Little Atoms
Episodes
511 - Chris Power's Mothers
15 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Power lives and works in London. His 'Brief Survey of the Short Story' has appeared in the Guardian since 2007. His fiction has been p...
510 - Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing
07 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur 'Genius' Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Rene...
509 - Leo Benedictus’ Consent
30 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Leo Benedictus is a freelance feature writer for the Guardian and other publications. His first novel, The Afterparty was published by Jonathan Cape i...
508 - Kathryn Mannix's With The End In Mind
29 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the third of our shows featuring shortlisted writers for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, Neil talks to Dr Kathryn Mannix about her book With The End ...
507 - Wellcome Prize part 2 with Lindsey Fitzharris and Ayobami Adebayo
26 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the Second of three shows featuring shortlisted writers for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, Neil talks to Lindsey Fitzharris about The Butcherin...
506 - Jillian Scudder's Astroquizzical
23 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jillian Scudder is an astrophysicist and assistant professor at Oberlin College, Ohio. She has been writing ‘Astroquizzical’, a blog answering spa...
504 - Wellcome Prize Special part 1: Meredith Wadman and Sigrid Rausing
19 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of three shows featuring shortlisted writers for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, Neil talks to Meredith Wadman about The Vaccine Race, and ...
504: David Adams' Genius With
16 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dr David Adam is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Man Who Couldn't Stop and an editor at Nature, the...
503 - Aminatta Forna's Happiness
09 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Aminatta Forna is the author of the novels The Hired Man, The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones, and the memoir The Devil th...
Penderyn Book Prize Special - David Hepworth
05 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
David Hepworth has been writing, broadcasting and speaking about music and media since the seventies. He was involved in the launch and editing of mag...
501 - Jim Crace's The Melody
02 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Crace is the prize-winning author of eleven previous books, including Continent (winner of the 1986 Whitbread First Novel Award and the&...
Little Atoms 500! Philip Hensher’s The Friendly Ones
26 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The 500th Little Atoms! Philip Hensher has written nine novels, including The Mulberry Empire, the Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency, King...
499 - Cathi Unsworth’s Old Black Magic
20 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Cathi Unsworth began a career in journalism at nineteen on the music weekly Sounds, and has since worked for music, arts, film and lifestyle jour...
498: Matthew Sweet's Operation Chaos
13 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Sweet is a journalist and broadcaster. He presents Night Waves and Freethinking on BBC Radio 3, and is the summe...
Little Atoms 497 - International Women's Day Special with Julia Pierpoint's Feminist Saints
08 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Neil talks feminist heroes with author Julia Pierpoint Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
496 - Liam Drew's I, Mammal
06 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Liam Drew is a writer, former neurobiologist and mammal. He has a PhD in sensory biology from University College London, and spent twelve ye...
495 - Tim Baker's City Without Stars
27 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Born in Sydney, Tim Baker lived in Rome and Madrid before moving to Paris, where he wrote about jazz. He has worked on film projects in India, China, ...
494 - Abi Andrews' The Word for Woman is Wilderness
20 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Abi Andrews was born in 1991 in the Midlands, and now lives and works in South East London. She studied English and creative writing at Goldsmiths, an...
493 - Daniel Pink's When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.
13 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel H. Pink is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestselling Drive, To Sell is Human and ...
492 - Mohsin Hamid and Jon McGregor
06 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mohsin Hamid writes regularly for The New York Times, the Guardian and the New York Review of Books, and is the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist...
Little Atoms 491 - Tony White's The Fountain in the Forest
30 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Tony White is the author of novels including Foxy-T, the non-fiction work Another Fool in the Balkans and editor and co-edit...
490 - Ausma Zehanat Khan & Valeria Luiselli
23 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ausma Zehanat Khan holds a Ph.D. in International Human Rights Law with a specialisation in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. She h...
489 - Caspar Henderson's New Map of Wonders
16 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Caspar Henderson is a writer and journalist. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Independent, New Scientist, the New ...
From the archive: Orwell in Tribune
10 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
George Orwell wrote some of his most renowned essays for the British left-wing publication Tribune between 1940 and 1947, including Books vs Ciga...
From the archive: Professor Brian Cox
31 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A classic Little Atoms from 2010 to ease you into the new year: Professor Brian Cox takes on the big questions, including what happens if you put a ca...
