How To Academy Podcast

Widely heralded as the most provocative Norwegian writer since Ibsen and simply ‘one of the finest writers alive’ by the New York Times, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s five-part autobiographical novel sequence My Struggle sent him into the stratosphere of literary fame, inspiring a wave of imitators that continues to this day and cementing his place as an outspoken giant of contemporary literature. A long-...

A boy scout from smalltown America known for his sincere, folksy charm. A chain-smoking maverick dedicated to the pursuit of the Art Life. A womaniser with a female skewing fanbase. A Hollywood outsider who was also a mainstream celebrity. Who was the real David Lynch, and why did his bizarre, avant garde art films - from Eraserhead to Inland Empire - gain him recognition and love far beyond any o...

In this episode of the podcast neuroscientist Nicholas Wright reveals how, whether we like it or not, the brain is wired for conflict – in the office or on the battlefield. Blending insights from cutting-edge research with stories from across history, Nicholas joins war correspondent David Patrikarakos to explore the past, present, and future of warfare and reveal the truth about why we fight, los...

The son of Stephen and Tabitha King and brother of Owen King, Joe Hill was raised in a uniquely gifted literary family and has long established a reputation of his own as a first rate storyteller across prose fiction, comics, TV and film. Drawing on influences as diverse as The Secret History, The Hobbit, and his father's dark fantasy classic The Gunslinger, his new novel King Sorrow follows six f...

How do we understand the world and our place in it? Do our lives consist of a small number of dramatic turning points, or is there nothing but a series of gradual changes from infancy to old age? Are political elections genuinely transformational, or merely arbitrary points along a shifting cultural timeline? And in physics, how can the continuities of general relativity coexist with the discontin...

Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall reveal the insights you need to better understand what's on your dinner plate, how it got there, and why you eat it. Award-winning health journalist Julia Belluz and internationally renowned nutrition and metabolism scientist Dr Kevin Hall will unpack the science behind our diets, metabolism, and the food systems that shape them. Together, they will explore how our food...

Though well-known across Europe by name, the real lives of women such as Joan of Arc and Jadwiga of Poland have been buried under banners of nationalistic agendas that have twisted their stories through the ages. Oxford historian Janina Ramirez joins Sir Tony Robinson to illuminate the truth of these incredible women, and disentangle their real stories from the myths imposed on them through time....

Today, trauma permeates media, from music and television to films and books. While the increasing openness is welcome, Darren has observed that the webs of digital networks surrounding us and which commodify our most vulnerable experiences often harm us more than help us heal. How did we get here? What role does social media play in commodifying our experiences? And are the stories we’re telling o...

In his four Time Travellers Guides to England, historian Ian Mortimer has taken us from the Medieval period all the way to the Regency, revelling not in the business of courts and princes but the minutae of daily life for ordinary men and women. In this podcast, he shares his insights into how the English people have changed over time - and how they have stayed the same. Touching upon liberty and...

Two decades ago, Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia and transformed the world’s access to knowledge. Today, people view Wikipedia 11 billion times every month in the English language alone. Yet in an age of ‘alternative facts’, conspiracies and disinformation, the foundations of Wikipedia are increasingly under threat. The concept at the heart of it all extends to the whole of society: trust Like water...

Jens Stoltenberg was Prime Minister of Norway from 2005-2013, and when he took office as Secretary General of NATO in 2014, the world was already changing. What followed was a decade marked by war, diplomatic crises, and decisions that helped shape our shared security. Now he joins Adam Boulton to go behind closed doors and offer a rare insight into how the world’s most powerful military alliance...

Marie Kondo’s unique approach to organising our lives and our homes has transformed the relationship we have with the objects around us, helping us all to seek out the joy in our daily lives. In the eleven years since The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up made her famous across the globe, journalists, readers and fans have asked her one question more than any other: what role did Japanese philosop...

A pioneering voice in Arab cinema, Annemarie Jacir has written, directed, and produced over sixteen films, with premieres at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam, and Toronto. In 2007, she made history by shooting the first feature film by a Palestinian female director. All four of her feature films have been chosen as Palestine’s Oscar submissions. Set in 1936 during the Arab Revolt in Brit...

