Podcast appearances and mentions of Sarah Dunant

Samira discusses the Olivier award-winning production of Fiddler on the Roof with its star Adam Dannheisser and director Jordan Fein.Sarah Dunant talks about the women in the Renaissance who became art patrons, as she publishes her novel The Marchesa, about Isabella d'Este of Mantua. Screenwriter Frederic Raphael, whose films include Far From the Madding Crowd, Darling and Eyes Wide Shut, on the art of writing film scripts. Producer: Harry Graham Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Sarah Dunant, author of "Sacred Hearts," reads an excerpt from her novel in which the young main character, Serafina, starts to find her voice within the confines of an Italian convent in the year 1570 and makes her plans to escape.  The full interview from a 2009 episode of "Conversations On The Coast with Jim Foster" can be heard now wherever you get your podcasts.  Photo: sarahdunant.com

As America gears up for next week's debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Sarah Dunant looks at the seismic shift in sexual politics in the US since Trump debated with Hillary Clinton. 'Looming, threatening, even the word stalking was used' to describe that encounter, Sarah remembers. But when this presidential debate gets underway in the early hours of Wednesday morning UK time, Sarah thinks it will be a very different story. 'An encounter worth losing sleep for,' she reckons. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Tom Bigwood

Sarah Dunant argues that Joe Biden's refusal to understand his moment in history is forcing the nation to confront the fact that she is no longer young. 'In the relatively short history of America from new country to super power,' writes Sarah, 'she has always - even when she behaves badly - projected an aura of self confidence, a vitality, almost cocky certainty that we associate with youth. And for the longest time, it made for an optimism, a sense of can do, that sometimes felt like manifest destiny.' That, Sarah argues, is starting to change. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Tom Bigwood

Sarah Dunant reflects on martyrdom past and present. As Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is laid to rest, Sarah looks to history to ponder what his legacy might be. And she turns to the work of the 19th-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: 'The tyrant dies and his rule is over...the martyr dies and his rule begins'. 'History is a long game,' Sarah writes. 'And the shelf life of martyrs in particular is impressive.' Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Liam Morrey Editor: Penny Murphy

For this episode, we're revisiting one of our favourite events from the past few years, The Poetry Pharmacy Returns. Back in 2019, we gathered a stellar line-up to celebrate the power of poetry all thanks to the vision of publisher William Sieghart. Sieghart's Poetry Pharmacy books look to use the written word as a healing antidote to many of life's everyday challenges. Sieghart will be returning to the stage soon with Intelligence Squared alongside BBC broadcaster Sarah Montague and another array of superb actors to make the words of great poets come alive once more at The Power of Poetry: Words to Heal and Inspire taking place at the Tabernacle in London on Tuesday the 5th of December. Head to Intelligence Squared.com for tickets. For this recording, which took place in 2019, onstage were Sieghart, the novelist and broadcaster Sarah Dunant, plus actors Dominic West, Nina Sosanya, Greta Scacchi and Martha West. The event was chaired by the author, playwright and broadcaster Bonnie Greer. ... Become a supporter of Intelligence Squared to get access to all of our longer form interviews and members-only content. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  For £4.99 per month you'll receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events - Our member-only newsletter The Monthly Read, sent straight to your inbox ... Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series ... Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more ... Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From clay tablets in Mesopotamia two and a half thousand years ago to the stuff of dreams today, Sarah Dunant examines the continuing mystery of the function and meaning of dreams. 'As science digs further into every nook and cranny of our brains,' writes Sarah, 'the elusive, individual nature of dreams is possibly the most magical element of human existence that remains.' Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant argues that the patriarchy of the classical music business is finally starting to change. Reliving her early relationship with music - from excruciating piano lessons to rebellious dancing in the mosh pit - Sarah reflects on the remarkable changes in classical music. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: China Collins

