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Author, Adventurer and motivational speaker Alastair Humphreys has gone from cycling the world, adventuring across India and rowing the Atlantic, to appreciating the micro-adventures available on our own doorsteps.He's so enthusiastic about finding the adventure in small things, that he's written a book on it entitled Microadventures - along with many more books - including the Wainwright Prize for Nature - nominated Local: A Year Exploring a Single MapAl is vegan for environmental reasons and admits that while the environment is important to him now, his younger self wouldn't have necessarily thought twice about hopping on a plane.We talk about favourite adventures, running with friends - or rather, a lack of them, and how at one point he would never have even considered talking on a vegan podacast!What's next for Al? That too is still a bit of a mystery, as he continues his writing, newsletters, speaking and social "influencing" while still very much deciding how his time is most worth-while being spent.Adventures await.Find out more on all Al's work at alastairhumphreys.comFollow him on Instagram at @al_humphreys
Motherhood in light of Advent. Find us on Youtube. As we focus on the incarnation and birth of Christ in these next few weeks of Advent, nature writer Lucy Jones joins The Bulletin for a conversation about the neuroscience of pregnancy, the social dilemma of modern motherhood, and the power of collaborative care across communities. GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN: Follow the show in your podcast app of choice. Find us on YouTube. Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice. Leave a comment in Spotify with your feedback on the discussion—we may even respond! ABOUT THE GUEST: Lucy Jones is a writer and journalist based in England. She previously worked at New Musical Express (NME) and The Daily Telegraph, and her writing on culture, science and ecology has been published in Gentlemen's Quarterly (GQ), The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and the New Statesman. She is the author of Foxes Unearthed, which won the Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award in 2015; Losing Eden, which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize and named a Times and a Telegraph book of the year; and Matrescence, which has been longlisted for the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction. ABOUT THE BULLETIN: The Bulletin is a weekly (and sometimes more!) current events show from Christianity Today hosted and moderated by Clarissa Moll, with senior commentary from Russell Moore (Christianity Today's editor in chief) and Mike Cosper (director, CT Media). Each week, the show explores current events and breaking news and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world. We also offer special one-on-one conversations with writers, artists, and thought leaders whose impact on the world brings important significance to a Christian worldview, like Bono, Sharon McMahon, Harrison Scott Key, Frank Bruni, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In today's episode, host Samuel Goldsmith is in discussion with writer and broadcaster Kate Humble. Kate shares delightful anecdotes about her cooking adventures, from the nostalgic crumpets toasted on an open fire to her transformative lentil soup. She discusses her love for manual labour, the joy of cooking with fresh ingredients and gives insights on farm life, vibrant community support and why Christmas dinner might just be overrated. The conversation explores Kate's new cookbook, "Home Made," which celebrates true artisanship and the art of simple, good food. Listen as Kate reveals her favourite dishes, offers insightful cooking tips, and shares her unique traditions, like enjoying soup on the beach for Christmas. This episode highlights the beauty of simplicity and the importance of good ingredients. Kate Humble is a writer, smallholder, campaigner and one of the UK's best-known TV presenters. She started her television career as a researcher, later presenting programmes such as ‘Animal Park', ‘Springwatch' and ‘Autumnwatch', ‘Lambing Live', ‘Living with Nomads', ‘Extreme Wives', ‘Back to the Land', ‘A Country Life for Half the Price' and ‘Escape to the Farm'. Her book Thinking on My Feet was shortlisted for both the Wainwright Prize and the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year. Subscribers to the Good Food app via App Store get access to the show ad-free, and with regular bonus content such as interviews recorded at the good food show. To get started, download the Good Food app today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Broadcaster Kate Humble explains the joy of living in the moment, the glory of nature and the importance of shunning the algorithms. Kate is a broadcaster specialising in wildlife and science programmes, including Countryfile, Springwatch and Blue Planet Live. A champion of the environment, nature conservation and rural affairs, she is president of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and founded Humble by Nature, a rural skills centre on her farm in Wales. As well as starring in over 70 television programmes, Kate is the author of seven books, including A Year of Living Simply, Home Cooked, Where the Hearth Is and Thinking on My Feet, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Wainwright Prize. Kate's latest book, Home Made: Recipes from the Countryside is a collection of over 60 simple, sustainable recipes from her very own kitchen table, alongside inspiring stories from 20 individuals who play a role in bringing food to us. Kate's book choices are: ** I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith ** Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley ** Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton ** Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ** Station 11 by Emily St John Mandel Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season seven of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women's Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don't want to miss the rest of season seven? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.
How do we move beyond our myopic focus on carbon/CO2 as the index of our harms to the world? What can we do to heal the whole biosphere? And what role is played by water-as-verb, forest-as-verb, ocean-as-verb? This week's guest is an environmental journalist and author who has answers to all of these questions - and more. Judith Schwartz is an author who tells stories to explore and illuminate scientific concepts and cultural nuance. She takes a clear-eyed look at global environmental, economic, and social challenges, and finds insights and solutions in natural systems. She writes for numerous publications, including The Guardian and Scientific American and her first two books are music to our regenerative ears. The first is called 'Cows Save the Planet' and the next is 'Water in Plan Sight'. Her latest, “The Reindeer Chronicles”, was long listed for the Wainwright Prize and is an astonishingly uplifting exploration of what committed people are achieving as they dedicate themselves to earth repair, water repair and human repair. Judith was recently at the 'Embracing Nature's Complexity' conference, organised by the Biotic Pump Greening Group which offers revolutionary new insights into eco-hydro-climatological landscape restoration. She's a contributor to the new book, 'What if we Get it Right?' edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who was one of the editors of All We can Save.Judith has been described as 'one of ecology's most indispensable writers' and when you read her work, you'll understand the magnificent depth and breadth of her insight into who we are and how we can help the world to heal. Judith's website https://www.judithdschwartz.com/Do The Impossible website https://www.dotheimpossible.earth/Embracing Nature's Complexity Conference https://www.thebioticpump.com/tum-ias-conference-2024Judith's paper at the conference https://bioticregulation.ru/conf2024/Judith-Schwartz.pdfBook - What if we get it right? https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-If-We-Get-Right-ebook/dp/B0BPX5GWP8
The Outdoors Fix is a podcast to inspire you to make the outdoors a bigger part of your life. It's hosted by Liv Bolton. In this episode, Liv Bolton goes for a walk in Swanscombe Marshes by the River Thames in Kent with the adventurer and author Alastair Humphreys. Al's relationship with the outdoors has changed a lot over the years - he's been on extraordinary expeditions all around the world, travelling through over 80 countries by bicycle, boat and on foot, but more recently he's focused on spreading the message about embracing the outdoors and adventure where we all live, through his concept of Microadventures. Al's latest book, Local, which has been shortlisted for the 2024 Wainwright Prize in the nature writing category, saw him spend a year exploring a map of his neighbourhood - one grid square at a time. His passion about outdoors adventures that are accessible to all of us and possible within our current routines, is totally infectious and I've wanted to chat to him for years, so I hope you enjoy the episode! The Outdoors Fix is a podcast produced and hosted by Liv Bolton @liv_outsideuk Episodes in each series are released fortnightly. The next episode will be released on Sunday 13 October. You can find photos of the guests on Instagram @TheOutdoorsFix The Outdoors Fix book is out now: http://bit.ly/3GJDLJc This episode of The Outdoors Fix is kindly supported by outdoor footwear brand Merrell. The post Alastair Humphreys: Author and adventurer getting more Local appeared first on The Outdoors Fix.
Bestselling author of ‘The Outrun,' Amy Liptrot is proof that change is not only possible but life-saving. When Amy found herself in rehab for alcoholism aged 30, she left London behind and returned to her family's farm on Orkney, a remote Island off the coast of Scotland. Overcoming addiction on an isolated island, Amy found solace in the wild landscapes that she'd grown up in. Her outstanding memoir ‘The Outrun' is an account of these experiences and in 2016 the book was awarded the Wainwright Prize and the PEN/Ackerley prize. The film adaptation of The Outrun starring Saoirse Ronan is in cinemas later this week, it is incredibly beautiful and an absolute must see.In this profound and illuminating conversation, Amy and Annie talk about The Outrun, Amy's involvement in the film version and what it's like to see your life played out on screen. They talk about Amy's childhood on Orkney and the effect that her mother's strict religion and father's mental health had on her upbringing. They also talk about the path of addiction, getting sober, different kinds of loneliness, the healing power of nature and the definition of home. This was a truly intimate and deep conversation looking at life's biggest questions.The Outrun is in Cinemas this Friday.GET IN TOUCHContact us at changespod@gmail.com with your emails and voice notes.Changes is a deaf friendly podcast, transcripts can be accessed here: https://www.anniemacmanus.com/changesPlease Note: The transcript is automatically generated in case you come across any typos or misquotes during your reading. Enjoy the episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Alice Vincent is a writer and broadcaster, and the author of Rootbound: Rewilding a life and Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival, both of which were longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. In this conversation we talk about how books begin and evolve for Alice, how she structures her time between columns, book writing and her newsletter and finding home in a balcony garden.LinksWhy Women Grow - Alice VincentRootbound - Alice VincentHark - Alice Vincent (pre-order)Savour Newsletter - savour.substack.comHome Matters - Penny WincerNot Too Busy To Write on Substack - pennywincer.substack.comThe next Book Proposal Group Program begins Oct 1st. You can book your place at pennywincerwrites.comYou can find all the books from Series 9 of Not To Busy To Write at Bookshop.org
In this guest episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna welcomes back the ever popular guest that is Clover Stroud who shares her One Thing; nothing else matters in parenting other than loving your children deeply and making sure you communicate that love well.Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist, writing regularly for The Sunday Times, The Guardian andThe Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. She also hosts a popular podcast called Tiny Acts of Bravery.Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild and Sleepless Nights: A Mother's Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated 'best books of the year'.Her fourth book Giant on the Skyline is now flying off the shelves having been released on the 9th May to rave reviews.She is currently living in Washington DC with her husband and the youngest three of her five children.Follow Clover on Instagram where she shares the true messiness of love and life.
Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist, writing regularly for The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. She also hosts a popular podcast called Tiny Acts of Bravery. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild and Sleepless Nights: A Mother's Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated 'best books of the year'. She is currently living in Washington DC with her husband and the youngest three of her five children. Her latest book, The Giant on the Skyline, is an inspiring memoir about home, family and belonging. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online! Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories
About This EpisodeIn this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Tanya Shadrick - author of The Cure for Sleep: her memoir of a late waking life, a story of breaking free, and making a more creative life; Tanya is founder of the Selkie Press; editor of the Wainwright Prize-listed Wild Woman Swimming. She is a community builder of writers and storytellers through Substack where she writes, and invites you to share your stories.We delve together into: What it takes - and costs - to build an authentic life of one's own, while continuing to honour our roles within families, workplaces, and communities.And explore four key themes:The voices around us - and the beliefs that we form about ourselves and our abilities because of what is praised or punished.Our Size and Shape - and how related to beliefs about ourselves, and our abilities, we (perhaps) make ourselves smallerWork - and how writing about work is central to Tanya's storytellingThe importance of service, of finding the best in ourselves, and each other, for the good of others, and to deliver use and meaning to othersThree key encouragementsLook how far you've come… We can forget how hard we once found things that are now a core part of our senior roles - public speaking, say, or preparing a visual presentation for stakeholders or investors. Write 500 words from the you of now to the twenty-something you once were, starting out. Be in dialogue. Remember the vivid details. It releases a kind of energy that helps us be better mentors and encouragers to our graduate staff and our career returners. A list of what you love… spend an hour making a list of 100 things you love about your work life. It will seem impossible to get anywhere near that number. Your first few items might seem so simple, so insufficient - just a list of obvious things: the salary, the pension, the status, the holiday allowance. But as you persist, the process starts to yield surprising results - by the time you get to around sixty, or eighty, most people find themselves remembering their deepest values, their fiercest ambitions and so on.How do you talk about your job to those you don't work with? This is a very different exercise from crafting ‘an elevator pitch' and its purpose is deeper, broader. Having a simple, authentic way to speak with quiet pride about what you do is one of the most useful ways to connect with other people - it extends to them the possibility of sharing what matters to them too: whether that's their paid work, their passion, or an unpaid voluntary role.Contact Tanya via her website, for writing resources, and podcasts:www.thecureforsleep.comhttps://tanyashadrick.substack.com/To contact Anni Townend anni@annitownend.com www.annitownend.comAbout Tanya ShadrickI first heard of Tanya through a friend that I met some years ago via Instagram. Knowing my love of life writing, and of memoir, she asked me if I had read, and did I know Tanya Shadrick. I didn't. However the title of her book excited me, I wanted to know more about her, and about her writing. I read the book over a matter of days, snatching moments in my day to read, and was inspired by her openness and generosity of spirit. More recently she has shared via Substack and Instagram her experience of being with her mother at the end of her life, and her death. Tanya writes beautifully, poetically and is an inspiration to us to wake up, to make time to find and be creative, and to share our stories.
Winding through questions of philosophy, science, and meaning making, this week's episode brings together vital thoughts on what it means to live an embodied life in an entangled world. Guest Merlin Sheldrake shares the motivations that drew him to study fungi and the complex ways this study has shaped his life and thought. As Merlin shares, “an account of life that doesn't include fungi is an account of a living world that doesn't exist.” Our relationship with fungi is non-negotiable. Merlin invites listeners to pay attention to what this relationship means and how it shapes not only our lives, but the entanglement of life across the world. With this, Merlin also shares the ways fungal life offers a diversity of expressions and possibilities – offering up the perspective that the diversity and complexity of relationship and expression is what makes life fertile. Across the episode, Merlin and Ayana contemplate the history and meaning of science, and come to see life as a process and a relationship. The meaning we make does not come out of a vacuum, but rather out of relationship. Life itself, in its many forms, is improvisational. Understanding this, we are left with the provocation: How might we speak to the world, rather than about it? Merlin is a biologist and author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and winner of the Royal Society Book Prize and the Wainwright Prize. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, and works with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks and the Fungi Foundation. A keen brewer and fermenter, he is fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and more-than-human organisms. (merlinsheldrake.com)Music by Matthewdavid. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show
5x15 is thrilled to announce a special event with multi-award-winning writer and biologist Merlin Sheldrake, author of the smash-hit bestseller Entangled Life, in conversation Gaia Vince. The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them. They can change our minds, heal our bodies and even help us avoid environmental disaster; they are metabolic masters, earth-makers and key players in most of nature's processes. In Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake takes us on a mind-altering journey into their spectacular world. Winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the Wainwright Prize, and named a Book of the Year in The Times, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, New Statesman and Time, among others, Entangled Life has been translated into twenty languages since its publication. It has now been reissued in a brand new illustrated edition, with over 100 spectacular full-colour images showcasing this wondrous lifeform as never before. Join us in December to hear Merlin Sheldrake live in conversation, revealing how these extraordinary organisms can transform our understanding of our planet and life itself. Speakers Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and a writer. He received a Ph.D. in Tropical Ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He is a research associate of the Vrije University, Amsterdam, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation and the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks. Gaia Vince is an honorary senior research fellow at UCL and a science writer and broadcaster interested in the interplay between humans and the planetary environment. She has held senior editorial posts at Nature and New Scientist, and her writing has featured in newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, The Times and Scientific American. She also writes and presents science programmes for radio and television. Her research takes her across the world: she has visited more than 60 countries, lived in three and is currently based in London. In 2015, she became the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize solo for her debut, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, and she is also the author of Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty and Time. Her latest book is Nomad Century.is an urgent investigation of the most underreported, seismic consequence of climate change: how it will force us to change where – and how – we live. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online! Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories
Bob Gilbert talks about the wonders of inner-city nature, the pleasure and inspiration to be drawn from observing and connecting with the everyday, and explores whether it's possible to feel as close to God in the ordinary streets of a city as in the natural world. Bob Gilbert is an urban naturalist, broadcaster, author and a long-standing campaigner for inner-city conservation. His book 'Ghost Trees: Nature and People in a London Parish' was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. His latest book is 'The Missing Musk: A Casebook of Mysteries from the Natural World'.
The Six Ideas to Change the World series, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, continues in October with award-winning writer and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the international best-seller The Sixth Extinction. Plastics are poisoning us. In the midst of a global pollution crisis, research clearly illustrates the toxic effects of microplastics, which both release and attract dangerous chemicals. But while plastics are a relatively recent human invention, they have become so ubiquitous as to seem indispensable. Will our planet ever be rid of them? Join us to hear Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert discuss life beyond plastics and the wider conundrums posed by human inventions and technologies; how they contribute to and create environmental problems, but also retain important uses and may even be used as solutions. Speakers Elizabeth Kolbert is the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change and the international best-seller The Sixth Extinction, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. For her work at The New Yorker, where she's been a staff writer since 1999, she has received two National Magazine Awards and the Blake-Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her latest book, Under a White Sky, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation. Kolbert lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband and children. Six Ideas to Change the World We are at a critical point in the global response to climate change, and the conversation around the central issues remains complex. Amidst numerous debates and conflicting narratives, public discourse runs the risk of information overload, at a time when urgent action is necessary, at both an individual and collective level. This curated series of live online events, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, offers a clearer path, spotlighting the most compelling, important and hard-hitting work being published today — the six ideas that will shape the future of our planet. Tune in each month to hear stories and ideas we can all learn from. Whether it's advice on changing diets, or solutions to the world's water crisis, these conversations will suggest a blueprint for what we must do in the years ahead. Each event will feature the author of a recent work, in conversation with an expert host about the most important issues and takeaways. Audiences will also have the chance to submit questions. The recordings of previous events in the series are available to view on 5x15's Youtube channel. With thanks for your generous support for 5x15's online series. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories
The first event in 5x15's new series with Rathbones, in collaboration with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is a celebration of Nature's Diversity. This panel discussion explores how nature can teach us to challenge traditional expectations. From plants and fungi living outside orthodoxies, to the symbolic connections between plants and queerness through LGBTQ+ history, and the stories of writers and artists who have been drawn to nature, our expert panel of scientists and storytellers will illuminate how the natural world can inspire new ways of thinking. Brigitte Baptiste is one of Colombia's most eminent scientists, an expert in matters related to the environment and biodiversity, and a leading expert in gender diversity. She was director for 10 years of the Alexander Von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute and currently serves as Chancellor of Universidad Ean, a higher education institution focused in sustainable entrepreneurship. She is considered an expert in environmental issues and biodiversity and she is an important leader in gender diversity, being recognized for her participation as a transgender woman in international conferences related to these issues. She has also been a reference in achieving important bridges between politics, academia and science. She has recently been engaged in several projects related to gender equality and inclusion, launching a fund to support LGTBI and transgender people to access higher education. Jonathan Drori is a trustee of The Eden Project and Cambridge University Botanic Garden, an Ambassador for the Woodland Trust and the WWF, and Honorary Professor at Birmingham University's Institute of Forest Research. Previously, Jon was a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and for BBC TV, he was responsible for more than fifty science documentaries and series. He is known for several botanical TED talks, which have been viewed millions of times. Jonathan is also the author of the runaway best sellers, Around the World In 80 Trees and Around the World in 80 Plants, revealing in awe-inspiring detail how the worlds of trees and plants are intricately entwined with our own history, culture and folklore. Luke Turner's second book Men At War is a critically-acclaimed account of masculinity and sexuality during the Second World War and how the conflict impacts our culture today. Turner's first book Out Of The Woods, a memoir of desire, faith and an exploration of human identity within ‘nature' and London's Epping Forest, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. He is co-founder of online music and arts magazine The Quietus and has contributed to the Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, Vice, Dazed, NME and the BBC, among other publications and broadcasters. Dr Bat Maria Vorontsova is a Kew researcher who studies grasses, with a particular focus on tropical African diversity, evolutionary history, and the history of tropical grasslands and savannas. By describing and classifying herbarium specimens, Bat's work at Kew enriches our understanding of ecosystems and their function. Bat's primary research focuses on the grass family (Poaceae) in Madagascar— a long- term project that encompasses diversity and classification, ecological roles, evolutionary relationships, and uses of grasses. Bat is also interested in the history and development of classifications and botanical nomenclature. If it is about grasses, Bat would like to hear about it.
What is the meaning of home? As the nights begin to draw in and we head into the autumn, 5x15 is delighted to welcome the wonderful authors Kate Humble and Helen Rebanks for a special conversation about the time we spend at home. Kate Humble has inspired many readers with her positive and purposeful approach to life, whether it's reconnecting with nature or changing our lifestyles. Now, in her new book Where the Hearth Is, she turns her attention to life indoors. In the move away from office buildings and traditional workplaces, how do we create spaces that feel happy and healthy, and make the most of our time spent with loved ones? In her debut book The Farmer's Wife, Helen Rebanks offers a gorgeous and unvarnished glimpse at the labour and glory of keeping a home and raising a family. Populated with chickens, sheepdogs, ponies and cattle, and joined by her husband James and their four children, Helen's story on the farm offers a chance to think about where our food comes from, and who puts it on the table. Together, Kate and Helen will reflect on the aspects of everyday life that are perhaps too easily taken for granted, in conversation with host, literary critic and journalist Alex Clark. Join us for a heartwarming and insightful evening in the company of these two fantastic speakers. Speakers Kate Humble is a writer, smallholder, campaigner and one of the UK's best-known TV presenters. She started her television career as a researcher, later presenting programmes such as Animal Park, Springwatch and Autumnwatch, Lambing Live, Living with Nomads, Extreme Wives, Back to the Land, A Country Life for Half the Price and Escape to the Farm. Her other books include Humble by Nature, Friend for Life, Thinking on My Feet, A Year of Living Simply and her first cookbook, Home Cooked. Thinking on My Feet was shortlisted for both the Wainwright Prize and the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year The Farmer's Wife is the debut book by Helen Rebanks. She and her family work as a tight-knit team that have made their farm globally important with their farming innovations. They advise internationally and host events regularly at the farm to share their expertise and encourage others to farm sustainably. Our Host Alex Clark is a critic, journalist and broadcaster. A co-host of Graham Norton's Book Club, she is also a regular on Radio 4 and writes on a wide range of subjects for the Guardian, the Observer, the Irish Times and the Times Literary Supplement. She is a patron of the Cambridge Literary Festival, and has judged many literary awards, including the Booker prize. She is an experienced chair of live events, and lives in Kilkenny. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories
Doreen Cunningham is an Irish-British writer born in Wales. After studying engineering she worked briefly in climate related research at NERC and in storm modelling at Newcastle University, before turning to journalism. She worked for the BBC World Service as a international news presenter, editor, producer and reporter, for twenty years. She won the RSL Giles St Aubyn Award 2020, was shortlisted for the Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writers Award 2021, and longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for writing on Global Conservation, for Soundings, her first book. Composting toilets https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/dec/09/no-flush-movement-composting-toilet-clean-water-waste-fertiliser-eco-revolution Earhart the grey whale https://www.pugetsoundexpress.com/10-gray-whale-sounders-have-returned/ Indigenous languages https://en.unesco.org/courier/2019-1/indigenous-languages-knowledge-and-hope Travel-sickness remedy https://www.rivieratravel.co.uk/blog/12-ways-banish-seasickness Regrowing spring onions https://www.allrecipes.com/article/save-money-diy-fresh-green-onions/ Take Me To Church by Sinéad O'Connor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMzY_KQIKjU&pp=ygUlVGFrZSBNZSBUbyBDaHVyY2ggYnkgU2luw6lhZCBPJ0Nvbm5vcg%3D%3D This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm
Mark O'Connell's new book A Thread of Violence is the writer's attempt to understand Malcolm MacArthur, the figure at the centre of one of Ireland's most notorious crimes, and — to quote Taoiseach Charles Haughey — the “grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented” events that led to the perpetrator's eventual arrest in the home of the Irish Attorney General. It is a crime that has haunted O'Connell for decades and which leads him to meeting and getting to know the now elderly, long-freed MacArthur. As this unlikely acquaintance grows, however, O'Connell not only comes to question the possibility of ever coming to any conclusion about what actually drove this previously law-abiding local eccentric to murder two strangers in the summer of 1982, but also calls into doubt his own motivations for embarking on the project in the first place, and the risks he is taking in his own life to complete it.Buy A Thread of Violence: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/a-thread-of-violenceMark O'Connell is an award-winning Irish writer. His first book, To Be a Machine, won the 2018Wellcome Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize. In 2019, he became the firstever non-fiction writer to win the prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. His second book,Notes From an Apocalypse was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. He is a contributor to the NewYork Review of Books, and his work has appeared in the New Yorker.Listen to Alex Freiman's Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1 Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
5x15 is delighted to welcome two best-selling and award-winning authors back to our virtual stage. This time, Lucy Jones and Amy Liptrot will be in conversation about Jones's highly anticipated new book MATRESCENCE: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Motherhood. Other than adolescence, there is no other time in a human's life course that entails such dramatic change than pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood. So why has this transformation been so neglected by science, medicine and philosophy, and gone largely unrepresented across literature and the arts? Lucy Jones's new book is a groundbreaking, deeply personal investigation into the emerging concept of 'matrescence', and an urgent examination of the modern institution of motherhood. Join us for an inspiring conversation between Lucy Jones and Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun and The Instant. They will be discussing important questions around motherhood and femininity; interdependence and individual identity; as well as our relationships with each other and the living world. Praise for Lucy Jones and MATRESCENCE 'A beautiful contemplation of the extraordinary yet ordinary metamorphosis that adult humans undergo as they become mothers ... I was entranced ... Matrescence is a passionate and powerful maternal roar for change' - GAIA VINCE 'Hypnotic, fascinating and long overdue. I am so glad it exists. A gift of a book and told beautifully.' - LAURA DOCKRILL 'A beautiful, intelligent book that is as tender and moving as it is demanding and urgent. There is something insightful and original in the way Lucy Jones seamlessly combines the analytical with the emotional, and it is an absolutely essential new addition to the literature of mothering and parenthood.' - CLOVER STROUD Lucy Jones is a writer and journalist based in Hampshire, England. She previously worked at NME and the Daily Telegraph, and her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in GQ, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and the New Statesman. Her bestselling book Losing Eden was a Times and Telegraph book of the year in 2020. Amy Liptrot is the author of Sunday Times bestsellers The Outrun and The Instant, which was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. She writes columns and reviews for various magazines and newspapers including the Guardian and the Spectator, and recently presented Motherhood in Owl Woods: A Landscape for Recovery for BBC Radio 3. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online! Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories
A conversation with author Nicola Chester about her life, shaped by the landscape she has fought so hard to save. Author of the Wainwright Prize-nominated 'On Gallows Down', Nicola talks protest, nature, belonging, hope and the future of climate action. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This episode features a talk given by Merlin Sheldrake titled "Mycological Metaphysics: Fungi and Alfred North Whitehead”. It was presented at the 50th Anniversary Conference of the Center for Process Studies. https://ctr4process.org/ Dr. Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and winner of the Royal Society Book Prize and the Wainwright Prize. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, and works with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks and the Fungi Foundation. Republished with permission from the Center for Process Studies and Andrew Davis.
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by Esther Woolfson, author of Between Light and Storm: How We Live with Other Species. Esther Woolfson is the author of Corvus: A Life With Birds and Field Notes From a Hidden City: An Urban Nature Diary, which was short listed for the Wainwright Prize and the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability and is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Aberdeen University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community Historical Events 1791 On this day, Martha Ballard recorded her work as an herbalist and midwife. For 27 years, Martha kept a journal of her work as the town healer and midwife for Hallowell, Maine. In all, Martha assisted with 816 births. Today, Martha's marvelous journal gives us a glimpse into the plants she regularly used and how she applied them medicinally. As for how Martha sourced her plants, she raised them in her garden or foraged them in the wild. As the village apothecary, Martha found her ingredients and personally made all of her herbal remedies. Two hundred twenty-nine years ago today, Martha recorded her work to help her sick daughter. She wrote, My daughter Hannah is very unwell this evening. I gave her some Chamomile & Camphor. Today we know that Chamomile has a calming effect, and Camphor can help treat skin conditions, improve respiratory function, and relieve pain. 1835 Birth of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (known by his pen name Mark Twain), American writer and humorist. Samuel used the garden and garden imagery to convey his wit and satire. In 1874, Samuel's sister, Susan, and her husband built a shed for him to write in. They surprised him with it when Samuel visited their farm in upstate New York. The garden shed was ideally situated on a hilltop overlooking the Chemung ("Sha-mung") River Valley. Like Roald Dahl, Samuel smoked as he wrote, and his sister despised his incessant pipe smoking. In this little octagonal garden/writing shed, Samuel wrote significant sections of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Prince and the Pauper, A Tramp Abroad, and many other short works. And in 1952, Samuel's octagonal shed was relocated to Elmira College ("EI-MEER-ah") campus in Elmira, New York. Today, people can visit the garden shed with student guides daily throughout the summer and by appointment in the off-season. Here are some garden-related thoughts by Mark Twain. Climate is what we expect; the weather is what we get. It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream and as lonesome as Sunday. To get the full value of joy You must have someone to divide it with. After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the garden with her than inside it without her. 1874 Birth of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian writer and author of the Anne of Green Gables series. Lucy was born on Prince Edward Island and was almost two years old when her mother died. Like her character in Ann of Green Gables, Lucy had an unconventional upbringing when her father left her to be raised by her grandparents. Despite being a Canadian literary icon and loved worldwide, Lucy's personal life was marred by loneliness, death, and depression. Historians now believe she may have ended her own life. Yet we know that flowers and gardening were a balm to Lucy. She grew lettuce, peas, carrots, radish, and herbs in her kitchen garden. And Lucy had a habit of going to the garden after finishing her writing and chores about the house. Today in Norval, a place Lucy lived in her adult life, the Lucy Maud Montgomery Sensory Garden is next to the public school. The Landscape Architect, Eileen Foley, created the garden, which features an analemmatic (horizontal sundial), a butterfly and bird garden, a children's vegetable garden, a log bridge, and a woodland trail. It was Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote, I love my garden, and I love working in it. To potter with green growing things, watching each day to see the dear, new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think. Just now, my garden is like faith, the substance of things hoped for. 1875 Birth of Frank Nicholas Meyer, Dutch-American plant explorer. Frank worked as an intrepid explorer for the USDA, and he traveled to Asia to find and collect new plant specimens. His work netted 2,500 new plants, including the beautiful Korean Lilac, Soybeans, Asparagus, Chinese Horse Chestnut, Water Chestnut, Oats, Wild Pears, Ginkgo Biloba, and Persimmons, to name a few. Today, Frank is most remembered for a bit of fruit named in his honor - the Meyer Lemon. Frank found it growing in the doorway to a family home in Peking. The Lemon is suspected to be a hybrid of a standard lemon and mandarin orange. Early on in his career, Frank was known as a rambler and a bit of a loner. Frank once confessed in an October 11, 1901, letter to a friend, I am pessimistic by nature and have not found a road which leads to relaxation. I withdraw from humanity and try to find relaxation with plants. Frank was indeed more enthusiastic about plants than his fellow humans. He even named his plants and talked to them. Once he arrived in China, Frank was overwhelmed by the flora. A believer in reincarnation, Frank wrote to David Fairchild in May 1907: [One] short life will never be long enough to find out all about this mighty land. When I think about all these unexplored areas, I get fairly dazzled... I will have to roam around in my next life. While China offered a dazzling landscape of new plant discoveries, the risks and realities of exploration were hazardous. Edward B. Clark spoke of Frank's difficulties in Technical World in July 1911. He said, Frank has frozen and melted alternately as the altitudes have changed. He has encountered wild beasts and men nearly as wild. He has scaled glaciers and crossed chasms of dizzying depths. He has been the subject of the always-alert suspicions of government officials and strange peoples - jealous of intrusions into their land, but he has found what he was sent for. Frank improved the diversity and quality of American crops with his exceptional ability to source plants that would grow in the various growing regions of the United States. He was known for his incredible stamina. Unlike many of his peers who were carried in sedan chairs, Frank walked on his own accord for tens of miles daily. And his ability to walk for long distances allowed him to access many of the most treacherous and inaccessible parts of interior Asia - including China, Korea, Manchuria, and Russia. Frank died on his trip home to America. He had boarded a steamer and sailed down the Yangtze River. His body was found days later floating in the river. To this day, his death remains a mystery. But his final letters home expressed loneliness, sadness, and exhaustion. He wrote that his responsibilities seemed "heavier and heavier." The life of a Plant Explorer was anything but easy. Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation The Wood by John Lewis-Stempel This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood. John Lewis-Stempel is a farmer and a countryside writer - he prefers that title to 'nature writer.' The Times calls him Britain's finest living nature writer. Country Life calls him "one of the best nature writers of his generation.' His books include the Sunday Times bestsellers The Running Hare and The Wood. He is the only person to have won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing twice, with Meadowland and Where Poppies Blow. In 2016 he was Magazine Columnist of the Year for his column in Country Life. He lives in Herefordshire ("heh-ruh-frd-shr") with his wife and two children. And The Wood was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' The Wood is written in diary format, making the whole reading experience more intimate and lyrical. John shares his take on all four seasons in the English woodlands, along with lots of wonderful nuggets culled from history and experience. And I might add that John is a kindred spirit in his love of poetry and folklore. John spent four years managing Cockshutt wood - three and a half acres of mixed woodland in southwest Herefordshire. The job entailed pruning trees and raising livestock (pigs and cows roam free in the woods). John wrote of the peace and privacy afforded him by his time in the woods. Cockshutt was a sanctuary for me too; a place of ceaseless seasonal wonder where I withdrew into tranquility. No one comes looking for you in wood. The Woods covers John's last year as the manager of Cockshutt. The publisher writes, [By then], he had come to know it from the bottom of its beech roots to the tip of its oaks, and to know all the animals that lived there the fox, the pheasants, the wood mice, the tawny owl - and where the best bluebells grew. For many fauna and flora, woods like Cockshutt are the last refuge. It proves a sanctuary for John too. To read The Wood is to be amongst its trees as the seasons change, following an easy path until, suddenly the view is broken by a screen of leaves, or your foot catches on a root, or bird startles overhead. This is a wood you will never want to leave. The Wood starts in December - making it the perfect