His origins were humble; a working-class boy from a small military town in northern Sweden, not far from the Arctic Circle.  Today, he is one of the most influential figures in the world of literature, because  Peter Englund is Permanent Secretary to the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the ...read more →

To mark the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice, Peter takes tea with Claire Harman, author of the highly acclaimed biography Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World.  If you share E. M. Forster’s passion – “I am a Jane Austenite, and therefore slightly imbecile ...read more →

At the age of 43, a few weeks after he secured British citizenship, former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was murdered: the world’s first victim of polonium 210 poisoning.  The Litvinenko killing revealed that London has quietly become not only the single greatest centre of Russian capital outside Moscow, ...read more →

Once every generation or two, a book comes along that incarnates our collective experience of war.  Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front was one such: Heller’s Catch-22 was another, and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five was one more.  To this distinguished list must be added Ben Fountain‘s first novel, Billy Lynn’s Long ...read more →

Join us for our biggest, wildest, craziest and funniest virtual office party ever… featuring the prodigious talents of Professor Elemental and Brian Clegg, together with Ian Winn, Ali Gardner & the combined talents of the chatroom, Dave Bartram, and ringmaster Peter Cox. “What I don’t like about office Christmas parties”, ...read more →

British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne  are currently enforcing “savage” spending cuts that, in Cameron’s own words, “will change our whole way of life”. Why? What have the British people done to deserve this punishment? Tonight’s guest, Professor L. Randall Wray, has got some very revealing ...read more →

Geoff Dyer is the consummate writer’s writer: winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize, the US National Book Critics Circle Award the E. M. Forster Award, and more.  The Daily Telegraph newspaper has called him “the best living writer in Britain”.  Zadie Smith believes he is “a national treasure.” This is ...read more →