Little Atoms

Alex Ross graduated from Harvard in 1990. He wrote for the New York Times from 1992 until 1996 when he became staff writer at the New Yorker. His first book, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, won the Guardian First Book Award. It was also shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of the essay collection Listen to This. His latest book is Wagnerism: Art and politics in the shadow of music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Noreena Hertz is a renowned thought leader, academic, and broadcaster who was named by The Observer “one of the world’s leading thinkers” and by Vogue “one of the world’s most inspiring women.” Her previous bestsellers—The Silent Takeover, I.O.U. and Eyes Wide Open—have been published in more than twenty countries, and her opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Financial Times, El Pais, Die Zeit and South China Morning Post. Hertz holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD from Cambridge University. She is based at University College London, where she holds an Honorary Professorship. Her latest book is The Lonely Century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gavin Francis is an award-winning writer and GP. He is the author of four books of non-fiction, including Adventures in Human Being, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the Saltire Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and Empire Antarctica, which won Scottish Book of the Year in the SMIT Awards and was shortlisted for both the Ondaatje and Costa Prizes. He has written for the Guardian, The Times, the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. His work is published in eighteen languages. His latest book is Island Dreams: Mapping an Obsession. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. He is the author of fifteen highly acclaimed, bestselling novels and five collections of stories. His latest novel is Trio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Guardian, Aeon and Scientific American, and she has appeared on history and science programmes for BBC Radio 4. She works as an archaeological and creative consultant, and co-founded the influential TrowelBlazers project, and Rebecca is now the author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Whitbread biography award. Her latest book, The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story is shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 of the 2018 Midsumma Festival to critical acclaim, and was later selected for the Homegrown Grassroots development initiative. A film adaptation of his latest novel The Hunted is being developed in a joint production between Stampede Ventures and Vertigo Entertainment in Los Angeles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 and the MacDowell Colony, among many others, he has an MFA from Vanderbilt University, where he was the founding editor of Nashville Review. His latest story collection is Why Visit America. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 York Times and Washington Post. She is the author of Decoding the Heavens, shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, and Cure, shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books and longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. Her latest book is The Human Cosmos: A Secret History of The Stars. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.