When the world's first state pension was introduced in Prussia in 1889, the qualifying age was 70 and the average life expectancy was 40. Half a century later, in 1935, many countries lowered the retirement age to 65, but still barely half the population lived long enough to claim it. Now, it's clearly a very different story. With the help of PD James, Sarah Dunant looks at how the UK can tackle the demographic nightmare it currently faces - an ageing population but falling birth rates. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant says the rediscovery of ideas from the past can help with 'the toxicity of the present'. Just as the Renaissance master Donatello drew from the classical world to create revolutionary art, so we can find a moment in history to inspire progress in our time. 'On the surface it seems like an impossible task' says Sarah, 'not least because like everything else in this angry, polarised moment, the past itself has been commandeered as a weapon...but the wonderful thing about ideas, is that while they can travel weightlessly through history, they still pack a punch.' Producer: Sheila Cook Sound engineer: Peter Bosher Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick Cross Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant relives a road trip she took 50 years ago, travelling across the USA at a time when Roe v Wade was the talk of America, and revolution was in the air. 'I can only imagine what it must be like to be a woman living in America this week, she writes in the aftermath of the decision by the US Supreme Court - a decision which almost instantly makes abortion illegal in more than 20 US states. She takes us back to 1972 and her travels across America in a beat-up car, when radical lawyers were honing their arguments to first present the case to the country's highest court. 'America's post-war abundance and energy, its style, its movies and its music saturated our youth', she says. 'We had the time of our lives - even the bad bits were good, we were living the dream'. And, fifty years on, she reflects on what has happened to 'the fabric of this extraordinary country'. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Who turned Woke from a badge of African-American pride into a hammer to beat liberals with? How does it relate to PC? And what are Erykah Badu, Piers Morgan, the weaponisation of African-American slang against black people, Julie Burchill and Google's salad emoji doing in the eye of the Culture War storm?  Ian and Dorian investigate another world-changing concept you thought you knew.  –––––––– Woke: A Reading List From Dorian: The War of the Words by Sarah Dunant. Fascinating 90s collection of essays about political correctness from writers across the political spectrum. We are still having many of the same arguments. Debating PC by Paul Berman. As above but American. Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture by Geoffrey Hughes. A serious attempt at a history of PC. The Culture of Complaint by Robert Hughes. Extremely opinionated and entertaining 1994 polemic against censors and heresy-hunters on both left and right. The Myth of Political Correctness by John Wilson. This forensic examination of the original anti-PC backlash reveals how many of the key case studies were exaggerated or invented, and the role that right wing think tanks played in drumming them up. Sounds familiar. The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. Of historical interest only. The cranky jeremiad that became a colossal bestseller and kickstarted America's obsession with political correctness. And from Ian: Wake Up by Piers Morgan. Don't read this. Welcome To The Woke Trials: How Identity Killed Progressive Politics by Julie Burchill. Don't read this. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Heidt and Greg Lukianoff. Don't read this, but if you're really going to insist on reading one of these, I guess make it this one. –––––––– “Even racists seem to want to appropriate MLK. Maybe if you're woke and dead you're OK?” – Dorian Lynskey –––––––– Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production by Jade Bailey and Alex Rees. Music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the aftermath of recent headlines coming out of the Commons, Sarah Dunant explores sexual equality through the ages. She looks in particular at the idea that 'women are temptresses who cannot - by definition of their sex - be trusted'. "So ingrained is this within Christian culture," Sarah writes, "that it defined attitudes towards women for millennia". Biblical accounts, renaissance sculpture, fairy tales and politics are all put under the spotlight. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

"When war smashes its way into our living rooms as it did three weeks ago", writes Sarah Dunant, "it is pictures rather than words that hit hardest". Sarah discusses the impact of images from war through the centuries and the history they write. And she ponders which image from Putin's war will represent this moment in the future. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Hugh Levinson

