The Blindboy Podcast
Blindboy talks about autism.
The Book Club
The Book Club continues its appreciation of A-level bangers with an episode on the novel recently named the second best of all time in the Guardian’s list, Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987).
The Booking Club
Without Will Self there would be a Will Self-shaped hole in the culture. Many people recently learned the word ‘fissiparous’ – relating to fission, splitting into pieces – from a widely shared essay in which he says, ‘Britain is now a fissiparous society — fragmented into competing legal, managerial, ethnic, algorithmic and economic jurisdictions’. In this episode of The Booking Club he discusses his new novel, The Quantity Theory of Morality (2026).
Fresh Air
I can’t embed a Spotify link for this, but the episode is ‘David Sedaris wants to be better (at everything)’ (26.5.2026). Sedaris says, ‘I started writing in my diary one day, when I was twenty years old, and I’ve never not done it. […] oh my goodness, the thought of not doing that. Boy, the earth would just spin off of it’s axis.’
Growth Mindset Psychology
This is my favourite recent episode of my friend Sam’s podcast, an interview with Stephen Porges, the psychologist behind polyvagal theory.
My Martin Amis
Jack Aldane speaks to Irish writer and academic Kevin Power about Amis’s 1991 novel, Time’s Arrow.
Novara
I’d label these Novaran insights ‘To be used with some caution’, but I appreciate the way the hosts theorise the bleeding edge, in this case of what they call ‘British weirdness’.
Past Present Future
David Runciman begins a new series on ‘Great Political Fictions’ with Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). Like everyone since Neil Postman, Runciman finds the novel’s prophetic quality to be ageing like fine soma.
Subtext
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow.
Until next month.