Little Atoms

Angela Tomaski was born in Oxford and raised in Somerset with her four brothers and sisters. She has had a variety of different jobs, including as a waitress, cleaner, English teacher and activity coordinator in a care home. She has a daughter and two grandsons, and now lives in rural Dorset. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her debut novel The Infamous Gilberts ....

Sian Hughes is a writer who grew up in a small village in Cheshire. Her first collection of poetry The Missing was a Poetry Society Recommendation, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, shortlisted for the Felix Dennis and the Aldeburgh prizes, and won the Seamus Heaney Award. Sian's first novel Pearl was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2023 and shortlisted for The Authors' Club Best First...

Elizabeth Arnott is an award-winning writer and journalist and has written critically acclaimed historical fiction as Lizzie Pook. Her work has featured in publications including  The Sunday Times ,  The Guardian ,  The Telegraph , and  Stylist . On today’s episode of Little Atoms, she talks to Neil Denny about her new novel The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives . Host...

Sophie Mackintosh is the author of four novels, including  The Water Cure  and  Cursed Bread.  She has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women's Prize, has won a Betty Trask Award, and has been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She has been published in  Granta, The White Review and  TANK  magazine among others. On t...

John Grindrod is the author of Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain , Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt (shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Prize for UK travel and nature writing), and Iconicon: A Journey Around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain . He hosts the podcast Monstrosities Mon Amour. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Ne...

Robert Plunket was born in Greenville, Texas, in 1945, but raised in Havana and Mexico City. After college he moved to New York and became a writer, publishing two novels,  My Search for Warren Harding  (1983) and  Love Junkie  (1992). He later became Mr Chatterbox, the gossip columnist for  Sarasota Magazine . He is retired and lives in a trailer park in Englewood, F...

Isabel Waidner is the author of five novels – including  Sterling Karat Gold , which won the Goldsmiths Prize and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and  Corey Fah Does Social Mobility  which was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. They teach in the School of the Arts at Queen Mary University of London. On this...

Francis Spufford is the author of three novels and five works of non-fiction. His debut work of fiction was the historical novel  Golden Hill,  which won the Costa First Novel Award, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was shortlisted for four others. His second novel,  Light Perpetual , was awarded the Encore Award and longlisted for the Booker Prize. His third n...

James Geary, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, is the author of Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It, Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists and I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about the reissue of his New York Times best-selling...

Alex Preston   is an award-winning author of five novels including  This Bleeding City ,  The Revelations ,  In Love and War  and  Winchelsea , as well as a book of non-fiction  As Kingfishers Catch Fire.  He writes regularly for the  New York Times,  the  Economist  and  Harper's Bazaar . He reviews books for the  Observer's &n...

Originally from Leicester, Manish Chauhan works as a finance lawyer and currently lives in East London. His short story, "Pieces", was shortlisted for the 2024 BBC National Short Story Award. His work has been shortlisted for the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize and the Exeter Short Story Competition. Early excerpts of  Belgrave Road  were longlisted for the Curtis Brown First Novel Award...

George Saunders   is the author of thirteen books, including the novel  Lincoln in the Bardo , which won the Booker Prize in 2017, and five collections of stories including  Tenth of December , which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the recent collection  Liberation Day  (selected by former President Obama has one of his ten favourite books of 2021 ) . Three...

Grace Murray was born in 2003 and grew up in Norwich. She has recently graduated from Edinburgh University, where she read English Literature and found time to write between her studies and two part-time jobs. Her short fiction has been published in  The London Magazine . On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil denny about her debut novel Blank Canvas, which   was written over...

Daniyal Mueenuddin graduated from Dartmouth College and Yale Law School. After winning a Fulbright scholarship to study in Norway, he practiced law in New York before returning to Khânpur, Pakistan to manage the family farm. He divides his time between Oslo and Pakistan. Stories in his collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and Salman Rushdie's Best Americ...

Sebastian Faulks has written nineteen books, of which  A Week in December  and  The Fatal Englishman  were number one in the  Sunday Times  bestseller lists. He is best known for  Birdsong , part of his French trilogy, and  Human Traces , the first in an ongoing Austrian trilogy. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a journalist on national...

Jarett Kobek is an internationally bestselling Turkish-American writer living in California. His previous books have been translated into eleven languages and include  ATTA ,  Do Every Thing Wrong!: XXXTentacion Against the World , and  Motor Spirit.  On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book Invocation Of My Demon Brother, which is publi...

Miriam Robinson is an author who has worked in the world of books and bookshops for over 15 years. Previously the host of podcast  My Unlived Life , she holds an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London and her short fiction has been shortlisted for a Pushcart Prize, the inaugural Pindrop/RA Short Story Prize and the Pat Kavanagh Prize. On this episode of Little Atoms...

Harry Sidebottom teaches classical history at Oxford University, and is the bestselling author of fifteen novels. His debut trade non-fiction book,  The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome , was published in 2022 and was a Book of the Year in the  Spectator , the  Financial Times  and BBC History. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about...

Ziyad Marar   is a publisher and author of  The Happiness Paradox  ,  Deception ,  Intimacy  and  Judged: The Value of Being Misunderstood . On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book, Noticing . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Graham Robb was born in Manchester in 1958 and is a former fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He has published widely on French literature and history. His book  The Discovery of France  won both the Duff Cooper and Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prizes. For  Parisians  the City of Paris awarded him the Grande Médaille de la Ville de Paris. He lives on the English-Scottish...

Joanna Pocock is an Irish-Canadian writer living in London. Her writing has notably appeared in the  Los Angeles Times , the  Nation  and  Guardian US , and she is a contributing editor at the Dark Mountain project. She won the 2018 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize for  Surrender  and in 2021 she was awarded the Arts Foundation’s Environmental Writing Fellowship. On...

James Rebanks is a farmer and writer based in the Lake District. His No. 1 bestselling debut,  The Shepherd’s Life , was translated into sixteen languages. His second book,  English Pastoral , was also a Top Ten bestseller and was named the  Sunday Times  Nature Book of the Year. On this episode of Little Atoms, James talks to Neil Denny about his latest book The Place of...

Mary Roach   is the author of seven best-selling works of nonfiction, including  Grunt ,  Stiff , and, most recently,  Fuzz . Her writing has appeared in  National Geographic  and the  New York Times Magazine , among other publications. On this episode of Little Atoms, Mary talks to Neil Denny about her latest book Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy . H...

Thomas McMullan lives and works in London. His debut novel,  The Last Good Man , won the 2021 Betty Trask Prize. His short fiction has been published in  Ploughshares, The Dublin Review, Granta, 3:AM Magazine, Lighthouse  and Best British Short Stories, and his journalism has appeared in  The Guardian ,  The Times Literary Supplement ,  frieze ,  ArtReview  ...

Sarah Perry   is the internationally bestselling author of the novels  Enlightenment ,  Melmoth ,  The Essex Serpent  and  After Me Comes the Flood , and the non-fiction  Essex Girls . She is a winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year Award and the British Book of the Year Award.  Enlightenment  was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024 and her other w...