Book review, Antarctic Biennale and MipTV

Chapter 1

Book Review: part one

Tom Edwards is joined in the studio by writers Cathy Rentzenbrink and Mark Mason to review Polly Clark’s ‘Larchfield’ and ‘The Ascent of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Force that Explains Everything’ by Marcus Chown.

Chapter 2

The Toronto Storytelling Festival

Founded in 1979, the Toronto Storytelling Festival has become one of the largest annual gatherings of storytellers in the world. This year’s event drew to a close this past weekend and hosted storytellers who mused on the theme of “listening”. Monocle’s Toronto-bureau team went to meet some of those involved and ask them about the health of storytelling today.

Chapter 3

Book Review: part two

Tom Edwards and writers Cathy Rentzenbrink and Mark Mason review ‘White Tears’ by Hari Kunzru and ‘Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961’ by Nicholas Reynolds.

Chapter 4

MipTV

This week the television industry descended upon Cannes for MipTV. The biannual conference highlights the key formats and trends in TV, streaming and online content for the year ahead. We dialled up ‘Broadcast’ magazine’s Peter White to find out what we should be looking out for.

Chapter 5

Antarctic Biennale

It’s hard to find a place in the world that doesn’t have a biennale at the moment and now it seems that even the world’s southernmost continent has one. However, the first-ever Antarctic Biennale claims to have cast aside the conventional ideas of these champagne-swilling events and radically reimagined the traditional model. For a start this Biennale is mobile – based on a boat, cruising through Antarctica. It has no public audience or commercial agenda. And it is apolitical because the Antarctic continent is not governed by any single state. Last month Monocle’s Frederick Bernas joined the biennale for its inaugural 12-day expedition.

Chapter 6

Global countdown: Nigeria

Fernando Augusto Pacheco runs through this week’s Nigerian music chart.