Ponder

New York Times bestselling and Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders's new book A Swim in the Pond in the Rain is a literary masterclass on what makes a great story work and what great stories can tell us about what it means to be a human being. Saunders is also Ponder editor Nathan's favourite living writer (“he's one of my five all-time fantasy dinner guests!”) and in this episode of the Ponder podcast they discuss some of the questions about writing that Nathan has been keeping a mental tally of since he first started reading Saunders's work. After listening, not only will you come away wanting to read Saunders's new book, but you'll want to read anything he has ever written, his deeply thoughtful approach to reading and writing having you hang off his every word.

The much-loved actor Earl Cameron recently passed away at the remarkable age of 102. In a career that spanned more than seven decades — ranging from gritty British film and TV dramas to a final cameo in Christopher Nolan's Inception when he was 92, Earl Cameron will be remembered as the actor who broke down the colour bar in British film and television. In this podcast, Nathan and Rob look back on a remarkable man's remarkable career.

His book illustrations are known and loved the world over – remember Willy Wonka, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, Matilda ... the list goes on.  With a career spanning more than 50 years, Sir Quentin Blake has been one of the most successful illustrators of children's books ever.  But now, Sir Quentin's attention is focussed on that state of the world.  An exhibition of new works, titled We Live in Worrying Times, is open at the Hastings Contemporary art gallery in the south of England. It includes a large-scale mural described as his Guernica, which with its rawness and originality is unlike anything the artist has produced in his illustrious career.

At a time when we are confined between four walls, there is perhaps nothing we value more in our homes than the windows. Josefina Hernandez and Reza Salazar started the Instagram page Porlasventanas (through the windows) as a personal project to archive pictures of the windows that caught their eye. But with the spread of the coronavirus forcing us to stay home, their quickly growing account has become not only a tribute to "las ventanas", but a community space where many are expressing the thoughts and feelings they have as they look out at the world.

You may know Penn Badgley best for his role as Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl or as the disturbed but disturbingly likable stalker Joe Goldberg in the Netflix thriller series You. For this Ponder podcast Penn joins Nathan and Rob on the line from Brooklyn to talk about the phenomenal success of You, his interests in social activism and why stories can help us find the sacred and inspiring in everyday life.

This year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of, in many people's minds, the greatest composer who ever lived.  Ludwig van Beethoven's music ranged from sublimely intimate piano music to the teutonic bombast of the most famous opening to any piece of music – the universally recognisable da-da-da-dum of his fifth symphony.  Remarkably, most of this was created as the composer's hearing faded and failed on him completely.  In this special anniversary podcast, Rob Weinberg talks to arguably Beethoven's greatest fan, the much-loved British broadcaster John Suchet, who has written no fewer than seven books about Beethoven.  He's now presenting a 52-episode series on the man on Classic FM radio. So what is it about Beethoven's music that has inspired people for more than two centuries?  John Suchet offers Ponder the man revealed.

In this very special edition of Ponder, the internationally acclaimed author Bahiyyih Nakhjavani talks to Nathan and Rob about her first three novels, which were all inspired by the historical figure of the Bab, the 200th anniversary of Whose birth is being commemorated this year. Who was the young Persian merchant Who announced that He was the bearer of a message destined to transform the life of humanity? What is it about the Bab's short, intriguing life and the stories surrounding His heroic first followers that has inspired Nakhjavani's work?

This latest edition of Ponder pays tribute to the celebrated Canadian painter Otto Donald Rogers who passed away on 28 April.  Arguably the finest artist to hail from Canada's open prairie landscape, Rogers brought into his art his deep faith in the Bahá'í teachings.  Art, he said, was a manifestation of both heart and mind – a heart that turns towards the essence of creation and a mind that conceives visual order.  Rob reflects upon his many meetings and illuminating conversations with the artist, over the past three decades. 

Don McCullin is arguably Britain's most famous photojournalist, most well known for his iconic and heart-rending war photography. In this episode, Rob and Nathan visit a powerful retrospective at the Tate Britain of his 50-year career and reflect on how his images shook the world. 

Rob and Nathan visit the Guggenheim Musuem to view an exhibition of early modernist painter, Marc Chagall; 'Chagall. The Breakthrough Years, 1911–1919'

What makes us human? Are cities still for everyone? Who wants to live forever? These are a few of the questions posed by The Future Starts Here at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, an exhibition which looks at how emerging technologies will affect our lives in the near future, and what choices we have to influence their development. Ronnie and Rob have been pondering the 100+ objects on display that point towards where society might be headed.

In the new Ponder Extra, Canadian writer Nadim Roberts tells the extraordinary story of three Inuit boys who ran away from a brutal residential school. What happened to them? What are the responsibilities of journalists in telling stories like these? Did S-Town get it right? Read Nadim's story in Granta here: https://granta.com/mangilaluks-highway/

In 1921, T.S. Eliot spent a few weeks in Margate, Kent, at a crucial moment in his life and career. Here he reflected on the fractured world in the aftermath of the Great War and penned lines for his masterpiece, The Waste Land. In this new Ponder Extra, Nathan and Rob journey to Margate to see Journeys with The Waste Land, a major art exhibition exploring the significance of T.S. Eliot's poem through the visual arts. 

The medium is the message - music, moves and murals. In our second episode of Ponder, we hear how, despite being oceans apart, American/Australian duo Vallis Alps have been rapidly gaining an international fanbase. We learn from journalist Maziar Bahari about how an important campaign, about the right to education, is given a voice through the medium of street art and finally, we hear how Massachusetts based Mtali Shaka Banda is changing the way jazz is heard, through a socially conscious narrative, influenced by his own hardships.    

The music of American composer Philip Glass comes under the spotlight in the first Ponder Extra podcast. His opera Satyagraha, evoking the life and mission of Mahatma Gandhi, has opened in London in a spectacular production by English National Opera. Ponder was at the opening night and spoke to tenor Toby Spence about playing Gandhi and his fascinating life and interests. Photos by Donald Cooper. Music courtesy of ENO.

Orthodox Jews, literary views and surfin' tunes. In this month's episode the team ponders a Yiddish language movie about a young father who has lost his wife, George Saunders' Man Booker prize winning literary masterpiece and the new sound of surf music.