488 - Celeste Ng and Susie Boyt
19 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Celeste Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She attended Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Mic...
487 - Julie Bindel and John Crace
12 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Julie Bindel is a renowned investigative journalist, and has written extensively on religious fundamentalism, violence against women, the internationa...
486 John Higgs' Watling Street
05 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
John Higgs is the author of I HAVE AMERICA SURROUNDED: THE LIFE OF TIMOTHY LEARY; THE KLF: CHAOS, MAGIC AND THE BAND WHO BURNED A MILLION PO...
Converging Cultures - Apocalypse Now
02 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Contagion has haunted so much of 20th century culture, from Camus’s Plague to Romero’s zombies. In this episode, we examine real and imagined...
Little Atom 485 - Judith Matloff's The War Is In The Mountains
28 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Judith Matloff is a Harvard graduate and teaches conflict reporting at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her articles have appeared in ...
Converging Cultures Episode 3: Faces of war
25 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Futurists like Marinetti and D’Annunzio revelled in the destructive energy of battle, but in Weimar Germany after world war 1, artists such as Otto ...
Little Atoms 484 - Joshua Cohen's Moving Kings
21 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua Cohen was born in 1980 in Atlantic City. He has written novels (Book of Numbers), short fiction (Four New Messages), and nonfiction for the&nbs...
Converging Cultures Episode 2 - All in your head
18 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
“Mesmerism” was a part of mainstream medicine in the 19th century, with many believing the unprovable concept of “animal magnetism”. The idea ...
Angela Saini's Inferior - How Science Got Women Wrong
14 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Angela Saini is an award-winning science journalist, author and broadcaster. She is the author of Geek Science: How Indian Science is Taking Over the ...
Little Atoms presents...Electric Enlightenment
11 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 1 of Little Atoms' documentary series "Converging Cultures" explores the influence of science on the Romantic and Gothic imagination. Electric...
From the archive - Ann Druyan
07 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ann Druyan is an author and television and film writer & producer whose work is largely concerned with the effects of science and technology on ou...
482: Marcel Theroux's The Secret Books
31 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Marcel Theroux is the author of five novels: A Blow to the Heart, A Stranger in the Earth, The Paperchase (winner of the 2002 Some...
481: Marcus Du Sautoy and Jamie Perera's Sound of Proof
24 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Marcus Du Sautoy is Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi Professor for the Public understanding of Science at Oxford University, and Jamie Perera is a...
480 - David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt's Runaway Species
16 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University. His scientific research is published in journals from Science to Nature, and he is also the...
479 - Dallas Campbell's Ad Astra
09 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Dallas Campbell has presented some of the most ambitious landmark series across the BBC, such as City in the Sky with Dr Hannah Fry and Stargazing Liv...
478 - Christopher Bollen's The Destroyers
02 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Christopher Bollen is a writer who lives in New York City. He regularly writes about art, literature, and culture. He is the author of Lightning Peopl...
477: Sarah Sentilles' Draw Your Weapons
25 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A former theologian, Sarah Sentilles completed her undergraduate degree at Yale and both a Masters and a Doctorate at Harvard. She was a college profe...
From the archive - Jonathan Meades
18 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Meades is a writer on architecture, culture and food, a novelist and television presenter, and a longtime friend of Little Atoms. This episod...
476: Nicole Krauss and Kamila Shamsie
11 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Nicole Krauss has been hailed by the New York Times as 'one of America's most important novelists'. She is the author of the international bestsellers...
From the archive: Misha Glenny's Dark Market
07 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Misha Glenny is a distinguished journalist and historian. As the Central Europe Correspondent first for the Guardian and then for the BBC, he chronicl...
From the archive: Naomi Alderman's Liars' Gospel
29 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Naomi Alderman grew up in London and attended Oxford University and UEA. Her first novel, Disobedience, was published in ten languages; like her secon...
From the archive: Jon Ronson, October 2005
22 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Jon Ronson has been one of Little Atoms most regular guests. In his very first appearance on the show in 2005, he talked to Neil Denny and Rich...
From the archive: Martin Rees - From Here to Infinity
15 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Rees is Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He was the President of the Royal...
475: Vanessa Potter & Pía Spry-Marqués
08 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Vanessa Potter spent 16 years as an award-winning broadcast producer in London's advertising industry, before one day fate conspired to turn the light...