Sarah Dunant asks if we should judge the past by the standards of the present or future, as shifting social attitudes colour our view of how the past is portrayed. "What current historians share with those historians of the past whose vision we vehemently decry, is that they too thought they were right at the time...If we now find their views abhorrent and unjust then how about us; what might there be about our present moral certainty that the future might take issue with. What might we be missing?" Producer: Sheila Cook Sound: Peter Bosher Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

A junk shop, a wooden chest, and some old newspapers from 1941 get Sarah Dunant pondering how we can deal with a world turned upside down. "The last time the world shook", Sarah writes, "there was an element of learned resilience". But today, she believes, most of us don't have the benefit of that. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant argues that if we can't agree on wearing masks in a crowded space, this doesn't bode well for our ability to adapt to the monumental changes we'll soon have to make to avert the climate crisis. She reports from the Italian city of Mantova where she finds a rather un-Italian attitude to all of this. Producer: Adele Armstrong

'There is a theory,' writes Sarah Dunant, 'that we needed to pull back from too much face-to-face conversation...because we had all got so damn angry with each other.' The past year has certainly put a stop to much conversation, angry or otherwise. Sarah imagines how conversation will be - once we're finally able to talk to each other again, face to face. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant finds chilling parallels between recent events in Washington and the Sack of Rome in 1527. "Both seemed to feel," Sarah writes, "that whatever the threat, 'God's Holy City' or 'the seat of American democracy', were somehow, by their very nature, inviolate. I mean nobody would dare, would they?" Powerful first-hand accounts, the crowd fired up by wild stories and the use of new technology are all there. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Facts have lost their meaning," writes Sarah Dunant. "In their place, belief has taken over." Sarah discusses QAnon, widening social divisions, and her conversations with her hairdresser. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"As our physical reality is reduced down to a few rooms or a view from a window," writes Sarah Dunant, "our ability to conjure up things we're not able to experience is going to be vital to feed our imaginations." Sarah argues that - given social distancing - imagination is going to be an exceedingly powerful inner muscle when it comes to our mental survival. She offers us a few of her stand out images to get us started. Producer: Adele Armstrong

New Generation Thinker Catherine Fletcher and Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones join Rana Mitter to discuss how women's stories have shaped art and advertising from the baroque painter Artemesia Gentileschi to the suffragettes promoting boot polish in 20th-century England. And against the backdrop of the Me Too movement, Rana hears how the best-selling novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 became a rallying cry for young women in south Korea. Catherine Fletcher's new book about the Italian Renaissance peels back the glittering art of the period to discover the political and military turmoil beneath while Jonathan Jones tells the story of Artemesia Gentileschi who channeled the trauma of her rape at 17 into a body of powerful and challenging work. Cho Nam-Joo's novel, translated by Jamie Chang, raises questions about misogyny and discrimination in today's Korea. Rana visits the Art of Advertising exhibition at the Bodleian Library with curator Julie-Ann Lambert and Selina Todd, professor of modern history at Oxford University, where he explores how female buying power and social mobility transformed the consumer market. Catherine Fletcher's book is called The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance. Jonathan Jones has written a biography called Artemisia Gentileschi (Lives of the Artists). An exhibition of her work runs at the National Gallery in London from 4th April to 26th July. The Art of Advertising runs at the Bodleian Library in Oxford until August 31st. Admission is free. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo is translated by Jamie Chang. Selina Todd's books include The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class, and Tastes of Honey: the making of Shelagh Delaney and a cultural revolution. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on the radio. You can find a collection of programmes and podcasts on the Free Thinking programme website called New Research https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 Also in the archives you can download a Free Thinking Landmark on The Prince with Catherine Fletcher with Sarah Dunant, Gisela Stuart and Erica Benner debating Machiavelli's ideas https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08h0l9j and Breaking Free - Martin Luther’s Revolution is debated by Peter Stanford, Ulinka Rublack and Diarmaid MacCulloch hosted by Anne McElvoy at LSE https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08nf02y Producer: Paula McGinley

