Sunny Singh discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Sunny Singh is a writer, novelist, public intellectual, and a champion for decolonisation and inclusion across all aspects of society. She is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, Hotel Arcadia, With Krishna’s Eyes, and Nani’s Book of Suicides, a study of Amitabh Bachchan for the BFI’s film star series, and the recent, A Bollywood State of Mind: A Journey into the World’s Biggest Cinema. She has recently completed a collection of stories linked by the theme of war and is currently working on a new novel, and a non-fiction book about writing ethically. In 2017 she launched the celebrated Jhalak Prize. She is also a founder of the Jhalak Foundation that focuses on a range of literary, artistic and literacy initiatives in the UK and beyond. Sunny lives in London where she is Professor of Creative Writing and Inclusion in the Arts at the London Metropolitan University.

1. Bollywood movies https://asianreviewofbooks.com/content/a-bollywood-state-of-mind-a-journey-into-the-worlds-biggest-cinema-by-sunny-singh/

2. Backpacking https://nomadsworld.com/6-reasons-backpacking-good/

3. Intersectionality https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination

4. Senegal http://hipafrica.com/features/9-reasons-visit-senegal/

5. Open water swimming (and adult swimming lessons) https://www.brighton.ac.uk/news/2023/is-open-water-swimming-good-for-you

6. The excellence and range of literature by British writers of colour https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/03/akala-bernardine-evaristo-ben-okri-and-more-pick-20-classic-books-by-writers-of-colour

Alexandra Tolstoy discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Alexandra Tolstoy is an Anglo-Russian mother, adventurer, author and TV presenter. She organises adventurous horse riding holidays in Kyrgyzstan, and runs The Tolstoy Edit, a curated shop of her favourite interiors discoveries.

1. Kyrgyzstan https://alexandratolstoytravel.com/

2. Ronald Welch https://foxedquarterly.com/ronald-welch-carey-novels-telegraph-review/

3. Darning and patching https://pieceworkmagazine.com/your-guide-to-mending/

4. Ivan Bilibin http://textualities.net/jennie-renton/the-art-of-ivan-bilibin

5. 19th century European novels https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2021/06/14/review-the-semi-detached-house-by-emily-eden/

6. Victoria sponges https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/grannys-victoria-sponge

Novelist Julius Taranto discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Julius Taranto is the author of a novel, How I Won a Nobel Prize. His other writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Phoebe. He attended Yale Law School and Pomona College. He lives in New York.

1. Cynthia Ozick https://centerforfiction.org/interviews/cynthia-ozick-interviewed-by-alessandra-farkas/

2. The Spirit of Libertyby Learned Hand https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/12/05/judge-who-shaped-our-law/

3. Jon Brion https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/01/17/jon-brion-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview/

4. Polite Society https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/apr/26/polite-society-review-fun-action-comedy-mashes-jane-austen-and-the-chuckle-brothers

5. American Civil War battlefields and history tourism https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/defining-battles-civil-war/

6. Peter Carey https://play.acast.com/s/talkingpolitics/petercarey

Faye Begeti discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dr Faye Begetiis a practising neurology doctor and neuroscientist at Oxford University Hospitals. She completed her medical degree and PhD at Cambridge, and currently conducts research into Parkinson’s disease alongside seeing her neurology patients. Her Instagram account @the_brain_doctor was started to share her knowledge more widely and has since amassed a community of over 134K followers. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two young daughters. Her new book is The Phone Fix.

