take us through life behind a police badge, sharing the highs and lows of a high stress career, his struggles and how he discovered the healing power of music. From the depths of personal challenges to the heights of realistic optimism, he delivers a tapestry of hope, giving us light-hearted anecdotes to profound insights on loss and mental health. He describes his book, Find Your Beat: Walk to the Rhythm of Life as a guide to transforming your life's soundtrack and tuning into the positivity surrounding you. Dance to the melody of optimism, and Humphrey will coax him into playing some tunes.
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Are you living intentionally, with purpose and passion? Are you embracing the flame that ignites within you, or are you evading it? Will your future self be proud of your story, or do you yearn for something more? John R. Miles is the creator of Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life, delving into the heart of what it means to live a life fuelled by passion and purpose. John runs the Passion Struck podcast, described by critics as a leading platform on debating alternative health initiatives, much centred around our own mindsets. John moved into his best-selling speciality from being senior executive within the United States Navy which grounded his vision in real-world experiences. He is regarded not just a voice on leadership and personal growth, but as a guide who had lived what he talks with storytelling resonate that resonates authentically with his audience. The Passion Struck book draws on insights from luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey and Astronaut Chris Cassidy, offering twelve science-based principles designed to awaken the dormant potential within us all. It’s a journey through overcoming self-doubt, catalyzing personal growth, and embracing a life lived with unwavering intention. -
Health and well-being specialist, Professor Robert L Kilpatrick, has spent a career working on the science around preventative healthcare and well-being. He is a founding partner at Technology Vision Group LLC which advises clients on strategic development issues. His two current projects are a book The Future of Human Care: Health Innovation and Social Impact and a six-part documentary film and book, Paradigm Shift: A Wellness Revolution. As a Strategic Development Advisor to Scientific American in New York City, Robert helped create a media project The New Science of Wellness, which was sponsored by Google and Phenome Health. He is now engaged with Scientific American on a Healthspan: Living Better Longer.
He Strategic Advisor to Nature Portfolio in London, developing a global project, Building Sustainable Healthcare Systems, specifically aimed at transform healthcare from a focus on disease to one on wellness and prevention. From 2022-23, he was a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Martin School and St Antony’s College where he advised on live sciences. Many years earlier, he earned his doctorate at Cambridge where he was a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow. Join Robert Kilpatrick on the Goldster Magazine Show when Humphrey Hawksley will ask about his personal story and the changing attitudes over the years toward how we can all be healthier and feel more upbeat. Are doctors really changing their minds? -
As Britain's best-known headmaster, Sir Anthony Seldon famously introduced happiness, or well-being, lessons at his school, Wellington College. In 2011, he co-founded Action for Happiness, a body to raise awareness of the discovery of happiness and reduction of depression, whose influence is growing rapidly in Britain and across the world. He is the author of Beyond Happiness: How to find lasting meaning and joy in all that you have' where lays out the difference between pleasure, happiness and joy, and offers an original 8-step approach on how to make our lives far more meaningful and rewarding. The pursuit of happiness can all too easily become a trap which seduces us into thinking there is no more to life than being happy. But in this special Goldster conversation, Sir Anthony will also talk about his widely-praised political writings, notably The Impossible Office: The History of the British Prime Minister. Who do you think has been our best and worst prime ministers?
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If you are alive and breathing, you are growing no matter what you believe or what is happening. Embracing yourself as who you are is a key factor in being able to move anything forward, an empowered manifestation of the honest YOU. Such is the Goldster Conversation we will be having with the great Glenda Benevides, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter who has now written a book called Courage: Find Your Fire and Ignite Your Action in Life. Critics have described is a sweet step-by-step coaching book. It coaches you to find yourself and to be you.
This writer writes in a way that is kind, sympathetic, and easy-to-read. It sounds like a mother guiding her child through any process. Critics have praised her writing for his hope and inspiration, a sermon of empowerment, enlightenment and building bridges of understanding all wrapped in powerful self-expression that moves the reader from feet to head. Glenda’s character pounds through her writing and music weaving together her deep understanding of human emotions and universal truths that binds us all together. Also come find out about the Global Badass Goddess. -
Jane Corry is a writer and journalist who has spent time working as the writer in residence of a high security prison for men - an experience that helped inspire her Sunday Times bestselling novels. Before taking up the post, Jane had never been inside a prison and says that the experience “really opened up my eyes. Initially I was terrified about doing the job but as soon as I started, I was hooked. Here was another world. I’d always thought that prisoners were simply “born bad,” but I soon found that some had committed crimes because of messed-up childhoods, wrong decisions combined with alcohol and drugs. My job was to encourage inmates to write about their lives to help release feelings and turn over a new leaf. Many of my men had mental health issues; some heard voices in their heads. This was scary for me to witness, but the writer side of me was fascinated.”