"I am holding history in my hands," writes Sarah Dunant. "The date on the letter is February 1490...the place, the city of Mantua in Italy". As she delves through the Mantuan State Archive, Sarah reflects on the task of understanding and writing history. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"We have been here before, many times" writes Sarah Dunant as she charts some key moments in history when the world has been gripped by fear over the spread of disease. From Columbus and the outbreak of syphilis in 1495, to cholera at Mecca in the 1860s ....and Wuhan today. She ponders what insights this present crisis might bring. Producer: Adele Armstrong

William Sieghart’s The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-and-True Prescriptions for the Heart, Mind and Soul was one of the publishing sensations of the past few years. Anyone who came to the event Intelligence Squared built around it – when Jeanette Winterson, Helena Bonham Carter, Jason Isaacs, Sue Perkins and Tom Burke joined Sieghart in celebrating the power of poetry – will remember what a magical evening it was.Now, after huge demand, Sieghart is back with a second volume – The Poetry Pharmacy Returns – and once again Intelligence Squared brought it to all to life on stage. Whether your spiritual ailment is loneliness, heartache or anxiety, Sieghart has a poem to meet your needs. He was joined in conversation by acclaimed novelist and broadcaster Sarah Dunant. With their signature warmth and wit, they discussed poems from the new book, each one matched to a particular problem, whether it’s unrequited love, fear of the unknown or feeling daunted by the challenges of family life. And we had a stellar cast of actors to perform the poems: Dominic West, Nina Sosanya, Greta Scacchi and Martha West.The event was chaired by author, playwright and broadcaster Bonnie Greer. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"Finding, promoting and revaluing women artists through the ages", writes Sarah Dunant, "has been one of the great – albeit still ongoing – cultural success stories of our time". Sarah discusses the undervalued women of art who are being rediscovered in large numbers - and the very modern stories they tell. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"It is the most extraordinary thing about humans", writes Sarah Dunant, "that along with our - albeit limited - ability to prepare for an unknown future, we find it very hard to accept the unassailable fact of our own end". Sarah describes her experience talking with a group of strangers one evening at a Death Cafe. Producer: Adele Armstrong

For the September blues, writes Sarah Dunant, "usually time is the healer...you buckle down and get on with it...and by the end of October, things are on track for winter". But not, she thinks, this year. Sarah describes why she feels this year's September malaise has a different quality to it. Producer: Adele Armstrong.

As Professor Brian Cox adds a number of arena shows to a live tour which has already made the Guinness World Records, he talks about turning science into an art form.The National Gallery's latest exhibition focuses on the creative partnership between Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547). Sarah Dunant, who has written novels set in this period of the Borgias, Medicis and Machiavelli, considers the cultural, historical and geographical context of the artists and how they were considered at the time. Ed Sheeran has 9 songs from his latest album in the UK top 10 Singles Chart. Music journalist Laura Snapes explains how.In response to the Brexit referendum, the National Theatre has created a new play, My Country; a work in progress. Critics from both sides of the political fence, Susannah Clapp and Lloyd Evans, review this collaboration between director Rufus Norris and the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Hannah Robins.

Authors Sarah Dunant and Erica Benner, MP Gisela Stuart and historian Catherine Fletcher join Philip Dodd to explore the continuing relevance of Machiavelli's The Prince which was first circulated in 1513.Sarah Dunant's series of Renaissance novels include Blood and Beauty: the Borgias and In The Name of The Family: A Novel of Machiavelli and The Borgias. Erica Benner has written Be Like the Fox: Machiavelli's Lifelong Quest For Freedom. Catherine Fletcher is the author of The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' MediciProducer: Robyn Read