Philippa Gregory takes us behind the myths to reveal how Jane Boleyn became a scapegoat of Henry VIII’s tyranny and the historians who defended it. Drawing on the silences of the record and the resilience of women navigating a perilous court, Gregory explores how fiction can reveal the internal lives of historical characters who we think we know so well. In Boleyn Traitor, Jane emerges not as a sc...

Returning to the podcast following episodes around his prize-winning debut The Mountain Under the Sea and his acclaimed novella The Tusks of Extinction, Ray Nayler joins us to explore the rise in authoritarian systems of control and celebrate the power of human agency to drive meaningful social change. These are the themes of his new novel Where the Axe is Buried: a dystopian fable set in a near-f...

Dr Kerry Burnight reveals a transformative new approach to aging—one that goes beyond lifespan and healthspan to embrace joyspan: the ability to experience joy from within. Dr Burnight reveals how joy differs from happiness, the damaging effects of internalised ageism, and the surprising abilities—such as judgment, emotional regulation, and humour—that often improve with age. Dr Burnight also shar...

From our new technological era ushered in by AI, to the fall of democracies across the globe, the world today appears fraught with uncertainty, poised between repeating errors from the past and entering a new age of the unknown. What lies behind tribalistic claims of patriotism, and on what does democracy truly depend? How might technology shape the narrative to come, and what remains in our contr...

How has loopholes around social media's censored word, 'kill', found its way into students' essays on Hamlet? What is the history of 'skibidi' and 'delulu' and how are these concepts shaping the way we think, write, and speak? Linguist and content creator Adam Aleksic turns a keen eye to explore how the internet has transformed our linguistic landscape, from the rise of 'YouTube accents' to the me...

From the Thames to the Tigris, the Ure to the Euphrates, rivers have flowed through the history of humanity, shaping our civilisations and sustaining our species. Robert Macfarlane and Elif Shafak illuminate the life-giving force of rivers, the stories they have inspired, and explore the crucial question of how humans can coexist with the natural world on which our survival depends. From the Epic...

Drawing on the economist’s toolkit, she reframes “happiness” as utility, shows how to maximize it under constraints, and treats fertility as “reproductive capital” to be timed and invested thoughtfully. She shifts the spotlight from women “leaning in” to men leveling up at home, and from vibes to data: track time, surface invisible labor, and use BATNA thinking to set walk-away points at work and...

Drawing on everything from Dougal and the Blue Cat to Angel Heart, from Walter Murch’s “pickle jar” of sound to Tarantino-style needle drops, Kermode turns listening into a way of seeing: treat scores as storytelling, not wallpaper; hear nostalgia without depending on it; notice how rooms, acoustics, and “vibrations” change performances; and understand why live accompaniment can transform a film i...

In 2003, British police infiltrated a group of idealistic young environmental activists, forming sexual relationships and spying without warrant on hundreds of innocent civilians. Among these young activists was Kate Wilson, who developed an intimate relationship with Mark. Unbeknownst to her, Mark was a fictional persona created by the Metropolitan Police to spy on her. After this shocking discov...

Drawing on Aristotle’s playbook, he shows how to turn rhetoric inward: treat the “soul” as your better self, shift from past/present blame to future-tense choices, separate needs from appetites, and tune out the social “white noise” of feeds, trends, and bucket lists that distort motivation. In an age of distraction and burnout, Heinrichs offers practical tools: the “lure and ramp” for easing into...

A journey of both past and future, of the natural world and metaphysical realms, Philip Hoare guides us through a dreamscape slipping through time and space with the unpredictable guide of William Blake. From William's visions of angels to his radical approach to artistic creation, from his anarchic and seditious writing to the enchanting and democratic force of his art, from his belief in the hol...

Immunologist Jenna Macciochi reveals the “wellness system” linking body and brain, urging us to focus on healthspan as well as lifespan. She explains “immune age,” inflammaging, and the body’s cycle of inflammation and repair, showing how stress, mind, and lifestyle choices—from sleep and movement to diet—shape immunity. Amid chronic stress, isolation, and processed diets, Macciochi offers evidenc...