Little Atoms

Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and a professor of physics and planetary science at MIT. She talks about her new memoir The Smallest Lights in the Universe, about juggling being a MacArthur award winning astrophysicist with being a widowed single-mother, and brings Neil up to speed with the latest news in the hunt for exo-planets. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Max Porter is the author of Lanny, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. He is the recipient of the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year award. He talks to Neil about painting with words in his latest book The Death of Francis Bacon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Torrey Peters lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Masters in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She is the author of two novellas, Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker. She talks to Neil about ideas of motherhood, ethical surgery, the politically fraught concept of detransitioning and what trans women and divorced cis women have in common in her debut novel Detransition, Baby. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cal Flyn, author of the memoir Thicker Than Water, talks about her latest book Islands of Abandonment: Life In The Post-Human Landscape. She talks to Neil about her travels to post-industrial wastelands, nuclear exclusion zones and sites of natural disasters to see how nature can reclaim even the most polluted landscapes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason “Timbuktu” Diakité is one of Sweden’s most well-known hip-hop artists. Born in Lund to American parents—an African American dad and a white mom—he has released eight solo albums and numerous singles, the majority of which have reached gold or platinum status. He talks to Neil about his new memoir A Drop of Midnight, in which he talks about growing up conflicted in Sweden, and his travels to South Carolina in search of his ancestors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew Harding is the BBC's Africa correspondent. He talks to Neil about his new book These Are Not Gentle People, about a crime that shook South Africa and split a community apart. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart Turton's debut novel, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, won the Costa First Novel Award and the Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Best Novel, and was shortlisted for the Specsavers National Book Awards and the British Book Awards Debut of the Year. A Sunday Times bestseller for three weeks, it has been translated into over thirty languages and has also been a bestseller in Italy, Russia and Poland. His latest novel is The Devil And The Dark Water. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ivy Pochoda is the author of The Art of Disappearing, Visitation Street - a Guardian and Amazon best book of 2013 - and Wonder Valley, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and a winner of the Strand Critics Circle Award. For many years she was a world-ranked squash player. She teaches creative writing at the Lamp Arts Studio in Skid Row. Ivy grew up in Brooklyn, NY and currently lives in West Adams, Los Angeles. Her latest novel is These Women. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's show, George Saunders, author of the Booker Prize winning novel Lincoln In The Bardo, talks to Neil about the genius of the Russian short story in his latest book A Swim In A Pond In The Rain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just in time for Christmas! John Lanchester joins Neil for some spooky stories in his first short story collection, Reality and Other Stories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.