VINTAGE BOOKS

In a fascinating interview Andrew Solomon, a journalist and essayist of remarkable perception and prescience, talks about the single conversation that sparked his desire to travel, why he thinks it should be compulsory for people to travel abroad and sample other cultures, and why he also believes you are never too young to see the world. Indulge your wanderlust with this special insight into over twenty years of travelling the globe.

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To celebrate its place on the shortlist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize we have an interview with David Szalay about his novel All That Man Is. Is the modern male in crisis and what does this fractured tale across Europe have to tell us about them? Alex Clark interviews a man with an unsparing glance into the inside of men's heads.

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David Szalay - All That Man Is

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 MAN BOOKER PRIZE

Winner of the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize

Nine men. Each of them at a different stage of life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving – in the suburbs of Prague, beside a Belgian motorway, in a cheap Cypriot hotel – to understand just what it means to be alive, here and now.

Tracing an arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, All That Man Is brings these separate lives together to show us men as they are – ludicrous and inarticulate, shocking and despicable; vital, pitiable, hilarious, and full of heartfelt longing. And as the years chase them down, the stakes become bewilderingly high in this piercing portrayal of 21st-century manhood.

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Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestselling Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, envisions a not-too-distant world in which we face a new set of challenges. Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? In Homo Deus, he examines our future with his trademark blend of science, history, philosophy and every discipline in between. In this month's podcast we chat to research scientist and author of The Knowledge, Prof. Lewis Dartnell about the impact of Harari's last book Sapiens before speaking to harari himself about his vision of our future.

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Yuval Noah Harari - Homo Deus

‘Homo Deus will shock you. It will entertain you. Above all, it will make you think in ways you had not thought before.’ Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast, and Slow

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bestselling Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, envisions a not-too-distant world in which we face a new set of challenges. In Homo Deus, he examines our future with his trademark blend of science, history, philosophy and every discipline in between.

Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century – from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

War is obsolete

You are more likely to commit suicide than be killed in conflict

Famine is disappearing

You are at more risk of obesity than starvation

Death is just a technical problem

Equality is out – but immortality is in

What does our future hold?

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Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Yet the thing we call ‘parenting’ is a surprisingly new invention. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parenting is profoundly wrong – it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for children and their parents too. In this special podcast she explains more about the contradictions at the heart of being a parent and why the best thing for both parents and children might also be the easiest thing.

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Alison Gopnik - The Gardener and The Carpenter

Selected as a Book of the Year by the Financial Times

‘The Gardener and the Carpenter should be required reading for anyone who is, or is thinking of becoming a parent’ Financial Times

Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Yet the thing we call ‘parenting’ is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the huge industry surrounding it have transformed childcare into obsessive, controlling, and goal-orientated labour intended to create a particular kind of child, and therefore a particular kind of adult.

Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. ‘Parenting’ won't make children learn – but caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment.

In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parenting is profoundly wrong – it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for children and their parents too.

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Fear-mongering populists, distrust in the establishment, personality contests instead of reasoned debate: these are the results of the latest elections. Democracy is in bad health. In his book Against Elections, David Van Reybrouck offers a new diagnosis – and an ancient remedy. In this interview he explains the difference between democracy and elections, why sortition and lottery might offer a way to improve our democracy and why the most important thing is for a population to be informed before making any decision. Read more at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1112592/against-elections/#8ujeGpPBblyfr387.99

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David Van Reybrouck - Against Elections

Democracy is in bad health. Against Elections offers a new diagnosis – and an ancient remedy.

Fear-mongering populists, distrust in the establishment, personality contests instead of reasoned debate: these are the results of the latest elections.

In fact, as this ingenious book shows, the original purpose of elections was to exclude the people from power by appointing an elite to govern over them.

Yet for most of its 3000-year history, democracy did not involve elections at all: members of the public were appointed to positions in government through a combination of volunteering and lottery.

Based on studies and trials from around the globe, this hugely influential manifesto presents the practical case for a true democracy – one that actually works.

Urgent, heretical and completely convincing, Against Elections leaves only one question to be answered: what are we waiting for?

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What better way to talk about Flâneuse than to walk the streets of London with author Lauren Elkin. We stroll through Bloomsbury to talk about Virginia Woolf and other female walkers of the city as we discuss the themes behind her fascinating book. 'Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities. That is an imaginary definition.' If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse? In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities. From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time. Read more at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1098499/flaneuse/#m7szjT6vgomZ68rS.99

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Lauren Elkin - Flâneuse

'Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.

That is an imaginary definition.'

If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?

In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities.