474: Ryan Gattis & Zinzi Clemmons
01 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan Gattis is the author of Kung Fu and All Involved, which won the American Library Association’s Alex Award & the Lire Award for Noir of the Year...
473: Jeff Sparrow in Search of Paul Robeson
25 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor, and broadcaster. He writes a fortnightly column for The Guardian and contributes regularly to many other Australian ...
472: Elena Lappin's What Language Do I Dream In?
18 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Elena Lappin is a writer and editor. Born in Moscow, she grew up in Prague and Hamburg, and has lived in Israel, Canada, the United States and – lon...
471: Rachel McCormack's Chasing the Dram
11 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Rachel McCormack is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4s The Kitchen Cabinet, and has also broadcast on the station's From Our Own Correspondent, the F...
470: Jean Hanff Korelitz & Kanishk Tharoor
04 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jean Hanff Korelitz was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Dartmouth College and Clare College, Cambridge. She is the author of the n...
Little Atoms 469: John Grindrod's Outskirts
27 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
John Grindrod grew up on 'the last road in London' on Croydon's New Addington housing estate, surrounded by the Green Belt. He is the author of Concre...
468: Jason Hickel's the Divide
20 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Hickel is an anthropologist at the London School of Economics. Originally from Swaziland, he spent a number of years living with migrant workers...
467: Beau Lotto's Deviate
13 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Beau Lotto is Professor of Neuroscience at University of London Goldsmiths, and a visiting scholar at NYU, where he specialises in the biology and psy...
466: Hari Kunzru's White Tears
06 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Hari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions and Gods Without Men, and the story collection Noise. His late...
Little Atoms 465 - Ottessa Moshfegh & Lucy Hughes-Hallett
30 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from Boston. Her novel Eileen was awarded the 2016 Pen/Hemingway Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker P...
From the archive: Adam Curtis's All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
23 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This interview was first broadcast on 21 November 2008.Adam Curtis is a producer, writer and director of documentaries such as Bitter Lake, HyperNorma...
Little Atoms 464 - Natalie Haynes and The Children of Jocasta
16 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Amber Fury, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award, ...
Little Atoms 463: Phillip Lewis and The Barrowfields
09 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Phillip Lewis was born and raised in a small town called West Jefferson in the mountains of North Carolina. He attended the University of North Caroli...
Little Atoms 462: Mark O'Connell's To Be A Machine
03 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Mark O'Connell is a writer based in Dublin. He is Slate’s books columnist, a staff writer at The Millions, and a regular contributor to The New York...
461: Neil Wood's Good Cop Bad War
25 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Neil Woods was an undercover cop whose brief was to infiltrate Britain’s most dangerous drug gangs. Starting out in the early 90s and making the rul...
Little Atoms 460: Wellcome Prize 2017 Special - 2
18 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The second of two episodes of Little Atoms with shortlisted writers for the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize. This week, Ed Yong on his book I Contain Multitu...
459: Wellcome Book Prize 2017 - Part one
11 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The first of two episodes of Little Atoms with shortlisted writers for the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize. This week, Sarah Moss on her novel The Tidal Zone...
From the Little Atoms archive: Sarah Churchwell's Careless People
04 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of...
From the archive – Noam Chomsky
28 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Little Atoms from 2009, Noam Chomsky examines the Obama administration and asks what has really changed.Chomsky describes the first...
458: George Saunders & Kathryn Hughes
21 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
458: George Saunders & Kathryn HughesGeorge Saunders is the author of nine books, including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National B...
Little Atoms 457: Christine Negroni and the Crash Detectives
14 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A journalist, aviation blogger, documentary producer and crash investigator, Christine Negroni has more than fifteen years' experience observing and p...
456: Brenna Hassett's Built on Bones
07 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Brenna Hassett is an archaeologist who specializes in using clues from the human skeleton to understand how people lived and died in the past. She has...
Little Atoms 455 - Mark Stevenson and Rory Clements
28 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Stevenson is a writer, broadcaster, futurologist and founder of The League of PragmaticOptimists. He has written for Radio 4, The Times, Wall Str...
454: Sheena Kamal & Kate Hamer
21 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Sheena Kamal has been a stunt double (for children), a stand-in (most notably Archie Panjabi) and a film/TV extra. She has been a producer’s assista...
