Plague, fire and hanky-panky in Swinging 1660s London: Samuel Pepys' Diary
Welcome to London in the swinging sixties. One man fights off a towering inferno, navigates a zombie apocalypse, and an invading fleet of evil foreigners, while doing an extraordinary amount of shaggi...
1 Jul 20251h 19min
Breakfast with Jane Austen
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day -- especially for Jane Austen. On and off the page, Austen paid a lot of attention to the breakfast table. In real life, Austen woke before her family, ...
24 Jun 202552min
Oscar Wilde 4: Doing rhyme: The Ballad of Reading Gaol
In this episode - the last in our series on Oscar Wilde - we tell the story of the melodramatic, mediagenic, mad, melancholy end of Oscar Wilde's writing life and glittering career as the cleverest ma...
17 Jun 20251h 27min
Life and love with MND: Lisa Genova's Every Note Played with Prof Dominic Rowe
Published in 2018, Lisa Genova’s Every Note Played follows the experiences of renowned concert pianist Richard Evans from the moment he is diagnosed with a form of Motor Neurone Disease, or MND, to hi...
13 Jun 202540min
Oscar Wilde 3: "A Handbag?!" The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, first performed in 1895 at the sumptuous St James' Theatre in London, was Wilde’s last, and without question his greatest piece of dramatic writing. The handbag, the c...
10 Jun 20251h 24min
Happier with Henry Wotton: Gretchen Rubin on Aphorisms and the Importance of Being Oscar Wilde
Gretchen Rubin is one of America’s best known and best-loved writers on how to be happy. She published her evergreen classic The Happiness Project in 2009, and it was an instant hit. She’s followed it...
6 Jun 202540min
Oscar Wilde 2: If Looks Could Kill: The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde’s only novel, and it caused a sensation. It was used as evidence in Wilde’s trial for the crime of “gross indecency” in 1895. The conceit of the story is famo...
3 Jun 20251h 20min
Classic Books vs Trump: Jill Lepore on reading her way through the first 100 days
Jill Lepore is one of America’s most renowned intellectuals. She’s Professor not only of American History, but also of Law at Harvard University; she's a staff writer at the New Yorker, and still find...
27 Mai 202526min
