5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Paula Byrne is the author of the bestselling biographies The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, Perdita, Mad World, The Real Jane Austen, Belle, Kick and The Genius of Jane Austen. She is founder and chief executive of ReLit, the Bibliotherapy Foundation, a charity devoted to the mental health benefits of reading. Her new book, Hardy Women, re-examines Thomas Hardy’s life through the eyes of the women who made him—mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. In this highly innovative work, Byrne reveals that it is through hardy women that we can enter into the heart of the great novelist and poet.

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