Christopher Hitchens, Ian McEwan
Christopher Hitchens presents his case against Religion to a London audience at The Hospital in Covent Garden. He talks to Ian McEwan.
Martin Amis
The most gifted and spectacular contemporary novelist, author of Money, London Fields and House of Meetings talks to Peter Guttridge.
Sarah Raven
Taking us through the year in six seasonal chunks of two months each, the gardener introduces us to the best vegetables, fruit and herbs from around the world, all grown in the UK, and then shows us how to cook them in fresh, simple and delicious recipes.
Miranda July, Marina Lewycka, Ariane Koek
The screenwriter, July, launches her debut collection of stories Nobody Belongs Here More Than You. Lewycka discusses her comic jewel Two Caravans set amongst an international brigade of Kent strawberry pickers.
They talk to the Arvon Foundation Director.
John Haynes
The Costa Poetry Award-winner reads from his book-length poem in iambic pentameter, set in Patience’s Parlour, a small, mud-walled bar in northern Nigeria in 1993, and he talks to Owen Sheers.
Ronnie Corbett
The legendary comedian talks about his autobiography And it’s Goodnight from Him.
James Barr
The story of TE Lawrence and Britain’s secret war in Arabia, 1916–1918, driven by the need to arrest the Ottoman call for Islamic Jihad.
Jeremy Bowen, John Harris
The frontline correspondent discusses the nature of his work, humanely and mesmerically examined in War Stories, from El Salvador and Lebanon to Afghanistan, Rwanda and the Middle East.
Neil Pearson, Rick Gekoski
The actor and author of Obelisk shares his passion for book collecting with the legendary first edition and manuscript dealer, Gekoski, author of Tolkien’s Gown and Other Stories of Famous Authors and Rare Books.
David Rose, Clive Stafford Smith
Stafford Smith (Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay and the Secret Prisons) and Rose (Violation: Justice, Race and Serial Murder in the Deep South; Guantanamo: America's War on Human Rights) explore America's negation of constitutional principle and the rule of law.
Mavis Nicholson, Rachel Trezise, Rebecca Ray
Nicholson and Trezise (winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize) have contributed to Parthian’s Bit on the Side anthology. Ray’s novels are A Certain Age and Newfoundland.
They talk to New Welsh Review editor Francesca Rhydderch.
Tim Flannery, Rosie Boycott
The writer and Ecologist examines our changing climate and what it means for life on Earth. 'It would be hard to imagine a better or more important book' Bill Bryson.
David de Rothschild
Bulding on its ethos of making learning an adventure, Adventure Ecology has successfully created a global youth network for learning, acting and speaking on the environment and climate change. Adventure Ecology uses three platforms to build the environmental message to a broader audience: education, arts and expeditions.
Alex James
The Costwold cheese farmer and wild man of Britpop band Blur tells a picaresque tale of musical celebrity.
Peter Melchett, Julian Rose
The Penrhos Trust’s annual symposium on organic food production is led by the Soil Association’s pioneering agronomists.
Joan Bakewell, Kerry Fowler
Two judges are joined by winners of the inaugural awards that celebrate intelligent, entertaining and provocative fiction.
John Mullan
The Prof builds on his hugely popular Guardian book-club column analysing contemporary fiction, to produce an accessible and hugely entertaining guide to creative reading.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
The historian investigates the development of the charismatic cobbler’s son, who was hailed as a poet, trained as a priest, and became a consummate politician and murderous psychopath.
John Mullan, Peter Florence and guests
In April a panel of experts selected 50 era-defining books that mapped each decade of the C20th. We announce the Guardian readers’ top ten books of the century, and discuss what's resonating in the Noughties.
Armando Iannucci
The entertainer, comedy writer and producer (Alan Partridge, The Day Today, The Thick of it) talks to Francine Stock.
Stephen Harding, Brian Goodwin
The Schumacher College lecturers explore how Gaia has sequestered excess CO2 over millenia, and why bacteria are essential for the formation of both clouds and continents. If we are going to have a habitable home in the future we need solutions as complex and elegant as the conditions that give us life.
Timothy Phillips and Åsne Seierstad
330 parents and children died in the siege, which ended in a terrible gun battle on 3 September 2004. The author of The Tragedy of School No.1 discusses the human story and its wider context in the Caucasus with the Norwegian foreign correspondent.
Chaired by Julie Etchingham who covered the news story for Sky News.
Gabrielle Walker
Through the eyes and lives of its discoverers, the science writer celebrates the natural history of the earth’s atmosphere and reveals how we came to understand air, the true elixir of life.
