Little Atoms

Rebecca Wragg Sykes has been fascinated by the vanished worlds of the Pleistocene ice ages since childhood, and followed this interest through a career researching the most enigmatic characters of all, the Neanderthals. Alongside her academic expertise, she has also earned a reputation for exceptional public engagement as a speaker, in print and broadcast. Her writing has featured in the  Gua...

Kate Summerscale is the author of the number one bestselling  The Suspicions of Mr Whicher , winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2008, winner of the Galaxy British Book of the Year Award, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and adapted into a major ITV drama. Her first book, the bestselling  The Queen of Whale Cay , won a Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for the...

Natalie Haynes is the author of six books, her novels,  A Thousand Ships ,  The Children of Jocasta , and  The Amber Fury , and the non-fiction works,  Pandora’s Jar , about women in Greek Myth, and  The Ancient Guide To Modern Life .  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gabriel Bergmoser is an award-winning Melbourne-based author, who grew up in a small rural town. In 2015 he won the prestigious Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award for his pilot  Windmills , and his plays include  Heroes , which was nominated for the 2017 Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing. His musical,  Moonlite , about a gay bushranger, was performed as part...

Matthew Baker is the author of the story collection  Hybrid Creatures.  His stories have appeared in the  Paris Review, American Short Fiction, New England Review, One Story, Electric Literature  and  Conjunctions , and in anthologies including  Best of the Net  and  Best Small Fictions . A recipient of grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Commission an...

Dr Jo Marchant is an award-winning science journalist. She has a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology from St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, London, and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College. She has worked as an editor at  New Scientist  and  Nature , and her articles have appeared in the  Guardian ,  Wired ,  Observer ,  New Yo...

Terri White is Editor-in-Chief of  Empire  magazine, having previously edited some of the most read titles in the UK and US, including  Time Out New York  and  Shortlist , where she was named Men's Magazine Editor of the Year. She has also written for the  Guardian  and  The   Pool . Her first book is the memoir Coming Undone . NB: This interview c...

Michael Bond, who won the British Psychology Society Prize 2015 for  The Power of Others , is a freelance journalist and former senior editor and reporter at  New Scientist. His latest book is Wayfinding: The Art and Science of How We Find and Lose Our Way . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University, an internationally bestselling author, and a Guggenheim Fellow. He is the writer and presenter of The Brain, an Emmy-nominated PBS/BBC television series that asks what it means to be human from a neuroscientist's point of view. Eagleman’s research encompasses time perception, vision, synesthesia, and the intersection of neuroscience with t...

Susanna Moore is the author of the novels  The Life of Objects ,  The Big Girls ,  One Last Look ,  In the Cut ,  Sleeping Beauties ,  The Whiteness of Bones , and  My Old Sweetheart , and two books of nonfiction,  Light Years: A Girlhood in Hawai'i  and  I Myself Have Seen It: The Myth of Hawai'i . She lives in New York City. Her latest book is th...

Sophie Mackintosh is the author of The Water Cure, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 and won a Betty Trask Award 2019. Sophie talks to Neil about her "a bit speculative, a bit dystopian" new novel Blue Ticket. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Douglas Stuart talks to Neil about his Man Booker longlisted, Glasgow set debut novel Shuggie Bain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maria Konnikova talks to Neil Denny about her latest book The Biggest Bluff, in which she sets out to study luck and instead becomes a professional poker player. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Luke Turner is a writer and editor based in London. He co-founded the influential music website The Quietus where he runs a regular podcast and radio show. He has contributed to the Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Vice, NME, Q Mojo, Monocle, Nowness and Somesuch Stories , among other publications. Out of the Woods is his first book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris Power lives and works in London. His 'Brief Survey of the Short Story' has appeared in the  Guardian  since 2007. His fiction has been published in  The Stinging Fly ,  The Dublin Review  and  The White Review .  Mothers  is his first book. This interview first broadcast in May 2018. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amy Sackville was born in 1981. She studied English and Theatre Studies at Leeds, and went on to do an MPhil in English at Exeter College, Oxford, and an MA in Creative & Life Writing at Goldsmiths. Her first novel was The Still Point, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and won the 2010 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and her second was Orkney, which won a 2014 Somerset Maugham Award. He...

Frances Cha is a former editor for CNN in Seoul and Hong Kong. A graduate of Dartmouth College and the Columbia University MFA writing program, she lives in Brooklyn, New York. If I Had Your Face is her first novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jenny Kleeman is a journalist and documentary-maker who has travelled the world finding extraordinary characters to turn into film, print and audio. She writes for the Guardian, The Times, the Sunday Times and Tortoise. Sex Robots & Vegan Meat is her first book. In this interview Jenny talks on Neil about... sex robots, plus future technologies around giving birth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.c...

Adam Hart is a biologist, broadcaster, academic and author. Professor of Science Communication at the University of Gloucestershire, Adam is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4, and a presenter on BBC2. Adam talks about his new book Unfit for Purpose: When Human Evolution Collides with the Modern World , and how our bodies are not built to cope with the modern diet, stress, social media and...

Science Writer Emily Anthes on her new book The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behaviour, Health, and Happiness. Emily talks to Neil about designing better hospitals, schools and prisons, "amphibious" homes and building a house on Mars. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Simon Stephenson is an author and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. His previous book  Let Not The Waves Of The Sea  won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards. Set My Heart To Five is his debut novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lars Iyer is the author of the novels Nietzsche and the Burbs (2020) and Wittgenstein Jr (2014). He has also written a trilogy of novels, Spurious, Dogma and Exodus, which has received rave reviews in nearly all major literary publications including The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The San...

Richard Atkinson is a publisher who has been behind some of the most successful cookbooks of recent years. He lives in London but has a deep-rooted affection for the north of England, the land of his ancestors. He is the author of Mr Atkinson's Rum Contract: The Story of a Tangled Inheritance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Farrier teaches English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. In 2017 he was the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature's Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction, and his work had appeared in Eon and The Atlantic . His first book is Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark O'Connell is the author of To Be a Machine , which won the Wellcome Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2017. He lives in Dublin with his family. He writes for the Guardian, Slate, the New York Times and The Millions. His latest book is Notes From An Apocalypse: A Personal Journey To The End of The World and Back . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor...