A louche slacker and a restless wanderer, an Englishman most at home abroad, a comic genius and a whip smart critic of art and culture: Geoff Dyer is a literary colossus, an original voice whose writings circulate around his favourite themes – sex, death, drugs, spirituality, travel, and boredom – while also being utterly different to one another. Now he joins Fat White Family's Lias Saoudi to reflect on his own coming of age, from discovering his early love for reading to his years spent at grammar school, and tracing his enduring dedication to literature through the years.

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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, neoliberalism, with its belief in the virtues of markets and competition, seemed to have triumphed. But in the decades that followed, neoliberalism had a problem: the rise of social movements, from civil rights and feminism to environmentalism, were now proving roadblocks in the road to freedom, nurturing a culture of government dependency, public spending, political correctness and special pleading.  Neoliberals needed an antidote.

They found it in nature. Historian Quinn Slobodian explains how neoliberal thinkers drew on the language of science to embed the idea of ‘competition’ ever deeper into social life, to reinstate a hierarchy of gender, race and cultural difference, and to advocate cultural homogeneity as essential for markets to truly work.

Reading and misreading the writings of their sages, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, they forged alliances with racial psychologists, neoconfederates, ethnonationalists that would become known as the alt-right.

Insightful, provocative and expertly-researched, this conversation provides a timely and essential understanding of modern geopolitics.

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How can we live a good life? Perhaps a good life is hard to define, but as bestselling author Rolf Dobelli reveals, we can learn how to cultivate a good life through habits to avoid—from watching too much news to 'winging' your way through the week. Merging stoicism and no-nonsense practicality, Rolf shares how we can live rationally and meaningfully, nurturing healthy relationships and habits with those around us and ourselves.

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Bestselling author, artist, and the Observer’s agony aunt Philippa Perry joins cartoonist Becky Barnicoat for a conversation about the highs and lows of raising small children.  From the unglamorous reality of post-partum to the tumult of baby supplies, from the challenges of bedtime to the comically dishevelled appearance of new parenthood, discover the deeply strange new world of  parenting, ruled by a tyrannical tiny leader, growing bigger and more loved by the day.

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Today Lorna Tucker is a feted documentary maker whose subjects include Vivienne Westwood and Katherine Hepburn — a life she could not have imagined as a young woman who fled a troubled home to live on the streets. Once a thief, sex worker, and drug addict, estranged from her family and in trouble with gangs and the police, her memoir Bare will make you see a hidden world for the first time and change the way you think about the most vulnerable members of society.

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From the far-right violence that broke out in the summer of 2024 to the hatred directed at Muslims in public life during the Gaza conflict, anti-Muslim racism is dangerously out-of-control. Fed by a network of media outlets, think tanks, commentators, and even the entertainment industry, Islamophobia not only passes the dinner table test but is also Britain’s bigotry blind spot. For too many, Muslims don’t matter.

But that's not stopping Baroness Warsi. Having made her career by speaking up and standing out, she once again fearlessly urges us to change course, dismantle toxic bigotry, and stop the surge towards populism - before it's too late.

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While many of us are sleeping, another world awakens in the night hours. Author Dan Richards reveals the thrumming life of the night, from night shifts on postal trains to the art of focaccia, from the rhythm of shipping forecasts to the humanity which society often fails to recognise in homelessness. Dan illuminates the nighttime world, and explores the deeply personal relationship we each have with the night hours.

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LSE’s Paul Dolan reveals how we can stop hating the people we disagree with, and how we can foster a more tolerant society.

We like to think that we’re tolerant, but many of us struggle to engage with people whose opinions differ strongly from our own – even if they might have something useful to contribute to the debate. We’re all falling victim to what Professor Paul Dolan defines as beliefism. Now Paul joins us to reveal the importance of exposing ourselves to diverging opinions, and how we can lean into difference and create environments that are conducive to listening to one another. Well-functioning societies need and celebrate difference; Paul reveals how we can foster a more tolerant society.

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Our greatest living nature writer, Robert Macfarlane shares with Horatio Clare a single, transformative idea: are rivers alive?

Robert Macfarlane is both the author of prize-winning bestsellers including Underland, Landmarks, and The Old Ways, and an artistic polymath whose collaborators include many of the most distinguished artists, musicians, and poets of our time, including Olafur Eliasson, Johnny Flynn, and Jackie Morris.

Inspired by the activists, artists and lawmakers of the young ‘Rights of Nature’ movement, Macfarlane takes us on an exhilarating exploration of the past, present and futures of this ancient, urgent concept.

Transporting us from the miraculous cloud-forests of Northern Ecuador to the wounded rivers and lagoons of Southern India; and from north-eastern Quebec, where a spectacular wild river – the Mutehekau or Magpie – is being defended from death by damming in a riverrights campaign, to the fragile chalk stream that rises a mile from his house and flows through his years and days, this is a magical and radical listen that will make you rethink what you think you know about rivers and about the nature of life.

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Neurologist and Oxford Professor Dr Masud Husain explores the intricacies of the brain, and how much our sense of self can change through brain disorders. From a woman who could not recognise the motions of her own hand, to a driven and outgoing man whose sudden stroke rendered him apathetic to all he used to care about, Dr Husain explores the bounds of the self, the need for a deeply human connection between doctor and patient, and the cutting-edge science helping people recover from even the most extreme cases of brain disorders.

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