Thomas Steinbeck
The author talks about his Nobel Prize-winning father and his own new short story collection Down to a Sunless Sea.
Paddy Ashdown
The Liberal peer discusses peacekeeping in the Balkans and Iraq.
David Attenborough
The broadcaster reviews the techniques that have been used over the last century to bring natural history to the television screen.
William Hague
The charismatic Parliamentarian celebrates the great abolitionist.
Quentin Blake
The illustrator draws and talks about his creations from Mr Magnolia and Mrs Armitage to the BFG and Matilda.
Fergal Keane, Peter Guttridge
A conversation about freedoms of speech and journalistic engagement with the Irish journalist, ranging from Rwanda to Stormont, Soweto to St Peter’s.
Doris Lessing, Peter Florence
The writer’s latest novel The Cleft imagines a mythical society free from men.
Graham Swift, John Walsh
The Booker-winner (Last Orders) discusses his new novel Tomorrow
Derek Walcott
A reading and conversation with the St Lucian poet, teacher and Nobel Laureate, whose Odyssey version Omeros is hailed as one of the greatest poems of the 20th century. Chaired by William Sieghart.
Jon Snow, June Arunga, Richard Cockett
Much of Africa remains crippled by famine, war, disease and underdevelopment. Many complain of lack of aid and unfair trade terms, but is Africa destined to be impoverished because of the venality and corruption in the nations’ governance? Or are the political leaders doing the best they can in a continent still devastated by the legacy of slavery and colonialism?
Jon Snow chairs, speakers include June Arunga, Richard Cockett, Professor Tunde Zack-Williams and Michael Gidney Chair of the Fairtrade Foundation's Board and Director of Policy for the NGO Traidcraft Exchange.
Frank Pope
The project’s archeological manager tells the intriguing and thrilling story of the excavation of the An Hoi wreck, embedded deep beneath a typhoon-prone stretch of the Vietnamese coast, known as the Dragon Sea.
Dannie Abse, Gwyneth Lewis
The writer discusses his latest collection of poetry Running Late and his memoir The Presence. After his wife Joan died in a car accident in June 2005, he began to write a diary which is both a record of present grief, and a portrait of a marriage which lasted more than fifty years.
Helon Habila, Ngugi Thiong'o
Habila’s Measuring Time is the story of twin brothers from a Nigerian village dealing with famine, religious zealotry and appalling violence. The great Kenyan exile Ngugi discusses his comic masterpiece Wizard of the Crow.
Chaired by Paul Blezard.
Kate Wiliams
The spectacular trajectory of our first supernova celebrity, from Northern slums to Nelson’s bedchamber.
Chaired by Corisande Albert.
Felicity Lawrence, Andrew Simms, Rosie Boycott
Felicity Lawrence and Andrew Simms talk to Rosie Boycott Lawrence (Not on the Label) and Simms (Tescopoly) discuss the rise and rise of the British supermarket and why it matters.
Anthony Horowitz
The sensational author of the Alex Rider and Power of Five series writes unparalleled thrills, chills and adventure. 8 yrs +
Hermione Lee
A scintillating biography of the author of The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth: a fiercely modern woman of passionate conviction and conflicting ambitions and desires.
Barbara Erskine, Sandra Howard
Lady of Hay creator Erskine discusses her new novel Daughters of Fire. Howard talks about her political romance Glass Houses.
Chaired by Phil Rickman.
Deborah Moggach, Louise Chunn
The screenwriter (Pride and Prejudice) and novelist (Tulip Fever, These Foolish Things) launches In The Dark, a tantalising, pageturning story of war, meat and desire on the home front, set in South London’s dark and dirty wartime streets during WWI.
Chunn is the editor of Good Housekeeping.
Terry Eagleton
The Prof ranges across literature and philosophy, and comes up with some answers of his own.
Sophie McKenzie, Michael Morpurgo, Michelle Paver, Rick Riordan
Four superstar writers for teenagers answer your questions about stories, the business of writing, and their own reading.
Chaired by Wendy Cooling. 9 yrs +
Wangari Mathai, Rosie Boycott
The heroic and inspiring Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate and founder of the African development Green Belt Movement talks about her life and work. Chaired by Rosie Boycott.
Zac Goldsmith, Jeremy Leggett, John Sauven, Adam Boulton
Zac Goldsmith (The Ecologist), Jeremy Leggett (SolarCentury) and John Sauven (Greenpeace) discuss the adoption and advocacy of environmental sustainability for the creative industries. Chaired by Sky News anchor Adam Boulton.
A Greenprint debate