The Hatchards Podcast Richard Flanagan on Question 7: HG Wells, Hiroshima, and How to Live
Jun 11, 2024
34:15
On this episode, we were joined by Booker Prize-winning author Richard Flanagan to discuss his fascinating new memoir, 'Question 7', a meditation on the decisions that we make and the reverberating effects that these choices can have on the course of history.
Richard spoke to us about why he feels that books must exist outside the moral grammar, and why good readers are as important as good writers.
He shared amusing anecdotes about a life spent on the road promoting his work, and his dissatisfaction with living in cities – where value is placed on the man-made over the natural world.
Finally, he contemplates the difficult question of whether he would even be sitting across from us had the atom bomb not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, freeing his father after years of back-breaking work in a Japanese POW camp.
'Question 7' has been chosen as the Hatchards Non-Fiction Book of the Month for June. Signed copies can be purchased across our three shops as well as on our website.
Richard spoke to us about why he feels that books must exist outside the moral grammar, and why good readers are as important as good writers.
He shared amusing anecdotes about a life spent on the road promoting his work, and his dissatisfaction with living in cities – where value is placed on the man-made over the natural world.
Finally, he contemplates the difficult question of whether he would even be sitting across from us had the atom bomb not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, freeing his father after years of back-breaking work in a Japanese POW camp.
'Question 7' has been chosen as the Hatchards Non-Fiction Book of the Month for June. Signed copies can be purchased across our three shops as well as on our website.