1. Our phones are not addictive https://technosapiens.substack.com/p/smartphoneaddiction

2. Habits are stored in a subconscious part of our brain https://www.npr.org/2012/03/05/147192599/habits-how-they-form-and-how-to-break-them

3. We don’t have unlimited mental energy https://www.dayagrant.com/blog/how-the-brain-leaks-energy

4. Chronic stress can lead to physical symptoms https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/stress/signs-and-symptoms-of-stress/

5. A good night’s sleep starts in the morning https://hr.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1421/2023/02/A-Healthy-Nights-Sleep-Starts-the-Moment-You-Wake-Up.pdf

6. Building cognitive reserve reduces the risk of dementia https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/health-wellbeing/mind-body/staying-sharp/thinking-skills-change-with-age/cognitive-reserve/

Kelly Link discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Kelly Link is the author of White Cat, Black Dog; Get in Trouble, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction; Magic for Beginners; Stranger Things Happen; and Pretty Monsters. Her short stories have been published in The Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She is a MacArthur “Genius Grant” fellow and has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the co- founder of Small Beer Press and co-edits the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. She is also the co-owner of Book Moon, an independent bookstore in Easthampton, Massachusetts. The Book of Love is her debut novel. You can buy it through Bloomsbury, Amazon, Bookshop.org and Waterstones.

1. Kathryn Davis https://artsci.wustl.edu/faculty-staff/kathryn-davis

2. Dorothy https://dorothyproject.com/

3. Winterpills https://www.winterpills.com/

4. Kiva www.kiva.org

5. CCATE www.ccate.org

6. Street Books www.streetbooks.org

Alice Kinsella discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Alice Kinsella is a poet from Mayo, on the west coast of Ireland. She is the author of Sexy Fruit (Broken Sleep, 2018) and editor of Empty House: poetry and prose on the climate crisis (Doire Press, 2021). Milk (Picador, 2023) is her debut book of prose. She is an Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Artist. 

1. The Loneliest Whale in the World 

2. Happy Tummy Company https://www.thehappytummyco.com/

3. Mosab Abu Toha https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/01/a-palestinian-poets-perilous-journey-out-of-gaza

4. Polycystic Ovary Syndrome https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/polycystic-ovary-syndrome

5. County Mayo’s Whaling past https://iwdg.ie/end-of-our-whaling-era/

6. Being wrong https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/24/french-parliament-passes-law-giving-citizens-the-right-to-make-mistakes

Robert McCrum discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Robert McCrum is a writer and editor whose most recent book Shakespearean was published to great acclaim in 2021. Formerly the editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber, and literary editor of the Observer, he is also the author of Wodehouse: A Life (2004), and a classic memoir, My Year Off (1998).

From 1980 to 1996, McCrum was editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber, where he published Kazuo Ishiguro, Hanif Kureishi, Milan Kundera, Peter Carey, Danilo Kis, Paul Auster, Marilynne Robinson, Lorrie Moore, Adam Phillips, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jayne Anne Phillips, Orhan Pamuk, and Adam Mars-Jones, among many others. At the same time, he wrote seven novels, and co-authored the BBC TV series, The Story Of English, for which he was awarded an Emmy in 1986, followed by a Peabody Prize in 1987.

In July 1995, McCrum suffered a serious stroke, a personal crisis he described in My Year Off, a book now regarded as an essential study in the understanding of the condition.

He was literary editor of the Observer from 1996 to 2010, and published his award-winning biography P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in 2004. Globish (2010) was an international bestseller. My Year Off (1998), is now in its third edition as a Picador Classic.

McCrum joined The Observer in 1996-2010, and ultimately became Associate Editor. He left the Guardian Media Group in January 2018 to pursue his own literary interests.  In 2024, he will publish The Penalty Kick: The Story of A Game-changer with Notting Hill Editions.

1. The Lost Art of Silence by Sarah Anderson https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/animal-emotions/202312/the-art-and-power-of-connecting-to-the-sounds-of-silence

2. The River Granta https://www.wildlifebcn.org/news/river-granta-gets-wiggle

3. The invention of the penalty kick in football https://epicchq.com/story/william-mccrum-the-irish-inventor-of-the-penalty-kick/

4. Alfred the Great https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n09/tom-shippey/what-did-he-think-he-was

5. Kindness https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-enthralled-a-generation/

6. Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonelle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqrzmdevQSI

Ivan looks back at previous discussions with a variety of guests and picks out the things which they think should be less well known. Foregoing the normal positivity, guests rant, complain and moan about famous people, books, television shows, sports, ideas and 90s dances which they find deeply tiresome. The guests and topics are:

