Better Known

Ananyo Bhattacharya discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Ananyo Bhattacharya is a science writer who has worked at the Economist and Nature. Before journalism, he was a medical researcher at the Burnham Institute in San Diego, California. He holds a degree in physics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in protein crystallography from Imperial College London. H...

Matthew Parris discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Matthew Parris is a columnist for The Times and presents Great Lives on BBC Radio Four. He was a Conservative MP from 1979 to 1986 and was a Parliamentary Sketchwriter for the Times for nearly fourteen years. He has been Columnist of the year at the British Press Awards. His books include Fracture: Stories of how...

Professor Catherine Whistler discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. An art historian and curator, Catherine Whistler is Keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum, Fellow of St John’s College, and a Professor of the History of European Art, University of Oxford. Born in Dublin, where she studied History of Art at UCD, she maintains strong links with Ireland and...

Technology writer Charles Arthur discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Charles Arthur's latest book, his third, is Social Warming, which looks at how and why social media has such a dramatically polarising effect on politics, journalism and societies around the world, even in countries where usage is low. His previous two books were on hacking (Cyber Wars, 2016) an...

Paul Willetts discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Paul Willetts is the author of five much-praised nonfiction books: Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia; North Soho 999; Members Only; Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms; and King Con. The third of these was turned into a big-budget British movie. Entitled The Look of Love (2013), it starred Steve Coogan, who described...

Musician Barb Jungr discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Barb Jungr is an award-winning international performer, recording artist and writer. She is best known for her interpretations and recordings of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Jacques Brel. With performances across four continents and fifteen solo album recordings she appeared on Talking Bob Dylan Blues: A Tr...

Alexandra Pringle discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Alexandra Pringle was Editor-in-Chief of Bloomsbury Publishing for 20 years and she is now Executive Publisher. Her authors include Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford, Esther Freud, Elizabeth Gilbert, Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, Colum McCann, Ann Patchett, George Saunders, Kamila Shamsie, Patti Smith and Barba...

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Rory Cellan-Jones has been a reporter for the BBC for thirty years, covering business and technology stories for much of that time. He joined the BBC as a researcher on Look North in 1981, moving to London to work as a producer in the TV Newsroom and on Newsnight. At the beginning...

James Plunkett discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. James Plunkett has spent his career thinking laterally about the complicated relationships between individuals and the state. First as an advisor to Gordon Brown, then a leading economic researcher and writer, and then in the charity sector, helping people struggling at the front-line of economic change. James co...

Kehinde Andrews discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Kehinde Andrews is Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. Kehinde is an academic, activist and author whose books include The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World (2021), Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century (2018) and Resisting Racism: R...

Kerry Shale discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Kerry Shale’s theatre appearances include Frost/Nixon, His Girl Friday, The Normal Heart and six self-written solo shows. Television work includes The Sandman (Netflix: 2022), Dr. Who and The Trip. Films include Angel Has Fallen, Little Shop of Horrors and Yentl. For BBC radio, he has recently read Jack London’s Cal...

Rosita Boland discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Rosita Boland was born in County Clare in 1965 and lives in Dublin where she is Senior Features Writer at the Irish Times. She has published two collections of poems, Muscle Creek and Dissecting the Heart. She has travelled extensively, most recently in South East Asia and her travel books include Sea Legs: Hitch...

David Benedict discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. David Benedict is a culture critic and broadcaster. He read drama at Hull University, spent ten years as an actor, singer and director and was artistic director of the U.K.’s national lesbian and gay theatre company, Gay Sweatshop. He joined The Independent in 1993, becoming a daily arts columnist and associate e...

Beaty Rubens discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. A BBC Radio producer for 35 years, Beaty Rubens has collaborated with some of the great names in broadcasting, the arts and academia. Her many documentaries have focussed on the arts, history and the lives of women and children. Some high-points include working with Lyse Doucet, Katya Adler and James Naughtie, Pro...

Alexei Sayle discusses with Ivan both things which he thinks should be better known and a number of things which he thinks are terrible. Alexei Sayle is a comedian and writer. He was the original MC of the Comedy Store in London when it opened in 1979 and was a central part of the alternative comedy circuit in the early 1980s. He is best known for his performances in the BBC TV programmes The Youn...

Author Francis Spufford discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Francis Spufford’s novel Light Perpetual has been longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. His first novel Golden Hill was published in 2016 and won the Costa First Novel Award. He is the author of five celebrated books of non-fiction. The most recent, Unapologetic, has been translated into three languages;...

Virginia Ironside discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Virginia Ironside started off as a temporary secretary to Shirley Williams at the Fabian Society and then worked at Vogue, followed by the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail (as a rock columnist), Woman magazine, the Sunday Mirror, Today (as an agony columnist) and now with a column in the Oldie and the Idler....

Sam Gilbert discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Sam Gilbert is an affiliated researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. An expert in data-driven marketing, he was employee number one and chief marketing officer at Bought By Many, an award-winning fintech start-up named as one of Wired’s hottest start-ups in Europe and ra...

Michael Wood discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Michael Wood is Professor in Public History at the University of Manchester. He is the author of several highly praised books on English history including In Search of the Dark Ages, Domesday, and In Search of England. He has made well over one hundred documentary films, among them Art of the Western World, In Sear...

Helen Thompson discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University. She is a columnist for the New Statesman and a regular contributor to the podcast Talking Politics. Arnold Bennett’s Clayhanger https://reading19001950.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/clayhanger-by-arnold-bennett-1910-2/ The Hoo Peninsula https:/...

Dominic Sandbrook discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. Dominic Sandbrook is the author of eight books of modern history, and is best known for his books on Britain since the 1950s. The first volume, Never Had It So Good, covers the late 1950s and early 1960s. The second book, White Heat, looks at Britain in the heyday of the 1960s, and was later used as the backgr...

John Kampfner discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known. John Kampfner is an award-winning author, broadcaster, commentator and cultural leader. His book Why The Germans Do It Better is Guardian, Economist and New Statesman Book of the Year and Waterstones Best Books of 2020. Find out more at www.jkampfner.net. People playing cricket in Chicago www.iplcc.com Cornwall's...

Oliver Sears discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Oliver Sears is a London-born Dublin-based art dealer & gallery owner. He is son of a Holocaust survivor & founder of Holocaust Awareness Ireland. Formerly a trustee of Holocaust Education Trust Ireland, he is a frequent contributor to radio and newspapers including RTÉ and The Irish Times. He tells his fa...

Novelist Meg Rosoff discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Meg Rosoff was born in Boston, educated at Harvard and St Martin’s College of Art, and has lived in London since 1989. Her first novel, How I Live Now, sold more than a million copies worldwide and was made into a feature film starring Saoirse Ronan. She has won or been shortlisted for 24 international book...

Comedian Rosie Wilby discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian who has appeared on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman's Hour and Four Thought. Her first book Is Monogamy Dead? was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2018 and followed a trilogy of solo shows investigating the psychology of love and relationships. Rosi...