holiday gift or winter gift. John writes about the bare trees and the gently falling snow. The landscape becomes still and silent. John writes, Oddly aware, walking through the wood this afternoon, that it is dormant rather than dead. How the seeds. the trees and hibernating animals....are locked in a safe sleep against the coldand wet. By January, the Wood stirs to life with the arrival of snowdrops. If snowdrops are appearing, then the earth must be wakening. Of all our wildflowers the white hells are the purest, the most ethereal. the most chaste... Whatever: the snowdrop says that winter is not forever. As The Wood takes you through an entire year, the book ends as another winter approaches. The trees are losing their leaves. Animals are preparing for their long sleep. John is preparing to leave the woods for his next chapter as well. Looking back, he writes, I thought the trees and the birds belonged to me. But now I realize that I belonged to them. This book is 304 pages of a joyful, poetic, and soul-stirring time in the woods with the elegantly articulate John Lewis-Stempel as your guide - he's part forest sprite with a dash of delightful nature-soaked tidbits. You can get a copy of The Wood by John Lewis-Stempel and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $6. Botanic Spark 1936 On this day, the Crystal Palace in London was destroyed by fire. The spectacular blaze was seen from miles away. Joseph Paxton, the English gardener, architect, and Member of Parliament designed the Crystal Palace, aka the People's Palace, for the first World's Fair - the Great Exhibition of 1851. Joseph had built four elaborate glass greenhouses for the Duke of Devonshire in Chatsworth, which provided valuable experience for creating the Crystal Palace. The Joseph Paxton biographer Kate Colquhoun wrote about the immensity of the Palace: "[Paxton's] design, initially doodled on a piece of blotting paper, was the architectural triumph of its time. Two thousand men worked for eight months to complete it. It was six times the size of St Paul's Cathedral, enclosed 18 acres, and entertained six million visitors." The Crystal Place was an extraordinary and revolutionary building. Joseph found extra inspiration for the Palace in the natural architecture of the giant water lily. Instead of creating just a large empty warehouse for the exhibits, Joseph essentially built a massive greenhouse over the existing Hyde Park. The high central arch of the Palace - the grand barrel vault you see in all the old postcards and images of the Crystal Palace - accommodated full-sized trees that Joseph built around. Another innovative aspect of the Crystal Palace was the large beautiful columns. Joseph designed them with a purpose: drainage. By all accounts, the Crystal Palace was an enormous success until the fire started around 7 pm on this day. The manager, Sir Henry Buckland, had brought his little daughter, ironically named Chrystal, with him on his rounds of the building when he spied a small fire on one end of the Palace. Newspaper reports say the flames fanned wind through the Handel organ as the Palace burned to the ground. A sorrowful song to accompany the end of an era in plant exhibition. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.
Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter | Daily Gardener Community Historical Events 1791 On this day, Australia's first thriving grapevine was planted. The First Fleet's Captain Arthur Phillip brought grape cuttings from South America and South Africa and produced a small vineyard at Farm Cove. Today, Farm Cove is the location of the Sydney Botanical Gardens. When the plants did not bear, they were transplanted to Parramatta. Arthur Philip served as the first Governor of New South Wales when his Crimson Grapes flourished in the warm Australian fertile soil. Today Crimson Grapes can also be found in Victoria and southeastern Queensland. Australian Crimson Grapes enjoy a long harvest period from November to May. 1869 Birth of Charlotte Mary Mew, English poet. In her poem, In Nunhead Cemetary, she wrote, There is something horrible about a flower; This, broken in my hand, is one of those He threw it in just now; it will not live another hour; There are thousands more; you do not miss a rose. And in The Sunlit House, she wrote, The parched garden flowers Their scarlet petals from the beds unswept Like children unloved and ill-kept But I, the stranger, knew that I must stay. Pace up the weed-grown paths and down Till one afternoon ... From an upper window a bird flew out And I went my way. 1887 Birth of Georgia O'Keeffe, American modernist artist. During her incredible career as a painter, Georgia created over 900 works of art. She is remembered for her iconic paintings of skulls and flowers. In 1938 Georgia's career stalled. Yet she was approached by an advertising agency about creating two paintings for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole Food Company) to use in their advertising. Georgia was 51 years old when she took the nine weeks, all-expense-paid trip. Georgia never did paint a pineapple. And gardeners will enjoy this obscure fact: Of all the floral paintings that O'Keeffe created in Hawaii, exactly NONE were native to the island. Instead, Georgia loved the exotic tropicals imported from South America: Bougainvillea, Plumeria, Heliconia, Calliandra, and the White Bird of Paradise. It was Georgia 0'Keeffe who said all of these quotes about flowers - a subject for which she held strong opinions. Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time ...like to have a friend takes time. I hate flowers. I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move! If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment. I decided that if I could paint that flower on a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty. 1930 Birth of James Graham Ballard (pen name J.G. Ballard), English novelist. James was part of the New Wave of science fiction in the 1960s. Yet, he is most remembered for his 1984 war novel, Empire of the Sun. In The Unlimited Dream Company, James wrote, "Miriam - I'll give you any flowers you want!' Rhapsodising over the thousand scents of her body, I exclaimed: "I'Il grow orchids from your hands, roses from your breasts. You can have magnolias in your hair... In your womb I'll set a fly-trap!" And in The Garden of Time, James wrote, "Axel," his wife asked with sudden seriousness. "Before the garden dies ... may I pick the last flower?" Understanding her request, he nodded slowly. James once wrote, I believe in madness, in the truth of the inexplicable, in the common sense of stones, in the lunacy of flowers. Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake This book came out in 2021, and the subtitle is How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures. This book has won all kinds of recognition: The Wainwright Prize, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, and the Guild of Food Writers Award • Shortlisted for the British Book Award Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize. The publisher writes, In Entangled Life, the brilliant young biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view, providing an exhilarating change of perspective. Sheldrake's vivid exploration takes us from yeast to psychedelics, to the fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the "Wood Wide Web," to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision. Entangled Life is a fascinating read. Merlin's passion for fungi (fun-ghee) knows no bounds. Fungi are often referred to as a neglected kingdom of life. Compared to other kingdoms like plants and animals, we know very little about fungi, and only six percent has thus far been described. And Fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Today most plant life depends on relationships with mycorrhizal fungi or fungi that live in their roots. These fungi help plants acquire water and nutrients. They also protect the plants from disease. But its not just plants that need fungi. All Life on earth depends on fungi. Most fungi are mycelium - the branching fusing networks of tubular cells that feed and transport substances around themselves. Fungi have a unique way of organizing themselves. Mycelium cover the earth in a chaotic, sprawling way. Mycelium can be stretched out end to end up to ten kilometers from a single teaspoon of soil. This book is 368 pages of the mysterious and miraculous world of fungi. You can get a copy of Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $9. Botanic Spark 1909 On this day, the orange blossom was designated as the official state flower of Florida. This gesture inspired the poet William Livingston Larned to write a poem called Florida's State Flower. The last little bit goes like this: Whenever you see the spotless bud, You know tis Florida the fair. And wafted to you comes the scent Of all the blissful regions there. The rose may have its followers, The violet its standard, too; The fleur-de-lis and lily fair In tints of red and pink and blue; But just a scent, On pleasure bent, Of orange sweet, The nostrils greet, And from our dreams, the castles rise, Of groves and meadows 'neath calm skies. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.