Jane is now a judge for the life story section of the Koestler Awards, which are given to men and women in prison and mental institutions. She will be talking to Lucinda about the importance of writing for mental health and about the vital importance of exercise to mental clarity. Many of her own writing ideas strike during morning dog-jogs along the beach followed by a dip in the sea. -
What does it mean to be human? Here is a question many of us ask ourselves and from it comes thoughts about morality, freedom, good and evil, ambition, passion, religion and more. Peter Hacker is a leading philosopher, unafraid at slaying myths. He has written four books about human nature, looking deeply into the neuroscience of how we all think and live. They deal with many of these issues that turn in our minds throughout our lives and are the culmination of half a century of studying and teaching philosophy.
His latest is simply called The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature. Matthew Syed of The Sunday Times describes Peter as one of the world’s greatest philosophers who analyses human emotions throughout the ages. What do we actually think of ourselves, our relationship to others and our place in the world? Admired for demolishing establishment thinking and taking to task his peers, Peter has been described as the most subtle and penetrating philosopher of the age. We are privileged to have him as guest on the Goldster Magazine Show -
All of us, at some stage, find ourselves faced with impossible choices or in some form of conflict from which there seems no way out. The choices we make affect our families, the people we love and our lives. Rebecca Tinsley understands these challenges first-hand from her life helping others in the developing world. Her passion for fairness and her personal mission to end suffering began as a teenager when she campaigned against South Africa’s apartheid. Sinc then she has worked as a journalist and lawyer on war and human rights drawing lessons that stretch from Auschwitz to Bosnia to Sudan. Her geographical area of expertise is Africa. She is particularly knowledgeable on genocide and understanding why people do what they do. She has twice stood to be a member of parliament and continues to work a speech writer for politicians whose values she shares. She is the founder of Network for Africa and a campaign group for Sudan, Waging Peace, which has produced stunning compilation of children’s pictures of their own experience of conflict. Her novel, When the Stars Fall to Earth, is based around the long conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region which began in 2003. Join Rebecca Tinsley with Humphrey Hawksley in a compelling conversation about human choices and moving on from catastrophe. The Goldster Magazine Show 1pm June 11th2024.
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We all see news headlines and wonder about our future -- war in Europe and the Middle East and the rise of China. Many worry or don’t watch it. But what can each of us do to help keep us as safe as can be. Sir Julian Brazier is a former government minister and a scholar in Maths and Philosophy from Oxford. He served for thirteen years as an officer in the Territorial Army, including five with the Special Forces. He is chairman of a security company, and a distinguished fellow of Royal United Services Institute. He is active in defence-related charities and currently joint patron of the Ukraine Freedom Company, a not-for-profit organisation which delivers equipment, vehicles and medical supplies to the Ukrainian Army. In this Goldster Magazine Show, Humphrey Hawksley will explore with Sir Julian ways in which, as individuals, we can contribute to the safety and well-being of our communities and, hopefully, help avert any war. Measures range from supporting and joining military reserves -- whereby those in civilian jobs can bring their skills to a military setting -- to learning first aid, keeping ourselves fit and making our homes as self-reliant as can be. Join Humphrey with Sir Julian Brazier for a fascinating inside look into Britain’s defences and our own role in safeguarding the country.
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Dr James Ray is Emergency Medicine Consultant at Oxford University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Clinical Governance Lead for NHS 111 in Oxfordshire. His main current interest is to improve the urgent care pathway by making it as accessible as possible without compromising safety and effectiveness to improve the patient experience. His aim is to spread out the workload across services, encourage team working throughout providers and continue to develop the workforce needed for the ever-increasing demand. James is an advocate of all doctors and nurses, from all backgrounds, whether primary or secondary care, working together with the sole aim of providing the same goal which is to put the patient first. Such idealism, he says, is the key to success of the NHS. “As an Emergency Medicine Consultant, I understand and feel the constant pressure on the front door of the hospital,” says James. “It is the ED Consultant’s responsibility to make sure all patients arriving in the department
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Being understood is a basic human need. We all have a right to express our voice. But conscious efforts are often needed to put over our viewpoint. Kendra Dodd specialises in removing barriers that divide us. In these current troubling times, we need to understand better our own inner core and perspective, as well as that of others who may think very differently. We need to work on unifying and learning how to step into the shoes of others. Kendra Q Dodd teaches how this can be done in our community, family and at work. Her new book Perspectives: Building meaningful connections by learning 4 steps to courageously speak unfolds a point-by-point approach in forging understandings with people unlike us and building better relationships with them. Kendra spells out how much we crave human connection and enjoy being with others. “Many people feel encumbered,” she says, “not because of the lack of potential to succeed, but because they are not sufficiently equipped with the correct tools to create the fulfilment of whom they desire to become.” Join Kendra Dodd with Humphrey Hawksley in a Goldster Magazine Show conversation that will challenge, ask tough questions with all the Goldster ethos of fun, stimulation and insight.
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