453: Cordelia Fine & Nichi Hodgson
14 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Cordelia Fine is a Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of much-acclaimed A Mind of It...
Two Cultures: The power in our genes
09 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The third and final Little Atoms Two Cultures in Conversation events took place in London on 17 January 2017, when Little Atoms’ Neil Denny was join...
452: Olivia Laing & Joshua Jelly-Schapiro
07 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. Her work appears in numerous publications, including the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Frie...
451: Peter Swanson's Her Every Fear
31 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Swanson's debut novel, The Girl With a Clock for a Heart (2014), was described by Dennis Lehane as 'a twisty, sexy, electric thrill ride' and wa...
450: Chibundu Onuzo & Alexandra Kleeman
24 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Chibundu Onuzo was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1991. Her first novel, The Spider King's Daughter, won a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Dylan...
Little Atoms 449 - Laura Cumming's Vanishing Man
17 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Laura Cumming has been the art critic of the Observer since 1999. Previously, she was Arts Editor for the New Statesman, presenter of Nightwaves on BB...
448: Luke Dormehl's Thinking Machines
10 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Luke Dormehl is a journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film. He writes and has written for Fast Company, Wired, The Observe...
447: Michael Palin’s A Sackful of Limericks
20 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Recorded live at Waterstones Piccadilly on 1 December 2016, here's the last Little Atoms of 2016. Neil Denny chats with comedy legend Michael Palin ab...
446: Raoul Martinez's Creating Freedom
13 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Raoul Martinez is a writer, artist, and award-winning filmmaker. Creating Freedom is his first book. It is informed by over a decade of research and i...
Something as Simple as a star with Simon Barraclough and Lucie Green
12 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
With performance, presentation, music and discussion, Lucie Green and Simon Barraclough look at the different ways of understanding "a thing so simple...
445: Helen Czerski's Storm in a Teacup
06 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Czerski is a lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at University College London. As a physicist she studies the bubbles underneath b...
Little Atoms 444: Tim Marshall on the Power and Politics of Flags
29 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Marshall is a leading authority on foreign affairs with more than 25 years of reporting experience. He was diplomatic editor at Sky News, and be...
Little Atoms 443 - Adam Rutherford's Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived
22 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Adam Rutherford is a science writer and broadcaster. He studied genetics at University College London, and during his PhD on the developing eye, he...
442 – Simon Ings' Stalin and The Scientists
15 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Simon Ings began his career writing science fiction stories, novels and films, before widening his brief to explore perception (The Eye), 20th-century...
401 – Hadley Freeman's Life Moves Pretty Fast
08 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Recorded live at the first London Podcast Festival at King’s Place, Guardian writer Hadley Freeman brings us her personalised guide to American movi...
440 – Naomi Alderman and Petina Gappah
01 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
239 – Mike Massimino's Spaceman
25 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Massimino served as an astronaut for NASA between 1996 and 2014, going on two Space Shuttle missions to service the Hubble telescope, spending mo...
438 – Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal or, Whatever Happened to The Party of The People
18 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
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 Journ...
437 – Mark Greif's Against Everything
11 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Little Atoms 436 - Colonel Alfred “Al” Worden
04 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
After graduating from West Point with a degree in Military Science, and from The University of Michigan with a Masters in Astronautical/Aeronautical E...
From the archive: Nick Cohen's What's Left?
28 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Francis Wheen - Strange Days Indeed
21 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
First broadcast 11 September 2009, Francis Wheen discusses Strange Days Indeed, his brilliant book on the mad, paranoid world of 70s politics. Hosted...
Francis Spufford - Red Plenty
14 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
First broadcast on 14th January 2011Hailed as one of the most original non-fiction books in recent years, Francis Spufford's Red Plenty tells the stor...
Little Atoms 435 - Mary Roach and the science of humans at war
07 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Little Atoms 434 - Science and the City with Laurie Winkless
24 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Winkless is a physicist and writer, currently based in London. Following a degree at Trinity College Dublin, a placement at NASA's Kennedy Spac...
Little Atoms 433 - Travis Elborough’s Walk In The Park
17 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Travis Elborough is the author of four acclaimed books: The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus; The Long Player Goodbye, which lamented th...
432 - Alex Cox's Introduction to Film
10 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Maverick British filmmaker Alex Cox is responsible for directing a host of acclaimed films including Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, Walker a...