Little Atoms

Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey became one of the first Black Women members of the House of Lords in 2004. Raised in foster care in North London, she studied at the New College of Speech and Drama, then worked as an actress, before becoming Professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University. Later, she worked in arts administration before receiving an OBE in 2001 and becoming an independent cros...

Miranda Sawyer has written about pop music since 1988, beginning on  Smash Hits  before moving to  Select ,  The Face  and the  Observer . Her first book  Park and Ride  explored the British suburbs, her second  Out of Time  exploded the midlife crisis. On. This week’s episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest book Uncommon P...

Niall Williams was born in Dublin. He is the author of nine novels, including  History of the Rain , which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and  Four Letters of Love , which will soon be a major motion picture starring Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Gabriel Byrne. His most recent novel,  This Is Happiness  was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Book of the...

Simon Critchley has published books on a wide expanse of ethical and philosophical subjects, including the bestselling  The Book of Dead Philosophers , his cult novel  Memory Theatre  and his memoir-analysis of David Bowie -  On Bowie . He is Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. On this week's episode of Little Atoms he talk...

Jeff Young is a writer for stage, screen and radio. Until recently a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University, he is the author of the acclaimed memoir Ghost Town . On this week’s episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his new memoir Wild Twin . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of seven novels, including  The Devil and Webster ,  You Should Have Known  (adapted as the 2020 HBO series  The Undoing , starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland),  Admission  (adapted as the 2013 film of the same name, starring Tina Fey, Lily Tomlin and Paul Rudd),  The White Rose ,  The Sabbathday River,...

Jonathan Coe was born a few miles from Bournville in 1961. The author of political satires such as  Bournville ,  What a Carve Up!  and  Number 11 , and family sagas such as  The Rotters' Club  and  The Rain Before It Falls , his novels have won prizes at home and abroad, including Costa Novel of the Year and the Prix du Livre Européen. On this episode of little...

Francesca Segal is an award-winning writer and journalist. She is the author of two critically acclaimed novels,  The Innocents  (2012) and  The Awkward Age  (2017), and a memoir of NICU motherhood,  Mother Ship  (2019). Her writing has won the 2012 Costa First Novel Award, a Betty Trask Award, and been longlisted for the Women's Prize. On today’s episode of Litt...

Dava Sobel is the internationally renowned author of Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter . She was an award-winning former science reporter for the ‘New York Times’ and writes frequently about science for several magazines, including the ‘New Yorker’, ‘Audubon’, ‘Discover’, ‘Life’ and ‘Omni’. On today’s episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest book The Elements of Marie Curie:...

Xan Brooks is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He was one of the founding editorial team at the  Big Issue  magazine in London and spent 15-years as a writer and associate editor at the  Guardian  newspaper. His debut novel,  The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times , was listed for the Costa First Novel Award, the Author's Club Award, the Desmond...

Lynne Peeples is a freelance science journalist, specialising in the environment, public health and medicine. She holds a M.S. in Biostatistics from Harvard and an M.A. in Science Journalism from New York University. Her writing has appeared in  Huffington Post, Nature, Scientific American and The Atlantic , amongst others. A 2020-2021 MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow and a finalist for t...

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...

Ekow Eshun is a British-Ghanaian writer, editor, curator, broadcaster, and author of the memoir  Black Gold of the Sun , which was nominated for the Orwell Prize for its exploration of race and identity. He writes for publications including the  New York Times, Financial Times  and  Guardian , and has created documentaries for BBC4 and BBC Radio 4. Eshun was the first Blac...

Garth Greenwell is the author of  Cleanness.  His novel  What Belongs to You  won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for six other awards, including the James Tait Black Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the  Los Angeles Times  Book Prize. A  New York Times Book Review  Editors’ Choice...

Rumaan Alam is the author of the  New York Times  bestselling novel  Leave the World Behind , which was a finalist for the National Book Award and adapted into a major motion picture, as well as two other novels. His writing has appeared in the  New York Times ,  Wall Street Journal ,  New Yorker  and elsewhere. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks...

Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim.  The Spinning Heart  won the  Guardian  First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for...

Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British author whose work pushes the boundaries of form, language and ideas. Her novel,  Butterfly Fish , and short story collections,  Speak Gigantular  and  Nudibranch , have won and been nominated for multiple awards. Her journalism has been featured in  The New York Times , the  Observer , the  Guardian  and the  Huffin...

Shahnaz Habib is a writer and translator based in Brooklyn. She translates from her mother tongue, the south Indian language of Malayalam, and has translated two novels,  Jasmine Days , winner of the 2018 JCB Prize, and  Al Arabian Novel Factory .  Airplane Mode , her first book, was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals of Excellence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

Harriet Constable is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker living in London. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Economist, and the BBC, and she is a grantee of the Pulitzer Center. Raised in a musical family, The Instrumentalist is her first novel. It has been selected as one of the Top 10 Debuts of 2024 by the Guardian. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inform...

James Shapiro, who teaches English at Columbia University in New York, is author of several books, including  1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare  (winner of the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize in 2006 and the Baillie Gifford 'Winner of Winners' in 2023), as well as  Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?  O n this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about The...

Clare Beams   is the author of the novel  The Illness Lesson , which was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize,and the story collection  We Show What We Have Learned , which won the Bard Fiction Prize and was a Kirkus Best Debut of 2016. She was a finalist for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her lates...

Ralf Webb is the author of  Rotten Days in Late Summer , which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. His poems, essays, and short fiction have appeared in  Fantastic Man ,  Granta,  the  Guardian  and the  London Review of Books . He tutors in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny abouth...

Hanna Pylväinen is the author of the novel  We Sinners , which received a Whiting Award and a Balcones Fiction Prize. To research  The End of Drum-Time , her second novel, which she talks to Neil Denny about on this episode of Little Atoms, she spent six months with Sámi reindeer herders in Finland.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adam Higginbotham is a British writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ and Smithsonian. He is the author of Midnight In Chernobyl , and in today's episode of Little Atoms, he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca Watson is an Assistant Arts Editor at the  Financial Times  and one of the  Observer 's ten best debut novelists of 2021. She has been published in the  TLS, Granta  and the  Guardian . In 2018, she was shortlisted for  The   White Review  Short Story Prize, and in 2021, she was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize....