Meet the Writers
Georgina Godwin in conversation with top authors. Explore their inspirations, writing processes, and the stories behind their books.
Latest Episodes
Monocle Reads: Jim Downs
Georgina Godwin speaks to Jim Downs about his latest book ‘Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine’. It is an in-depth global history which looks at how modern medicine developed and the role of human catastrophe in this. By exploring these connections, the book seeks to find…
Simon Mundy
Simon Mundy is a journalist and the moral money editor at the ‘Financial Times’. He speaks to Georgina Godwin about his latest book ‘Race for Tomorrow: Survival, Innovation and Profit on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis’.
Monocle Reads: David Lan & Christopher MacLehose
The Walk is a travelling festival of art and cross-border collaboration, at the heart of which is Amal, the giant 3.5 metre-tall puppet, which this year has walked 8,000km in support of refugees. Now, the story of Amal has been put into book form, in the official companion ‘The Long…
Timothy Ogene
Timothy Ogene has a catalogue of academic achievements from some of the world’s most prestigious institutions. He currently lectures at Harvard University, as well as writing fiction and poetry and he tells Georgina Godwin about his second novel, ‘Seesaw’, which tells the story of a writer plucked from obscurity in…
Monocle Reads: Maryam Diener
The surrealist movement of the 20th century produced cultural icons including André Breton, Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí. While the enduring names of the movement are of men, women played a pivotal role in surrealism not merely as muses but as artists. Georgina Godwin speaks to Maryam Diener, whose book…
Mark Freestone and Gwen Adshead
Georgina Godwin sits down with Mark Freestone, author of ‘Making a Psychopath’ and Gwen Adshead, co-author of ‘The Devil You Know’ to discuss the dark world of psychopaths. Both have spent time in the company of psychopaths, either fictional or in real life, and know a little more than most…
Monocle Reads: Jennifer Otter Bickerdike
Jennifer Otter Bickerdike is an author and a rock ’n’ roll cultural historian who has been in the centre of the music industry for the last 30 years. She sat down with Georgina Godwin to discuss her latest book, ‘Being Britney: Pieces of a Modern Icon’.
Hilma Wolitzer
Hilma Wolitzer started writing as a child and had her first poem published at the tender age of nine. But it wasn’t until decades later, once she had had and raised her children, that her career really took off. Since then she has published 14 books and her daughter, Meg,…
Monocle Reads: Patrick Radden Keefe
Author and ‘The New Yorker’ staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe was this week named the winner of the 2021 Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction. He sits down with Georgina Godwin to discuss his winning book, ‘Empire of Pain’, about the rise and fall of the Sackler dynasty.
Robert Peston
Before he became political editor of ITV News, Robert Peston’s career included stints as a journalist and presenter for the likes of ‘The Sunday Telegraph’ and the BBC. The author of multiple non-fiction books, he’s now turned his hand to fiction, although the theme doesn’t stray too far from what…