Named after nature writer Alfred Wainwright, the Wainwright prizes are awarded to the work which best reflects Wainwright's core values and include a celebration of nature and our natural environment or a warning of the dangers to it across the globe. In 2022 for the first time, a children's prize is awarded.Naturalist Dara McAnulty and founder of the Outdoor Guide Gina Bradbury Fox joined Nikki Gamble to talk about the importance of the children's prize and support for getting children into the great outdoors.Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please support us by subscribing to our channel. And if you are interested in the books we have featured, purchasing from our online bookshop Bestbooksforschools.comIn the Reading Corner is presented by Nikki Gamble, Director of Just Imagine. It is produced by Alison Hughes.Follow us on Youtube for more author events YouTube.com/@nikkigamble1For general news and updates, follow us on Twitter @imaginecentreFull details about the range of services we provide can be found on our website www.justimagine.co.uk
Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams' work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them. Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series gives similar treatment to Vaughan Williams. Our essayists share their unexpected perspective on Vaughan Williams' work, taking it outside the standard ‘English pastoral' box, in a series of accessible essays, part of the Vaughan Williams season on Radio 3. Luke Turner – nature writer and music journalist The Wasps – Aristophanic Suite was an EMI and John Player Special cassette tape that Luke's family listened to on long car journeys in the 1980s. Obviously the cassette opens with The Lark Ascending, but like a pop smash hit drawing your attention to an album, that piece was merely the introduction to The Wasps - Aristophanic Suite on the second side, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley. It became the soundtrack to Luke's growing awareness of the English landscape as it passed by the windows, not in a simple, bucolic way, but the complexities of the place, the baked bean orange of traffic lights on the M62 over the Yorkshire Moors, the strange Cold War military installations that seemed to be everywhere, motorway reservations and the endless traffic jams around the Kings Lynn Roundabout. The piece also captures for Luke an awareness of how music works, how it combines with emotion and experience to become integral to memory, how something called The Wasps could have next to nothing to do with the insects, how his young mind could place onto this music whatever his imagination brought forward. It feels like many of his generation and certainly in his profession as a music journalist see Vaughan Williams as quite an establishment figure or quite conservative, but The Wasps was psychedelic music that made inroads into Luke's imagination, and unleashed the possibilities of sound connecting to place. Luke Turner is a writer and editor. He co-founded the influential music website The Quietus where he runs a regular podcast and radio show. He has contributed to the Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Vice, NME, Q, Mojo, Monocle, Nowness and Somesuch Stories, among other publications. His first book, Out of the Woods, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Born in Bradford, he lives in London. Writer and reader Luke Turner Sound designer Paul Cargill Producers Polly Thomas and Yusra Warsama Exec producer Eloise Whitmore A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
Where would our language be without the sea? Aground, adrift, the wind taken from our sails. In today's episode, Lemn is diving beneath the surface into the British Library Sound Archive (see full credits below) to hear how language, on this island nation, has been shaped by the sea. To help on his quest, he's joined by Scottish writer Amy Liptrot, whose 2018 memoir The Outrun won the PEN Ackerley Prize and the Wainwright Prize. In the book, Amy returns to the wildness of Orkney, an archipelago off the northeastern coast of Scotland where she grew up. There, she immerses herself in the sea and the island that she once left, and journeys towards recovery from addiction. Together, they listen to sea shanties sung in Cornwall; coastguards responding to the aftermath of shipwrecks; tourists enamoured with Orkney's inebriating charms and more... Recordings in the episode in order of appearance: An interview with Violet Bonham Carter recorded by the BBC. The original recording was part of the Aberdeenshire Museums Service John Junner Collection and it was digitised as part of the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project. British Library shelfmark: UNLS028/254 S2 C3 Coastguards David Jackson and Graham Hale recall responding to the aftermath of a shipwreck. The interview was conducted in St Levan in 2001 and the original recording is held at the Telegraph Museum in Porthcurno and it was digitised as part of the Library's Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project. British Library shelfmark: UBC035/7 Farmer Wilfred Keys and fish salesman Thomas Kyle speak in Belfast in 2013 about the superstitions of fishermen. Their conversation was part of the Listening Project recorded for the BBC © BBC. British Library shelfmark: C1500/0416 Kei Miller reading his poem ‘The Law Concerning Mermaids' in 2012. The recording was made by the British Library at The Power of Caribbean Poetry – Word and Sound conference in Homerton College, Cambridge. British Library shelfmark: C1532/12 Sea shanty group The Oggymen performing their version of ‘The Mingulay Boat Song' at the The Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival in 2017 British Library shelfmark: DD00010583 ‘Scapa Flow' on melodeon performed by Jimmy Leslie. This recording was made in 1955 in St Ola, Orkney and is part of the Peter Kennedy Collection. British Library shelfmark: C604/1128 A song about Brighton nudist beach performed by folk singer Miles Wootton in 1981 at BBC Radio Brighton. The recording was digitised by the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project. British Library shelfmark: UTK006/1043
William Atkins's third book, EXILES, tells the story of three nineteenth-century dissidents whose lives were profoundly shaped by the winds of empire, nationalism and autocracy that continue to blow today. A masterpiece of storytelling, travel writing and imaginative empathy, it is a book about displacement, colonialism and what it means to have a home. The Moor, William's first book, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize; his second, The Immeasurable World, won the Stanford Dolman Travel Writing Award and the British Library Eccles Prize. He recently guest-edited a special travel-writing edition of Granta, and his journalism and reviews have appeared in Harper's, the Guardian and the New York Times. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories
In the latest episode of Life in Food with Laura Price, I speak to Clover Stroud, the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story, where she writes about her experience of walking through the first year after her sister's death from breast cancer. In the episode, Clover speaks movingly about the horse-riding accident that left her mother severely disabled when Clover was a teenager, and how that experience changed her family life and her relationship with her sister Nell. She talks about the death of both her mother and Nell, relating it to family food memories of home-cooked lasagne, roll-mop herrings and fish chowder. Finally, we also talk about Dame Deborah James and why it's important to encourage healthy conversation around death.About Clover Stroud:Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist whose work features regularly in the Sunday Times, the Guardian and the Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for The Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild & Sleepless Nights: A Mother's Story, was rated one of the 'best books of the year, 2020' by the Observer and the Telegraph and the Sunday Times, and was a Sunday Times bestseller. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and five children.Follow Clover on Instagram @clover.stroud.Follow Clover on Twitter @cloverstroud.Buy Clover's latest memoir The Red of my Blood.Read the story of Clover's sister, Nell Gifford.About the host: Laura Price is a multilingual journalist who travels the world writing about restaurants. A proud Yorkshire lass at heart, she spent several years in Latin America before settling in London with her two cats. Her first novel, Single Bald Female, was inspired by her experience of being diagnosed with breast cancer at 29. A novelist by day and a food writer by night, Laura combines her two passions into this podcast, bringing out powerful stories of survival and healing in a language that everyone understands – food.Buy Single Bald Female.Visit Laura's website.Follow Laura on Instagram @laurapricewrites.Follow Laura on Twitter @laurapricewrite.Follow Laura on Facebook @LauraPriceWrites.Life in Food is hosted, produced and edited by Laura Price. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
“A witty, gentle, original and very modern quest for the magical (not the mythical) in Britain's landscape, which both made me laugh and moved me.” - Robert MacfarlaneI was delighted to have this chance to speak with writer Jini Reddy about her yearning to connect with the landscape of Britain, her adopted homeland, which resulted in her delightful and thought-provoking book ‘Wanderland'. Jini's been writing on travel, nature, and spirituality for many years and shares her journey from a snow-loving childhood in Canada to Mother Teresa's home in Calcutta to her writing and exploring life in UK. Join me as Jini shares how a strange encounter alone at the top of a mountain in France led her down the journey of ‘Wanderland', how she approaches solo travel, and how diverse voices are (finally) re-shaping the travel writing genre! Listen now on your favorite podcast app or at www.theindianedit.com and please take a second to rate us wherever you're listening so the voices of these inspiring women can be heard all over the world!SHOWNOTES FOR EPISODE 69:Find Jini at her website and on instagramWanderland: Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize and Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year AwardWild Times: Extraordinary Experiences Connecting with Nature in BritainBOOKS and MORE:Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land by Noe Alvarez If you enjoy podcasts to do with gardens and the natural world, don't miss Cultivating Place.My chat with Jennifer Jewell on the Cultivating Place podcast:Cultivating Place: The Indian Edit, with Nitasha Manchanda
The Instant is the outstanding new book from Amy Liptrot, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Outrun. She joins us on the eve of publication for a very special event in conversation with Lucy Jones, author of Losing Eden. The Outrun is a book about living on the edge, about the pull between island and city, and about the ability of the sea, the land, the wind and the moon to restore life and renew hope. It won both the Wainwright Prize and the PEN Ackerley Prize, and was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan has just been confirmed in the leading role in the forthcoming film adaptation. The Instant picks up where The Outrun left off. Wishing to leave the quiet isolation of her life on Orkney, Amy books a one-way flight to Berlin, rents a shared flat and looks for work. Searching for new experiences, she explores the city's streets, nightclubs and parks and seeks out the city's wildlife - goshawks, raccoons and hooded crows. And she looks for love through the screen of her laptop. The Instant is many things - luminous and intensely honest, powerful and poignant. Amy Liptrot is the author of The Outrun, a Sunday Times bestseller. She writes columns and reviews for various magazines and newspapers including the Guardian and the Spectator, and recently presented the BBC Radio 4 series The New Anatomy of Melancholy. Lucy Jones is a writer and journalist based in Hampshire, England. She previously worked at NME and the Daily Telegraph, and her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and the New Statesman. Her first book, Foxes Unearthed, was celebrated for its 'brave, bold and honest' (Chris Packham) account of our relationship with the fox. Losing Eden took Jones from forest schools in East London to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault via primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists' couches. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories
