Episodes
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After winning the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, Richard Flanagan joins Georgina Godwin to discuss ‘Question 7’, his life and career, and his plans after winning the prize. Described by Peter Carey as maybe just being “the most significant work of Australian art in the last 100 years”, ‘Question 7’ is a love letter to his island home, his parents and the terrible past that delivered him to that place.
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Mike Batt is known for raising the popularity of one of the most well-known British novelty pop acts of the 1970s, The Wombles. Batt wrote and composed the theme song to the children’s TV series, which led to the rising popularity of ‘The Wombling Song’. Batt has also worked with artists such as Katie Melua and others on his Dramatico Label, and co-wrote 'The Phantom of The Opera’. He sits down with Georgina Godwin to discuss his memoir, ‘The Closest Thing to Crazy: My Life of Musical Adventures’.
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Episodes manquant?
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As the first female commander in the Ukrainian military, Yulia Mykytenko has seen the horrors of war. Yulia is both a squadron leader and a role model for women wanting to fight for their country on the frontlines and in the background. Telling Lara Marlowe of her entry into Ukraine’s forces, ‘How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying’ recounts her student days giving out flyers for an independent Ukraine up to her current military service in the face of Russia’s invasion. Yulia and Lara speak to Georgina Godwin about their collaborative writing process, the uses of poetry, hope for Ukraine’s future and Volodymyr Zelensky’s great plan to win the war.
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As one of Sweden’s most prominent music journalists, Jan Gradvall has a close and fond relationship with his nation’s top musical export, Abba. In ‘The Book of Abba: Melancholy Undercover’, Gradvall explores the love, heartbreak and connections between each member of the pop group, from Eurovision to beyond. He sits down with Georgina Godwin to discuss his journalistic career, his former role as head of the Swedish Music Hall of Fame and the possibility of the pop group coming back again.
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We look at conspiracy theories that have emerged through US politics with Gabriel Gatehouse, author of ‘The Coming Storm’. The podcaster and former international editor of the BBC’s ‘Newsnight’ joins Georgina Godwin to discuss his career so far, his thoughts about the two major presidential candidates and the underbelly of the internet, which is host to fringe forums such as 4chan and QAnon.
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Writing a fourth memoir is somewhat unheard of but for Peter Godwin it’s an even more personal note. Not a grief memoir so much as an exploration in memory of the passing of his mother, the end of his marriage and moving on, Peter shares the poignant moments of his life so far in ‘Exit Wounds’. He joins Georgina Godwin – his sibling – to discuss childhood memories of their mother, the process of his latest work and writing multiple autobiographies of his life so far.
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Known as the “Queensland Expert” for ‘The Telegraph’, Lee Mylne’s journalism is enjoyed around the world thanks to her expertise in travel and tourism. As a writer of many travel books including ‘Explore Australia’ and ‘Frommer’s Portable Australia’s Great Barrier Reef’, she shares the vast knowledge which has gained her many national awards. She joins Georgina Godwin in Brisbane, Australia, to discuss her career so far, where travel writing sits within journalism and her dream locations to cover.
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Multi-prize winner Evie Wyld is no stranger to writing intricate, thought-provoking novels to challenge readers globally. Her latest novel, “The Echoes”, proves that. It’s a story about an everyday couple living in London but embedded within secrecy, with one looking on from the afterlife. Evie joins Georgina Godwin to discuss her work, her upbringing from New South Wales, Australia, to Peckham, South London, and running her own independent bookshop, Review.
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The resurgence of the Taliban in August 2021 sent shockwaves throughout the world. Images from Afghanistan showed fear, panic and unrest looming. With the country back under Taliban rule, a group of Afghan women writers feared the worst. They kept in touch with the Untold Narratives, a development programme dedicated to writers from marginalised communities or conflict zones. It was a group of messages from these writers detailing their lives that the collective curated into a diary ‘My Dear Kabul’. Georgina Godwin speaks to the director, Lucy Hannah, and co-editor, Sunila Galappatti, about the process of recording the diary entries. We’ll also hear from one writer about life in Kabul today.
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One of the UK’s greatest historians, William Dalrymple is no stranger to researching the treasures of India. Dalrymple sits down with Georgina Godwin to discuss his latest work, “The Golden Road”, which outlines ancient Indian cultures, ideas and inventions and how they influenced the western world.
