Meet the Writers
Georgina Godwin in conversation with top authors. Explore their inspirations, writing processes, and the stories behind their books.
Latest Episodes
Peter Hain
Despite growing up in apartheid South Africa, Peter Hain is best known for his career spanning three decades as a UK Labour Party MP. He served in the cabinets of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and chaired the UN Security Council. His latest book, ‘The Rhino Conspiracy’, is a…
Monocle Reads: Craig Brown
Craig Brown’s Beatles biography, ‘One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time’, won the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. The journalist and author of 18 books been writing his parodic diary in ‘Private Eye’ since 1989 and is the only person to have won three different Press Awards –…
Booker prize winner Douglas Stuart
The 2020 Booker prize went to ‘Shuggie Bain’ by Douglas Stuart. Only the second Scot to win the prize, he tells Georgina Godwin about growing up with an alcoholic mother in Glasgow, his career in fashion, his move to New York – and now his coronation at the very pinnacle…
Monocle Reads: Helen Jacey
Helen Jacey is a professional screenwriter, lecturer, author and founder of Shedunnit Productions, which provides opportunities across media for intersectional feminist work. An expert in female characterisation, her first book ‘The Woman in the Story’ was published in 2010 and has since become the international handbook for screenwriters writing female…
Erika Fatland
One of Norway’s most exciting new travel writers, Erika Fatland has gained a reputation for telling unique, often overlooked stories. A social anthropologist by training, she has documented terrorism in Beslan and the 2011 terror attacks in her native Norway. In her latest book, ‘The Border: A Journey Around Russia,’…
Monocle Reads: Stuart Clark
Georgina Godwin speaks to Stuart Clark, author and one of the leading astronomy journalists in the UK. Clark holds a PhD in astrophysics and his work has been published widely. He tells Georgina about his new book ‘Beneath the Night: How the Stars Have Shaped the History of Humankind’.
Robert Harris
Robert Harris is probably the UK’s best-known thriller writer. A former political editor on broadsheets, his work has explored themes as wide-ranging as contemporary politics, ancient Rome and the Second World War. Many have become bestsellers and been adapted for television and film.
Monocle Reads: Jennifer Dasal
Jennifer Dasal, curator of modern and contemporary art at the North Carolina Museum of Art, is also host of the successful podcast ‘ArtCurious’. She speaks to Georgina Godwin about her latest book, ‘ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd and Strangely Wonderful in Art History’.
Michael Portillo
Georgina Godwin speaks to former UK defence secretary and shadow chancellor Michael Portillo. Following his career in politics he moved to the BBC, where he presented the popular documentary series ‘Great British Railway Journeys’, which is the inspiration for his latest book.
Monocle Reads: Peter Ross
Author and award-winning journalist Peter Ross takes us through the fascinating world of burial grounds in his new book, ‘A Tomb With a View’, which explores graveyards across the UK and the stories of those who lie beneath them.