My guest today is writer and journalist Clover Stroud. I adore her writing and outlook on the world. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for The Wainwright Prize. Her second book, My Wild & Sleepless Nights: A Mother's Story was rated one of the 'best books of the year, 2020' by the Observer and the Telegraph and was a Sunday Times bestseller. And her third memoir The Red Of My Blood might just be my favourite of them all. In this book, Clover is looking at life, death and grief. She is asking the question: can death bring something good to my life? A few weeks before Christmas, Clover's sister died of breast cancer, aged forty-six. Her sudden death broke Clover's life into pieces. The Red of My Blood charts Clover's surreal and fearless journey through the first year after her sister's death. This is a really special book and really recommend you pick up a copy. This is part one of our conversation, and part two will be released right after it so if you enjoyed go and check out part two now :)My Substack page, come and say hi: https://thehyphen.substack.com/Clover's book The Red Of My Blood: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/153/9780857527738My books: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/emma-gannonBooks mentioned on Ctrl Alt Delete podcast: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/books-mentioned-on-ctrl-alt-delete-podcastTwitter: Twitter.com/emmagannonInstagram: Instagram.com/emmagannonuk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What does the natural world look like after human beings abandon it? Nuclear waste sites, war zones, slag heaps, ghost towns–journalist Cal Flyn delves into the history and rebirth of these neglected places in her book, Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape. In this episode of Book Dreams, Cal shares with Eve and Julie some of these strange cautionary tales, and how she finds hope and beauty in the devastation. From the wilding of domesticated cows turned feral in the Scottish islands to the resilience of killifish in Newark Bay, examples abound of how nature survives and flourishes without us. They discuss, too, how our attempts to reverse the damage done by invasive species and urban dereliction sometimes create more problems than they solve. “That's the warning from the past,” Cal says. “We thought we knew what we were doing, and we didn't. So just be careful." Cal Flyn is an author, investigative journalist, and a MacDowell fellow from the Highlands of Scotland. She's worked as a reporter for The Sunday Times and The Telegraph and has contributed to publications, including Granta, The Guardian, The Times, The Observer, and others. Her first book, Thicker Than Water, was one of The Times' Best Books of 2016. Islands of Abandonment is a finalist for the Wainwright Prize and was one of The Washington Post's Best Travel Books of 2021. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to Book Dreams, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
"Humans have been partnering with fungi for an unknowably long time, no doubt for longer than we've been humans. Whether as foods, eating mushrooms, as medicines, dosing ourselves with moulds and other mushrooms that might help, parasites or others helpers with infection, mushrooms as tinder or ways to carry a spark, this very important thing that humans needed to do for a very long time, and as agents of fermentation, as in yeasts creating alcohol. So humans have partnered with fungi to solve all sorts of problems and so fungi have found themselves enveloped within human societies and cultures for a long time."Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
"Humans have been partnering with fungi for an unknowably long time, no doubt for longer than we've been humans. Whether as foods, eating mushrooms, as medicines, dosing ourselves with moulds and other mushrooms that might help, parasites or others helpers with infection, mushrooms as tinder or ways to carry a spark, this very important thing that humans needed to do for a very long time, and as agents of fermentation, as in yeasts creating alcohol. So humans have partnered with fungi to solve all sorts of problems and so fungi have found themselves enveloped within human societies and cultures for a long time."Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
"Humans have been partnering with fungi for an unknowably long time, no doubt for longer than we've been humans. Whether as foods, eating mushrooms, as medicines, dosing ourselves with moulds and other mushrooms that might help, parasites or others helpers with infection, mushrooms as tinder or ways to carry a spark, this very important thing that humans needed to do for a very long time, and as agents of fermentation, as in yeasts creating alcohol. So humans have partnered with fungi to solve all sorts of problems and so fungi have found themselves enveloped within human societies and cultures for a long time."Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
"Humans have been partnering with fungi for an unknowably long time, no doubt for longer than we've been humans. Whether as foods, eating mushrooms, as medicines, dosing ourselves with moulds and other mushrooms that might help, parasites or others helpers with infection, mushrooms as tinder or ways to carry a spark, this very important thing that humans needed to do for a very long time, and as agents of fermentation, as in yeasts creating alcohol. So humans have partnered with fungi to solve all sorts of problems and so fungi have found themselves enveloped within human societies and cultures for a long time."Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
The Creative Process in 10 minutes or less · Arts, Culture & Society
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
"Humans have been partnering with fungi for an unknowably long time, no doubt for longer than we've been humans. Whether as foods, eating mushrooms, as medicines, dosing ourselves with moulds and other mushrooms that might help, parasites or others helpers with infection, mushrooms as tinder or ways to carry a spark, this very important thing that humans needed to do for a very long time, and as agents of fermentation, as in yeasts creating alcohol. So humans have partnered with fungi to solve all sorts of problems and so fungi have found themselves enveloped within human societies and cultures for a long time."Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. · www.merlinsheldrake.com · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
Whether you know her from her Wainwright Prize nominated “Dancing with Bees”, from her time on the BBC's “It's Not Easy Being Green”, or from her intoxicating twitter-feed, there's no denying that Brigit Strawbridge Howard is charming, endlessly-inquisitive and has truly let nature into her very soul. But it has not always been that way. Here - in an incredibly personal interview - Brigit explains how Nature didn't feature in her early childhood whatsoever - only eventually making itself known to her as a “refuge from bullying”. Today, she is now part of a growing groundswell for environmental change and possesses a desire to place greater pressure upon policy makers - to make them see that the future is far more than just the coming weekend. But, there's perhaps no denying, that Brigit's true passion revolves around Bees! Here she will explain how Bumble Bees use the sonic resonance of their buzz to pollinate tomatoes, how Honey Bees use wild yeast to make fermented bee bread, how Bees are basically just “Vegetarian Wasps”, and how it was Bees that brought love into her life. For further information on this and other episodes, visit: https://www.treesacrowd.fm/brigit-strawbridge-howard/ Weekly episodes available early AND bonus content made free to forage by "Subscribtion Squirrels" on our Patreon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In today's episode we welcome Jini Reddy who is the author of Wanderland, shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Award for Travel Book of the Year and for the Wainwright Prize. She has contributed to anthologies, penned an award-winning guidebook (Wild Times)and her texts and poems have been displayed in exhibitions at London's Southbank Centre and at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. As a journalist and travel writer, she has written widely for national press and in 2019 was named a National Geographic Woman of Impact. In her writing, she increasingly occupies a cross-cultural, cross-genre space where place, spirituality, nature and culture meet. Jini was born in Britain to Indian parents from South Africa, and raised in Quebec, Canada. She now makes her home in South West London.Jini Reddy offers mentoring for aspiring authors, marketing consultancy for authors and also eco-travel, personal development, and wellbeing ventures. Get in Touch with Jini ReddyWebsiteTwitterGet in Touch with Victoria BennionTo learn more about working with us visit www.victoriabennion.com
Dara McAnulty is a teenage autistic author, naturalist, and conservationist from Northern Ireland. After several years of writing his blog, Naturalist Dara, he published his debut book, Diary of a Young Naturalist, when he was fourteen years old. The book won the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, and Book of the Year for the Narrative Non-fiction British Book Awards in 2021. In this interview, Dara, now seventeen, speaks about his book and his approach to living a life immersed in and guided by the living world. Wise beyond his years, Dara speaks about his identity as an autistic person, the solace and comfort he has always found in nature, the role of the artist in envisioning a different future, and the great necessity of staying rooted in joy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this first episode of Shelfmarks Zoë Comyns looks at an expedition to Rockall off the north-east coast of Donegal funded by the Royal Irish Academy in 1896. The island is extremely remote and poor weather conditions meant it was impossible to land on Rockall. The crew of geologists, naturalists and biologists did collect dredge samples and bird specimens. This programme evokes his journey and the sense of discovery. One of those on board was RIA member R.M. Barrington, whose interest in birds led to him to publish The Migration of Birds as Observed at Irish Lighthouses and Lightships (1900). Barrington asked lighthouse keepers all around the country to record information on all birds that died by striking the light stations. He asked that they: “cut off and label the wing and leg of every common bird which is killed at their station…All species can then be identified with certainty.' He also requested that ‘Rare birds should be sent entire”. He gathered more than 2000 specimens, legs and wings and whole birds arrive by post every week, from all over Ireland to his home in Wicklow allowing him to identify patterns and compile his book. Zoe's guest on Shelfmarks is Kerri ní Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places. Kerri brings Zoë to Baltray beach in Co. Louth where they discuss Kerri's relationship with the natural world and she reads new pieces specially commissioned for the Shelfmarks. Kerri chats about how being prompted by the notion of discovery and expedition she observes her baby son taking in the world for the first time. She also writes about a dream that she often returns to in which she is observing a bird in a forest and has to choose between experiencing this moment and rushing home to document it. Kerri has been writing for a number of years and she explores in her final piece one of her very first pieces of writing about a bird strike. Barrington's studies resonant with her as she has come across numerous dead birds during her walks. Kerri ní Dochartaigh is the author of Thin Places which was highly commended by the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2021. She has written for the Guardian, the Irish Times, the BBC, Winter Papers, and others. She lives in an old railway cottage in the heart of Ireland with her family.
