Australian author Christos Tsiolkas is best known for his fourth novel, The Slap, from 2009. This closely-observed portrait of simmering social tension won a Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was turned into a popular TV series in Australia and the US. The subject matter for his sixth and latest novel Damascus couldn't have got much more ambitious; it's an excursion into historical fiction tracing the formation of the Christian church using the writings of St. Paul as its source text. Christos Tsiolkas is coming to Wellington in November for Verb festival. You can find details of his events here.

New Zealand industry generates over 100,000 tonnes of food waste per year at the same time as many kiwi families are unable to afford and access good food. Deborah Manning saw an obvious solution to both problems and set about founding food rescue organisation. KiwiHarvest has grown from "one woman and her car" to a nationwide operation collecting and redistributing over 80,000kg of food a month to charities that give to those in need. They've just opened a 650m2 hub in South Auckland that will allow them to accept bulk donations direct from growers and manufacturers.

Almost a third of people diagnosed with clinical depression do not respond to medication or talk therapy. A potential treatment for this chronic or treatment-resistant depression is Repetitive trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) which has been used overseas for more than a decade. Dr Nicholas Hoeh from the University of Auckland's Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences is lead researcher on the first clinical study of its use in New Zealand. So how does it work, and who could it help?

Money is sometimes the only difference between eccentricity and madness, says Lady Anne Glenconner, who served as Princess Margaret's lady-in-waiting for over 30 years. Now 87, Lady Anne has written a memoir about fascinating and tragic life – Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown.

Public health professor Thomas Novotny from San Diego State University's School of Public Health has just co-authored an editorial in The British Medical Journal calling for a ban on filtered cigarettes. He says some 6 trillion cigarettes are produced and smoked worldwide every year and that vast numbers of discarded butts end up in the natural environment and potentially eaten by animals. And filter cigarettes, he claims, have no discernible health benefits; in fact, they could be encouraging us to smoke more and inhale more deeply, causing more aggressive types of cancer.

Listener feedback for 19 October 2019.

The Pastafarian faith claims 30 million devotees worldwide including over 4000 New Zealanders according to last year's census. The religion revolves around the idea that the world was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster (and his 'noodly appendages'). Its adherents' headwear of choice is the colander, and they close their written communications 'R'Amen' as the mark of their faith. It was founded in 2005 by graduate student Bobby Henderson 'as a response to Christian fundamentalists demanding the teaching of creationism in Kansas school science classes'. Film director Mike Arthur (himself a Pastafarian) has recently released a documentary film I, Pastafari It's a story with a strong New Zealand dimension too; the world's first Pastafarian wedding was held in Akaroa in 2016, and in 2017 Björn Oback became the first person in the world to swear an oath of affirmation on the holy text of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, when he used it to swear allegiance to New Zealand in a citizenship ceremony.

Marc Taddei is a classically trained trombonist who is the music director of Orchestra Wellington. On Saturday evening at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington the orchestra plays Aaron Copland's Third Symphony, and violinist Amalia Hall performs Samuel Barber's violin concerto, in an American double bill called 'Fanfare For The Common Man'. Kim asks him about the challenges of operating an orchestra in the capital alongside a better-financed incumbent (the NZSO), his appearance on the TV series Grand Designs New Zealand, and his innovative attempts to get more people interested in classical music.

Scottish poet and writer Michael Pedersen co-runs and founded Neu! Reekie! a UK arts collective which produces shows all over the globe and hosts take-overs for National Galleries, National Museums and major festivals. His most recent poetry collection, Oyster was illustrated by and performed as a live show with Frightened Rabbit's Scott Hutchison. Michael will read some poems, including Oyster, which is about his later-to be girlfriend (and vegetarian) Hollie McNish's first mouth encounter with a bivalve mollusc. Michael Pedersen is in New Zealand next month for the Verb Festival before embarking on a nationwide tour with poet Tourette's (aka Dominic Hoey) and author, rapper and poet Omar Musa. Details here. Please note that this interview references suicide. There are helpline numbers at the bottom of this page.

Michael Connelly is a bestselling crime fiction writer whose 31 books have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide and been translated into 40 different languages. Since his first novel The Black Echo (1992) other books like Blood Work and most notably The Lincoln Lawyer have been turned into popular films. And in others, like Dark Sacred Night and his latest The Night Fire he follows the career of his major protagonist, the LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch, and his efforts to crack dastardly crimes and cold cases.