James Runcie on Lord of the Rings

Helen Thompson on The West Wing

Paul Willetts on Meghan Markle

Matthew Parris on Alistair Campbell

Irenosen Okojie on The Sun

Daisy Dunn on Whats app

Jon Glover on the word “like”

Dominic Sandbrook on history

Emma Smith on Shakespeare

Kate Mosse on Nigel Farage

Henry Hemming on Formula One

Subhadra Das on Charles Darwin

Andy Smith on Macarena

Matthew Rice discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Matthew Rice paints, writes and runs courses in the summer which utilise his garden, which is the focus of the rest of his time. Over his career he has published 11 books on architecture, designed many millions of mugs for the business he ran with his then wife Emma Bridgewater, and illustrated for Country Life magazine. His interests in architecture have led to a series of charity roles in that area. Matthew grew up in a household of designers and now lives in Oxfordshire where he paints and writes.

Matthew Rice, educated at Bedales, studied painting and theatre design at Chelsea and Central Schools of Art, is an honorary doctor of Keele and Staffordshire Universities and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Matthew has four children and one grandson.

His books include Village Buildings of Britain, Building Norfolk, Rice’s Architectural Primer, The Lost City of Stoke-on-Trent, Rice’s Church Primer, Oxford, Pat Albeck Queen of the Tea Towel, Rice’s Language of Buildings, Venice: A Sketchbook Guide and Rome: A Sketchbook Guide.

During the summer, Matthew runs a variety of painting and gardening courses in addition to opening his garden at his home in west Oxfordshire. Further details are available at www.matthewricewatercolours.co.uk.

His 2024 courses include:

Tuesday 30^th April – Vegetable & Cut Flower Growing Course

Wednesday 15^th & Thursday 16^th May – Botanical Drawing Course

Wednesday 29^th & Thursday 30^th May – Sketchbook Course

Wednesday 5^th & Thursday 6^th June – Sketchbook Course

Wednesday 19^th & Thursday 20^th June – Botanical Drawing Curse

Wednesday 10^th & Thursday 11^th July – Architectural Drawing Course

His 2024 Open Garden dates are: Sunday 2^nd June, Sunday 21^st July an Sunday 8^th September.

1. Poundbury https://poundbury.co.uk/

2. Landmark trust https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/

3. Choral evensong https://www.choralevensong.org/uk/

4. The Grant Museum https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/grant-museum-zoology

5. Zinnias https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-zinnias/

6. Silver Birch https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-british-trees/silver-birch/

Richard Mills discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dr Richard Mills is Associate Professor in English Literature and Popular Culture at St Mary’s University, London. He has been programme director for the Film and Popular Culture, Cultural Studies and Irish Studies degrees. He has published extensively on popular music, Irish literature and culture, film, fashion and British television. Mills is the author of The Beatles and Fandom: Sex, Death and Progressive Nostalgia (Bloomsbury 2019). He is co-editor of Mad Dogs and Englishness (Bloomsbury 2017) and The Beatles and Humour (Bloomsbury 2023).  He is author of the forthcoming The Beatles and Black Music: Post-colonial Theory, Musicology and Remix Culture (Bloomsbury 2024) Richard is a regular contributor to BBC4’s Last Word, Sky News, RTE, Portobello Radio and BBC Live and serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Beatles Studies.

1. Bedazzled  https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/32e4e509-795e-5e0d-b70b-681f67bde3c8/bedazzled

2. The black artists who influenced the Beatles’ music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqp2h65BAs8 & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGLGzRXY5Bw

3. Deep End https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_End_(film) 

4. Disturbing the Peace by Richard Yates https://www.amazon.co.uk/Disturbing-Peace-Vintage-Classics-Richard/dp/0099518554

5. Dining at the Dunbar by Maurice Leitch https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/13/maurice-leitch-obituary

6. Claire Keegan’s stories and novels https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/claire-keegan