Sarah Dunant reflects on fame and the cult of celebrity following the recent success of the film "20 feet from Stardom".The film about backing singers - the unsung heroes of pop music - scooped best documentary at the Oscars. Sarah discusses how celebrity culture has given us a society where the dream is no longer to be the backing singer, but to take centre stage. "Andy Warhol" she writes "with his fifteen minutes of fame, has turned out to be a prophet as much as an artist".But "in a world where everyone wants to be the lead singer" she asks "who is left to swell the sound? Or more importantly to appreciate it".Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant compares our reaction today to climate change with responses in the seventeenth century to extreme weather.Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Wilson meets Kylie Minogue to discuss her new album and Harry Hill and Sean Foley, creators of the new 'X Factor' musical. He talks to writer John Banville about his new take on Raymond Chandler and to two of the stars of the King of Dance. Sarah Dunant reviews the Veronese exhibition at the National Gallery and Kirsty Lang meets John Morton, creator of Twenty Twelve about his new series W1A.

Sarah Dunant reflects that today's harsher judgement of some of the sexual behaviour prevalent in the 1970s springs in part from the freedom forged in that decade. "Without the seventies, we would never have had the debate, the public awareness, the sense of outrage or even the occasionally blunt tool of the law to judge the present and the past."Producer: Sheila Cook.

Actress Cate Blanchett joins Samira Ahmed to discuss her role in Woody Allen's latest film, Blue Jasmine. Renaissance scholar Alexander Lee, Sarah Dunant and Radio 3 New Generation Thinker John Gallagher reassess the Renaissance and consider whether our view of the period is seen through rose-tinted glasses. Maxim Leo on his new memoir, Red Love, and the compromises involved in living in the DDR. Art critic Joanne Harwood reviews Tate Modern's retrospective of the late Brazilian artist Mira Schendel.

It's exactly 500 years this summer since Niccolo Machiavelli wrote his famous book 'The Prince', on how to gain and retain political power. Sarah Dunant takes us back to the hot Tuscan summer when Machiavelli put down his thoughts, including the view that in politics, virtue must be tempered by expediency.He based his thesis on what he'd witnessed during his career as a diplomat and adviser in Florence, and also on lessons learned from Ancient Greek and Roman historians.While fortune had smiled on him during the fourteen years he served the Florentine Republic, it stopped doing so when the Medicis were restored and he was imprisoned and tortured. Released into exile on his family's estate south of Florence, he started writing the book that became a foundation of political theory. In a further twist of fortune, his exile, far from being his ruin, made his name for posterity. He was never completely rehabilitated in Florence, but ended up writing one of the most provocative and influential political works of all time.Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Sarah Dunant says Pope Francis should use his Twitter account to demonstrate that he's prepared to deal with the 'mess' inside the Catholic Church. Perhaps, she says, with this Tweet, he's already started: 'If we wish to follow Christ closely, we cannot choose an easy, quiet life'.

The recent New Yorker cover showing Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie as a gay couple, delighted by the American Supreme Court ruling that the Defence of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, prompts Sarah Dunant to reflect on the power of cartoons to convey social messages. "Those cartoon characters - or their puppet equivalents - which touch us at our most formative moments of early childhood will become part of the bedrock of our cultural belonging." Producer: Sheila Cook.

As Britain basks in post-Wimbledon glory, amid the Ashes, Sarah Dunant reflects on how sport has - throughout history - been used by the authorities to help populations let off steam.In Florence, in the late 1500s, townspeople played a form of football that allowed them to wrestle, punch and immobilize their opponents in any way they liked. Venice had a spectacularly violent sport of bridge-fighting where opposing teams "armed with sticks...dipped in boiling oil beat the hell out of each other".Civic sporting therapy - past and present - has for centuries, Sarah argues, "proved a creative alternative to our recurring tendency to kill each other".Producer: Adele Armstrong.