From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

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Alex Clark and Will Rycroft are joined in the studio by blogger Simon Savidge to discuss what makes the perfect summer read; we go around the world with Emma Cline, Milena Busquets, Yewande Omotoso and Ruth Ware as they explain why location was so important to their latest books; and Andrew Solomon explains why travel is more than just a leisure activity after 25 years traversing the globe. Make sure the first thing you pack this summer is the Vintage Podcast. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1108144/far-and-away/ https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1109287/the-girls/ https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1109295/this-too-shall-pass/ https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1109235/the-woman-next-door/ https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1099629/the-woman-in-cabin-10/

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In August 2014, Farida, like any ordinary teenage girl, was enjoying the summer holidays before her last year at school. But Farida lived in the mountains of northern Iraq — and what happened next was unimaginable. Her village was an ISIS target. ISIS jihadists murdered the men and boys, including her father and brother, before taking Farida and the other women prisoner. This is the story of what happened to Farida after she was captured: the beatings, the rapes, the markets where ISIS sold women like cattle, and Farida's realisation that the more resistant she became, the harder it was for her captors to continue their atrocities against her. So she struggled, she bit, she kicked, she accused her captors of going against their religion, until, one day, the door to her room was left unlocked. She took her chance and, with five younger girls in her charge, fled into the Syrian desert. Farida showed incredible courage in the face of the unthinkable, and now with The Girl Who Beat ISIS she bravely relives her story to bear witness. Searing and immediate, this is the first memoir by a young woman that shows first-hand what life is like for innocents caught up in the maelstrom of day-to-day life with ISIS. Read more at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1110490/the-girl-who-beat-isis/#gKOQ3gf8LEkXIq50.99

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Farida Khalaf - The Girl Who Beat ISIS

In August 2014, Farida, like any ordinary teenage girl, was enjoying the summer holidays before her last year at school. But Farida lived in the mountains of northern Iraq — and what happened next was unimaginable. Her village was an ISIS target. 

ISIS jihadists murdered the men and boys, including her father and brother, before taking Farida and the other women prisoner. This is the story of what happened to Farida after she was captured: the beatings, the rapes, the markets where ISIS sold women like cattle, and Farida's realisation that the more resistant she became, the harder it was for her captors to continue their atrocities against her. So she struggled, she bit, she kicked, she accused her captors of going against their religion, until, one day, the door to her room was left unlocked. She took her chance and, with five younger girls in her charge, fled into the Syrian desert.

Farida showed incredible courage in the face of the unthinkable, and now with The Girl Who Beat ISIS she bravely relives her story to bear witness. Searing and immediate, this is the first memoir by a young woman that shows first-hand what life is like for innocents caught up in the maelstrom of day-to-day life with ISIS.

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A summer of sport beckons and we have a podcast to compete. Raphael Honigstein and Danny Kelly talk football ahead of Euro 2016; how did Germany effect Das Reboot, what's the future for the sport amid all the corruption and who do you want to draw in the office sweepstake? Richard Askwith tells us what made the Czech runner Emil Zatopek so special. Anders Ericsson, the man behind the 10,000 hours rule explains why practice makes perfect and talent is a myth. And finally in tribute to Muhammad Ali we hear an excerpt from George Plimpton's Shadow Box, soon to be published by Vintage in the UK along with his other amazing participatory sports journalism books. On your marks, get set.... Football - from start Zatopek: 23:50 Anders Ericsson: 31:50 Plipton on Ali: 56:08 Raphael Honigstein: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/raphael-honigstein/1050718/ Richard Askwith: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/richard-askwith/1047711/ Anders Ericsson:https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/anders-ericsson/1076269/ George Plimpton: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/george-plimpton/1019619/

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George Plimpton - Shadow Box

Stepping into the ring against light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore, George Plimpton pauses to wonder what ever induced him to become a participatory journalist. Bloodied but unbowed, he holds his own in the bout – and brings back this timeless book on boxing and its devotees, among them Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer.

Shadow Box is one of Plimpton’s most engaging portraits of professional sport seen through the eyes of an inquisitive and astute hopeful. From the gym, the locker room, the ringside, and even in the harsh glare of the ring itself, Plimpton documents what it truly means to be a boxer in some of the finest writing of his career.

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Is there a crisis in masculinity? What does male friendship look like? Do gender norms harm both sexes and what can we do to challenge them? A wide-ranging and provocative discussion with Rebecca Asher and Juno Dawson (including a cameo appearance from Prince the dog) is accompanied by interviews with David Szalay and Rose Tremain as we look at how novels and non-fiction are examining the modern male.

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