Little Atoms

Recorded live at the first London Podcast Festival at King’s Place, Guardian writer Hadley Freeman brings us her personalised guide to American movies from the 1980s – why they are brilliant, what they meant to her, and how they influenced movie-making forever. Growing up in New York in the 1980’s Hadley learned everything she knows from films like Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Top Gun, The Princess Bride, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Beverley Hills Copand When Harry Met Sally… We’ll be talking about how the changes between movies then and movies today say so much about pop culture’s and society’s changing expectations of women, young people, masculinity, class and art, and explains why Pretty in Pink and Ghostbusters should be put on school syllabuses immediately. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Naomi Alderman is the author of four novels. In 2006 she won the Orange Award for New Writers, and in 2007 she was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, as well as being selected as one of Waterstones' 25 Writers for the Future. All of her novels have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime. In 2013 she was selected for the prestigious Granta Best of Young British Writers. Naomi's latest novel is The Power.Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her debut story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book Prize in 2009. She is the author of a novel, The Book of Memory, and now a second short story collection Rotten Row. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Massimino served as an astronaut for NASA between 1996 and 2014, going on two Space Shuttle missions to service the Hubble telescope, spending more than 30 hours on spacewalks. He has appeared as himself on The Big Bang Theory and is now a professor at the University of Columbia. Mike is the author of a new memoir Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Frank is the author of Pity the Billionaire, The Wrecking Crew, and What's the Matter with Kansas? A former columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Harper's and a regular contributor to The Guardian, Frank is the founding editor of The Baffler. His latest book is Listen, Liberal or, Whatever Happened to The Party of The People. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Greif studied history and literature at Harvard, and English at Oxford as a British Marshall Scholar. In 2004, he co-founded the literary journal n+1 in New York and has been a principal at the magazine since then. He earned a PhD in American studies from Yale in 2007. Since 2008, he has been on the faculty of the New School in New York, where he is currently an associate professor. His previous book, The Age of the Crisis of Man: Thought and Fiction in America, 1933–1973, was published in 2015. Greif has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and, for 2016–17, is a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Mark’s latest book is the essay collection Against Everything. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After graduating from West Point with a degree in Military Science, and from The University of Michigan with a Masters in Astronautical/Aeronautical Engineering, Colonel Alfred “Al” Worden had a career in the US Air Force as a fighter pilot and a test pilot, before joining NASA and becoming part of the Apollo program. Having served as a member of the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 9 flight and as backup Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 12 flight, Al Worden was chosen as Command Module Pilot for Apollo 15, becoming one of only 24 people to have flown to the moon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this interview from 2007, Neil and Padraig talked to journalist Nick Cohen about his book What's Left?, which examines the ideas of the British far left and their effects on mainstream politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First broadcast 11 September 2009, Francis Wheen discusses Strange Days Indeed, his brilliant book on the mad, paranoid world of 70s politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Francis Spufford, author of the acclaimed non-fiction work Red Plenty, dives deep into the ambitions of the Soviet Union during the Kruschev era. He examines the blend of ideology and economy, contrasting the aspirations of communism with capitalist realities. The discussion reveals the intricacies of the Soviet economy, from innovative mathematical approaches to consumer needs to the unexpected creativity emerging from bureaucratic constraints. Spufford also shares insights into the optimism felt by citizens post-Stalin, reflecting on their hopes amid systemic challenges.

Mary Roach is the New York Times bestselling author of several popular science books, including Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Packing for Mars and Gulp. She has written for the Guardian, Wired, BBC Focus, GQ and Vogue. Her latest book is Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.