The Monocle Weekly

Pioneering French film-maker Agnès Varda and artist JR on their latest project ‘Faces Places’, writer and war reporter Ed Vulliamy on his book about music, ‘When Words Fail’, and author Mark Mason on ‘The Book of Seconds’, profiling those who didn’t quite get there first.

We welcome back author Travis Elborough to discuss his new book ‘Atlas of the Unexpected’. Plus: film-maker Desiree Akhavan talks us through her acclaimed new teen drama ‘The Miseducation of Cameron Post’, and we discuss Canadian film-making and ‘Trench 11’ with actor Rossif Sutherland.

We hear from music pioneer and analogue-synthesiser luminary Suzanne Ciani about her career and upcoming appearance at Brighton Digital Festival. Plus: William Miller on growing up among London’s most storied cultural figures and his book ‘Gloucester Crescent’, and the story of [Disneyworld](https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/popculture/all/01172/facts.walt_disneys_disneyland.htm) with cultural historian Chris Nichols.

We meet film-maker Eugene Jarecki to hear about ‘The King’, his new documentary about Elvis and the American dream. Plus: musician Chilly Gonzales joins us to discuss his new album ‘Solo Piano III’ and we hear from artist and producer Beatrice Dillon about her recent work and appearance at Berlin Atonal festival.

Film-maker Thomas Riedelsheimer on ‘Leaning into the Wind’, the new cinematic portrait of UK artist Andy Goldsworthy, we meet Wayne Kramer, the guitarist of legendary proto-punk rockers MC5, and hear from academic and writer Lilia Schwarcz about her epic work ‘Brazil: A Biography’.

We meet journalist turned comics writer John Harris Dunning to discuss his new work ‘Tumult’, hear from Journey Gunderson, the director of a new museum dedicated to laughs in the US, and discuss how ‘The Dark Knight’ helped shape the modern superhero blockbuster with production designer Nathan Crowley.

We talk to writer and beekeeper Helen Jukes about her new book “A Honeybee Heart has Five Openings”, discuss the life of musical arranger and songwriter Ivor Raymonde with his son, musician and label head Simon Raymonde, and learn the story of Lisbon with author and journalist Barry Hatton.

Alice Black, co-founder and director of the Alice Black gallery, joins us to discuss a season of performance art that’s taking over the space. We also hear from musical polymath David Toop on the occasion of the republication of his literary study into ambience, ‘Oceans of Sound’. Plus, we talk to author and writer Malachy Tallack about how his background on the Shetland Islands came to inform his latest novel.

We hear from Simon Oldfield, Jessy Jetpacks and Ben Okri about a new story collection, ‘A Short Affair’. Plus: we meet artist Rachel Pimm, in anticipation of a performance of her new work at the now-defunct Bell Foundry in London’s Whitechapel. All that and a look back at the World Cup, as well as a look forward to the final, with author and sports journalist Mihir Bose.

We meet art curator Clare Lilley, who’s overseeing the Frieze Sculpture fair in London, hear from bassist and bandleader Marcus Miller about playing with everyone from Miles Davis to Luther Vandross, and speak with Oliver Wainwright, the architecture critic whose new book from Taschen, ‘Inside North Korea’, looks at the unusual design within the isolated nation.