Anna and Amanda discuss the 2021 Women's Prize winner Susanna Clarke for Piranesi, a follow-up story about #BookTok trends and the winners of the 2021 Wainwright Prize for nature writing. Amanda recommends this interview with Merlin Sheldrake on Conversations with Richard Fidler. Our book of the week is Minor Detail by Adania Shibli translated by Elisabeth Jacquette. A short, powerful novel about a crime in 1949 and a young woman investigating in modern-day Palestine, it was longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2020 National Book Awards for translated literature. It was also the group read-along for the Women in Translation Month #WITReadathon. Coming up: Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney and Real Estate by Deborah Levy. Follow us! Email: Booksonthegopodcast@gmail.com Facebook: Books On The Go Instagram: @abailliekaras and @vibrant_lives_podcast Twitter: @abailliekaras Litsy: @abailliekaras Credits Artwork: Sascha Wilkosz
From a 2018 Wainwright Prize shortlisted author, THE CIRCLING SKY is part childhood memoir, blended with exquisite nature observation, and the story of one man's journey over a year to one of the UK's key natural habitats, the New Forest of Hampshire In the form of several journeys, beginning in January 2019, Neil Ansell returns for solitary walks to the New Forest in Hampshire, close to where he was born. With beautiful sightings and observations of birds, trees, butterflies, insects and landscape, this is also a reflective memoir on childhood, on the history of one of the most ancient and important natural habitats in the United Kingdom, and on the Gypsies who lived there for centuries - and were subsequently expelled to neighbouring cities. It is also part polemic on our collective and individual responsibility for the land and world in which we live, and how we care for it. As Neil Ansell concludes so eloquently, 'Evolution has no choice in what it does, but we do, as a species, if not always as individuals'.
This is part one of two episodes with author Julian Hoffman. This episode focuses on Julian's life in northern Greece where he encounters European brown bears in his day to day life. We also discuss the local accents of wrens(!), particularly Liverpudlian wrens. Julian has published two books. In 2012 The Small Heart of Things was published and in 2019 it was followed by Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places. I'm a big fan of both of these books. Julian does that rare thing for a nature writer and centres communities within the landscape. Irreplaceable is a great example of this, with Julian writing about local people the world over battling to save special places, habitats and species. Irreplaceable was the Highly Commended Finalist for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation Julian details how he came to live in Prespa, how he became a writer there after working with his wife as a market gardener, toiling away in the open fields growing fruit and vegetables, and getting to know the locals. Thanks so much for bearing with us and I hope you enjoy the episode. Links Julian Hoffman: https://julian-hoffman.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JulianHoffman The Wren Boys: https://www.ouririshheritage.org/content/archive/topics/miscellaneous/the-wren-boys Unlocking Landscapes Twitter: https://twitter.com/UnlockLand Homepage: https://www.unlockinglandscapes.com/
Graham and Charles talk to their special guest, Harrogate based nature writer and poet, Rob Cowen, who talks about Common Ground, his new book about the Great North Road and also reads two new poems.Rob Cowen is an award-winning writer, journalist and author of the acclaimed Common Ground. In 2012 he won the Roger Deakin Award from the Society of Authors for his first book Skimming Stones and Other Ways of Being in the Wild. His second book, Common Ground, was shortlisted for the Portico Literary Prize, Richard Jefferies Society Prize and the 2016 Wainwright Prize, as well as selected as a ‘Book of the Year' in the Times, the Independent, The Sunday Express and featuring in the Guardian's Top Ten Readers' Choice. In 2018, it was voted 3rd in a BBC poll to find Britain's favourite nature book. Common Ground has been translated into German, released in America and adapted into a live music and spoken word show with Nancy Kerr and Martin Simpson. Rob writes for the New York Times, the Independent, the Independent on Sunday, the Telegraph and the Guardian, and has created documentaries for the BBC.https://robcowen.net/
On this episode Michael talks to to Lucy Jones, Author of Losing Eden, about how getting out in nature affects our mental health, and what happens when we lose our connection with the outdoors completely. This is a powerful episode reminding us why stepping away from our desks and connecting with the natural world does more than we realise, and a passionate message on how taking care of the planet we live is a priority that we simply cannot afford to ignore. Lucy Jones is a writer and journalist based in Hampshire, England. Her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and the New Statesman. Her book Losing Eden, is about the relationship between the natural world and the human psyche; a wide-ranging inquiry into the mechanism by which contact with ‘nature' is therapeutic. It has been long-listed for the Wainwright Prize and received a Society of Authors' award. Her book is available to buy now at all good book stores, to find out more about Lucy visit lucyfjones.com or follow her on Instagram at @lucyfjones. This season of the Quiet Life was made possible by our friends at T2. Receive 10% off your first order and heaps of benefits such as rewards, experiences and personalised offers when you join The Tea Society, to start brewing the benefits and redeem your offer visit T2tea.com. This weeks featured tea is Melbourne Breakfast available online now and at all T2 stores. Guest research for this episode completed by Camilla Besley.
We talk to Jeremy Purseglove, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book Working with Nature, about the inspiration behind his writing and his call to action for us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Lamorna Ash, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book Dark, Salt, Clear, about the inspiration behind her writing and her call to action for us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Carolyn Steel, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book Sitopia, about the inspiration behind her writing and her call to action for us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Chris Goodall, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book What We Need to do Now, about the inspiration behind his writing and his call to action for us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to David Gange, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book The Frayed Atlantic Edge, about the inspiration behind his writing and his call to action for us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Julian Hoffman, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book Irreplaceable, about the inspiration behind his writing and his call to action for us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Mike Parker, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book On the Red Hill, about the inspiration behind his writing and his call to action for us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Jini Reddy, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book "Wanderland", about the inspiration behind her writing and her call to action for us all See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Benedict Macdonald, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book "Rebirding", about the inspiration behind his writing and his call to action for us all See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Patrick Laurie, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book "Native", about the inspiration behind his writing and his call to action for us all See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Dara McAnulty, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book Diary of a Young Naturalist, about the inspiration behind his writing and his call to action for us all See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We talk to Helen Pilcher, author of Wainwright Prize 2020 shortlisted book Life Changing about the inspiration behind her writing and her call to action for us all. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Ready to start your own book club? This special episode tells you how, from who to invite and what books (or genre) to read, to the pitfalls you'll want to avoid. It's packed full of inspiration and advice from book clubs we've interviewed over the years, including the Proust Book Group in Paris, London's own Jilly Cooper book club, a Horror Book Club and the Walking Book Club of Hampstead Heath. We've even come up with the top 10 recommended book club books guaranteed to get the discussing going. So, listen in for everything you need to know to start and run a flourishing book group. How to find the right book club books? Here are some of our recommended places to look: newspapers summer reading guides and end of year lists, in particular The Times and Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer and The Financial Times, The Washington Post and the New York Times; prizes The Booker Prize, The Booker International Prize (for books in translation), The Women's Prize, The Wainwright Prize (for nature writing), The Costa Book Awards, The Goldsmiths Prize (for books that open up new possibilities in the novel form), The Baillie Gifford Prize (for non-fiction), The Walter Scott Prize (for historical-fiction), in the US The National Book Award, the Pulitzer, Barack Obama's annual reading list, in Australia the Miles Franklin and the Stella Prize, and back in Europe Kate's favourite, The Dublin Literary Award (for books nominated by libraries around the world) Book clubs mentioned in the show: Emily's Walking Book Club of Hampstead Heath Simon Thomas's Book of the Year Club The Horror Book Club The Lesbian Book Club The London Literary Salon (Toby Brothers) Ink84 Bookshop book club
Listen in as we discuss the books we've reading outside of book club. In Laura's stack: Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and Queenie, by Candice Carty Williams, while Kate has The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, The Friend by Sigrid Nunez and The Easternmost House by Juliet Blaxland. We also discuss the Wainwright Prize shortlist, how to dip into your TBR and whether there are any gems in all of these for your next book club read.