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Culture / Podcast

Meet the Writers

Want to know more about the authors behind your favourite books? Tune in to discover the methods of – and inspiration behind – some of the world’s most exciting writers. Every Saturday, Georgina Godwin hosts an in-depth discussion with the person behind the prose.

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William Green:

William Green knows a little more than most about how to stack the odds in your favour. His career as a financial journalist has seen him write for publications including ‘The New Yorker’, ‘Time’, ‘Fortune’, and ‘Forbes’. He has reported from all over the world and interviewed presidents, CEOs, billionaires, and investors. Georgina Godwin speaks to Green about his new book ‘Richer, Wiser, Happier’, which goes inside the lives of the world’s most successful investors to find out what lessons they have to teach us on investing and beyond.

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★29 Jul 2021
25 min

Monocle Reads: Tharik Hussain: 

Tharik Hussain is a writer and journalist who has written travel guides for Lonely Planet and won awards for his BBC World Service radio documentary: ‘America’s Mosques: A Story of Integration’. He speaks to Georgina Godwin about his latest book ‘Minarets in the Mountains’, which took him and his family on a journey through the western Balkans to discover a version of Islam that’s less known in Europe.

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29525 Jul 2021
30 min

William Green: 

William Green knows a little more than most about how to stack the odds in your favour. His career as a financial journalist has seen him write for publications including ‘The New Yorker’, ‘Time’, ‘Fortune’, and ‘Forbes’. He has reported from all over the world and interviewed presidents, CEOs, billionaires, and investors. Georgina Godwin speaks to Green about his new book ‘Richer, Wiser, Happier’, which goes inside the lives of the world’s most successful investors to find out what lessons they have to teach us on investing and beyond.

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★22 Jul 2021
24 min

Monocle Reads: Arifa Akbar: 

Arifa Akbar is the chief theatre critic at ‘The Guardian’. A journalist for over 20 years, she previously held the position of literary editor at ‘The Independent’ and worked as an arts and news correspondent. She speaks with Georgina Godwin about her new memoir ‘Consumed’ which is a personal exploration of her own grief after her sister died at the age of 45 from tuberculosis. In this moving debut, Arifa explores illness, sisterhood, and the role of art in life and loss.

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29418 Jul 2021
30 min

Lisa McInerney: 

Georgina Godwin talks to Galway-born Lisa McInerney about her work and career, in which the city and people of Cork seem to have captured her heart. Her latest book, ‘The Rules of Revelation’, is the third in a series focusing on a range of loveable characters, each trying to find their way with the odds stacked against them.

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★15 Jul 2021
24 min

Monocle Reads: Mary Ann Sieghart: 

By now we are all aware of the pay gap between genders but what about the gaps that are harder to quantify? On this week’s ‘Monocle Reads’ Georgina Godwin speaks to journalist and academic Mary Ann Sieghart about her latest book ‘The Authority Gap’, which examines the disparity between men and women – one that can take different shapes but clearly permeates the lives of many women.

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29311 Jul 2021
30 min

Tahmima Anam: 

Tahmima Anam is a writer for publications including ‘The Guardian’, ‘New York Times’, and ‘New Statesman’, as well as a successful novelist. While her early novels painted detailed portraits of the Bangladesh war of independence through the eyes of one family, her new book transports us to the centre of the technology world. Georgina Godwin speaks to Anam about her new novel ‘The Startup Wife’ at Hay Festival in Wales.

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★8 Jul 2021
16 min

Monocle Reads: Jonathan Crane: 

Georgina Godwin speaks to former musician and composer Jonathan Crane about his debut novel ‘We Need to Talk’. Told through a series of unexpected characters and their interconnected lives, the book paints a picture of Middle England on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic.

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2924 Jul 2021
30 min

Lionel Shriver: 

Lionel Shriver doesn’t shy away from controversy, and instead seems quite drawn to it. She rose to acclaim following the release of her novel ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ in 2003. Since then, she’s won the Orange prize for fiction and written for ‘The Wall Street Journal’, the ‘Financial Times’, and ‘The New York Times’. Shriver speaks with Georgina Godwin about her newest work ‘Should We Stay or Should We Go’, which explores different approaches to how we maintain our dignity in death with a surprisingly light touch.

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★1 Jul 2021
22 min

Monocle Reads: Ciaran Thapar: 

Ciaran Thapar is a London-based youth worker, activist and author who has written about social justice for publications such as ‘The Guardian’, ‘New Statesman’, and ‘GQ’. He speaks to Georgina Godwin about his important new book ‘Cut Short: Youth Violence, Loss and Hope in the City’.

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29127 Jun 2021
30 min

Alex Michaelides: 

Alex Michaelides’ debut novel ‘The Silent Patient’ was a huge hit, winning a Goodreads Choice award in 2019 and topping ‘The New York Times’ best seller list on its release. Now, Georgina Godwin talks to Alex about his new book, ‘The Maidens’, which is another psychological thriller, this time set in the eerie halls of Cambridge University.

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★24 Jun 2021
15 min

Monocle Reads: Thomas Gommes : 

On ‘Monocle Reads’ this week we speak to Thomas Gommes. A lawyer turned writer, he is the founder of World of Words Gstaad, a literature symposium taking place this weekend that hopes to be an international celebration of storytelling in all forms. Thomas speaks to Georgina Godwin about this weekend’s programme as well as his own short fiction writing.

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29020 Jun 2021
30 min

Jane Thynne: 

Jane Thynne is an accomplished historical novelist, but her newest book ‘Widowland’ diverges from her previous work. Georgina Godwin sits down with Thynne to discuss how she merged her personal experience of early widowhood with feminist dystopia, and why she’s decided to publish this book under a pseudonym.

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★17 Jun 2021
13 min

Monocle Reads: Natasha Brown: 

Natasha Brown is a British writer. She studied Mathematics at Cambridge University before spending a decade working in the finance industry. In 2019 she received a London Writers Award in the literary fiction category and developed her novella ‘Assembly’, an exploration of class and race that follows a day in the life of a young black British woman. Natasha speaks to Georgina Godwin about her new book, one of the most exciting and well-received debuts of the year.

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28913 Jun 2021
30 min

Rupert Thomson: 

Georgina Godwin sits down with UK writer Rupert Thomson to discuss his life and career to date. In a long and fruitful writing career, Thomson has written 13 novels and a memoir, earning countless plaudits alongside awards such as the Writers’ Guild non-fiction book of the year. As well as longer-form writing, his work has featured in publications such as the ‘Financial Times’, ‘The Guardian’, and the ‘London Review of Books’. His new novel ‘Barcelona Dreaming’ is a story of addiction, racism, celebrity, immigration and self-delusion set against a backdrop of the Catalonian capital.

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★10 Jun 2021
15 min

Monocle Reads: André Aciman: 

André Aciman is a prolific author, best known for his best-selling novel and subsequent big-screen hit ‘Call Me by Your Name’, as well as being a professor of comparative literature at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He speaks to Georgia Godwin about his latest collection of essays ‘Homo Irrealis’, which explores time, memory and the creative mind.

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