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Richard Williams, one of the most revered animators in modern times, leaves a lasting creative impression from ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ to ‘The Pink Panther’. ‘Adventures in Animation: How I Learned Who I Learned From and What I Did with It’ follows the life and career of Williams in animated features; from the moment when, aged five, he saw ‘Snow White’, and through his career of more than sixty years. Following his passing, his wife and collaborator, Imogen Sutton, completed ‘Adventures in Animation’, which in its finished publication is an ode to animated art and to Richard himself. Speaking to Georgina Godwin, Sutton shares insights into their work dynamic, Richard’s relationships with Art Babbitt and Ken Harris, plus his influences across the industry.
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As the author of six critically acclaimed novels, including the 2022 PEN/Faulkner award winning ‘The Wrong End of the Telescope’, Rabih Alameddine is no stranger to the living art of storytelling. His work explores worlds that may seem beyond words, everything from civil war to exile and epidemics, and yet finds the words we need to hear. Now teaching literature at Georgetown University, Alameddine delves into the next generation of writers. He speaks with Georgina Godwin on his writing career, his upbringing and future plans for his art.
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Literary editor of ‘The Spectator’ Sam Leith is surrounded by books of various genres every day. His latest non-fiction work ‘The Haunted Wood’ takes an exploratory look into childhood reading from Aesop’s fables to Malorie Blackman. He speaks to Georgina Godwin about the world of children’s literature, the first book he read as a child and the authors who created the stories we know today.
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Magda Szubanski is known as Sharon Strzelecki in the comedy series ‘Kath and Kim’ in Australia and globally for the role of Esme Hoggett in the ‘Babe’ film series. The comedy actress won the 2016 Douglas Stewart Prize for her memoir, ‘Reckoning’, which describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood that was haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities in wartime Poland. She speaks to Georgina Godwin about her career so far, the creative scene in Melbourne and her future writing plans.
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Life for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is often stalked by violence, heightened by the events following 7 October. When US journalist Nathan Thrall decided to write about their experience, he wanted to unveil the sheer catastrophe that they live through daily. The Pulitzer Prize-winning book, ‘A Day in the Life of Abed Salama’, focuses on Abed whose son died in a bus crash in 2012, and the other individuals linked to the tragedy. Speaking to Georgina Godwin, Thrall shares the relationships he has with Salama and others, the reaction to their story and the Israel-Hamas war.
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Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is a Zimbabwe-born writer who spent her time writing instead of studying at university during one of the most turbulent times in the country’s history. She talks to Georgina Godwin about her childhood, the start of her writing career and her latest novel, “Digging Stars”, which probes the emotional universes of love, friendship, family and nationhood.
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Best-selling author Elif Shafak is the most widely read female author in Turkey and her work has been translated into a staggering 57 languages. Her 2019 novel ‘10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World’ was nominated for the Booker Prize and her novels have been shortlisted in the Costa Award, the British Book Awards and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Shafak returns to Midori House to speak to Georgina Godwin about her new novel, ‘There are Rivers in the Sky’, a timeless story that follows three lives spanning centuries, continents and two great rivers connected through a single drop of water.
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The Australian politician who popularised koalas in the 1980s and created the “throw another shrimp on the barbie” tourism ad joins Georgina Godwin in Sydney to talk about his new book, ‘Brownie: The Minister for Good Times’. John Brown, the first in his family to achieve school qualifications, went on to serve as an MP in the Federal House of Representatives for 13 years, and held several ministerial posts in the Hawke government where he transformed the face of tourism and sport in Australia.
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For years, author and satirist Gabby Hutchinson Crouch has scoured the week’s news for material to use on the programmes in BBC Radio 4’s Friday-night topical slot, ‘Dead Ringers’ and ‘Newzoids’. She has also written for ‘Horrible Histories’, the Bafta-winning children’s series inspired by ‘Blackadder’ and ‘Monty Python’. Today she discusses her latest book, the first in a new ‘historical romantasy’ series, and is quizzed by a ‘Horrible Histories’ enthusiast.
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In Microsoft’s pioneering AI For Good Lab, data scientists and researchers’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) is helping to tackle disinformation, predict wildfires, track whales and even detect leprosy in vulnerable populations. But what are the dangers in AI being used for bad? Chief Scientist and Lab Director Juan M Lavista Ferres has co-authored the book ‘AI for Good’, which explores the measurable effect, potential and limitations of AI’s application in addressing global challenges in health, climate change and human rights, explored in this in-depth conversation.
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