At a party to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the feminist press Virago last week, writes Sarah Dunant, the current head of the company told the story of how one night she asked one of Virago's founders why she had started the company. "To change the world of course" was the reply.Forty years on, Sarah, a Virago author herself, wonders just how much Virago has changed the world.She talks about how, a few weeks ago, as she waited for an hour in the studio of the Today Programme to be interviewed for a piece about female characters in fiction, she didn't hear a single women's voice.She tells how last month, the Australian writer and academic, Kathryn Heyman, got into a very public spat with The London Review of Books because of a dearth of women writers in its pages.And the ousting of Julia Gillard as Australia's Prime Minister last week is the most striking example that Virago's mission is not yet complete.But Sarah takes some comfort from the fact that Kevin Rudd, the new PM, has an unprecedented six new women in his cabinet.Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Does compassion inhibit rational political debate? To discuss, Philip Dodd is joined by MP David Blunkett, IPPR Director Nick Pearce, and Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Adriana Sinclair. Sarah Dunant reviews a new Frederico Barocci exhibition, arguing that the artist should be added to the list of Italian Renaissance masters. Rory Carroll discusses his new book on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. And Annalisa Piras reflects on what the surprises of the Italian election can tell us about the country's cultural climate.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr begins the new year talking about lies and secrets, and the increasing blurring of public and private. Deborah Cohen charts family secrets and shame from the Victorian times to the present day, while Sarah Dunant and TV producer Alex Graham discuss how confession became entertainment, and the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz listens to the hidden feelings of his patients. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Sarah Dunant reflects on the role of history in society - and how it changes over time. Research and archaeology, as well as the views of the times in which historians live, change their perception of the past. Dunant also asks what historical fiction takes from academic study - and what it, in turn, can teach those who study the past. She also asks whether the humanities are as valued as they should be. Do we underrate them at our peril? Producer Rosamund Jones.

"For moneyed Americans", writes Sarah Dunant "perfect dentistry is a matter of course". For Europeans- and she counts herself within that number - the situation is rather different!Sarah takes a sideways look at teeth through the ages...and dentistry in times of austerity. And for those whose chief loathing is a mouthful of shining American teeth, she offers hope. "Yaeba", the latest craze to hit Japan where young fashonista girls are getting their teeth cosmetically altered to appear more crooked!Producer Adele Armstrong.

"Much of what some would call my eccentric wardrobe derives from charity shops...By temperament, I'm a historian and the sense of an object with a provenance somehow ties me more securely to the present" writes Sarah Dunant.As she rummages for bargains in her local charity shop, Sarah reflects on the history of charity shops and their growing importance in times of austerity.Producer Adele Armstrong.

As the Man Booker shortlist is published, Sarah Dunant explores how new writers and readers find each other. "While an unhappy 19th century Russian marriage which leads to a fatal adulterous affair may be irresistible to one reader" she writes, "a man who wakes up as a beetle may be what presses the button of another. That is both the wonder and nightmare of selling novels". Sarah explores how - in the "brutal climate" facing the publishing industry (with the onslaught of supermarket and internet price wars) - literary prizes provide a much needed boost for authors. But these prizes, she warns, are a kind of lottery. Producer Adele Armstrong.

"Once again the snake pit of policing sexual behaviour and the conflict between men and women's attitudes of it have become news" writes Sarah Dunant.She discusses the remarks by the American would-be senator who claimed that after "legitimate rape", women's bodies protect them from pregnancy. She looks at George Galloway's assertion that what Julian Assange did or didn't do in bed was simple bad sexual etiquette. And she discusses the controversy surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey.She starts from a very personal perspective, and broadens the debate on attitudes to sex by looking at it from an historical perspective. She concludes that a storm of female outrage serves only to stifle debate and that men must be involved in the discussions.Producer Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant looks at different aspects of debt, including the debt owed to those who have been a force for change in Arab countries. Producer: Sheila Cook.

Mariella celebrates a renaissance in historical fiction writing with authors Philippa Gregory, Sarah Dunant and Adrian Goldsworthy. The programme also includes an interview with Hilary Mantel, author of Booker prize winning novel "Wolf Hall" about the Tudor politician Thomas Cromwell.

Sarah Dunant:You Make Me Feel So Young-Frank Sinatra;Surge Illuminare Jerusalem-Palestrina