Better Known

Sarah Dunant discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Sarah Dunant studied history at Newnham College, Cambridge from where she went on to become a writer, broadcaster, teacher and critic. She has written twelve novels, four of which have been short-listed for awards, and edited two books of essays. She is an accredited lecturer with The Arts Society, lecturing on Italian history and renaissance art, has taught ...

AE Gauntlett discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

AE Gauntlett completed an MA in English Literature at King’s College London in 2010. He then went on to find success as a literary agent with Peters Fraser and Dunlop, earning himself a prestigious Shooting Star nomination from The Bookseller in 2017. The Stranger at the Wedding, written secretly as he represented the work of his numerous bestselling authors,...

Simon Tolkien discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Simon Tolkien is the grandson of JRR Tolkien and a director of the Tolkien Estate. He is also series consultant for the Amazon series, The Rings of Power. Simon studied Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford and went on to become a barrister specializing in criminal defence. He left the law to become a writer in 2001 and has published five novels which mi...

Daria Lavelle discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Daria Lavelle was born in Kyiv, immigrated to the US with her family as a child and now lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three children. She holds a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She writes fiction, with short stories published in a variety of US outlets. Aftertaste is her debut novel. It’s already sold i...

Michelle Young discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Michelle Young, a journalist and professor of architecture at Columbia University, spent four years researching The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland, which is available at https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-art-spy-michelle-young?variant=43046200836130. A veritable female Monuments Man, Valland has, until ...

Róisín Lanigan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Róisín Lanigan is an editor and writer based in London and Belfast. Her work has appeared in i-D, VICE, The Atlantic, New Statesman, The Fence and Prospect, amongst other publications. She was longlisted for the Curtis Brown First Novel Prize in 2019, and won the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award in 2020. I Want to Go Home But I'm Already There is her fi...

Laura Spinney discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Laura Spinney is a writer and science journalist. Her writing on science has appeared in The Guardian, The Economist, Nature and National Geographic, among others. She is the author of two novels, The Doctor (2001) and The Quick (2007), and a collection of oral history, Rue Centrale (2013). Her bestselling non-fiction account of the 1918 flu pandemic, Pale R...

Sara Leila Sherman and Mort Sherman discuss six things which should be better known.

Sara Leila Sherman is a distinguished classical musician and educator, renowned for her work in making music accessible to young audiences through her children's concert series, Mozart for Munchkins, and the non-profit Little Mozart Foundation.

Morton Sherman, PhD is the retired Senior Associate Executive Director of The School Superintendents As...

Jo Harkin discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jo Harkin studied literature at university. She daydreamed her way through various jobs in her twenties before becoming a full-time writer. Her debut novel Tell Me an Ending was a New York Times book of the year. Her new novel is The Pretender, which is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-pretender/jo-harkin/9781526678348. She lives in Berkshire, E...

Madeleine Gray discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. She was a 2021 Finalist for the Walkley Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism, and has written for publications including the Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review and the Times Literary Supplement. She has a MSt in English Literature from the University of Oxford and is a current doctoral candidate at ...

Alex Conner discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Alex Conner is an ADHD coach and brain scientist who combines his personal experience with ADHD to be a trusted voice in psychoeducation. He is co-founder and co-host of The ADHD Adults podcast, one of the UK’s most popular ADHD resources. Alongside James Brown, Alex co-founded ADHDadultUK, a registered charity, and Focusmag.uk, an evidence-based online magazi...

Rebecca Lemov discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Rebecca Lemov is a historian of science at Harvard University and has been a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute. Her research explores data, technology, and the history of human and behavioural sciences. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her family. Her new book is The Instability of Truth, which is available at https://wwnorton.com/books/...

Kate Kemp discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Kate Kemp is an Australian writer living in the UK. She trained as an occupational therapist and then as a systemic psychotherapist, and has worked with families and individuals in mental health services in both Australia and the UK. In 2021, she won the Stylist Prize for Feminist Fiction and the Yeovil Literary Prize. The Grapevine is her first novel and is ava...

Shari Dunn discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Shari Dunn is a polymath, an accomplished journalist, and a former attorney, news anchor, CEO, and university professor. She is an American Leadership Forum Fellow and has been awarded the prestigious Executive of the Year Award in 2018, the 2019 Women of Influence Award (Portland Business Journal), the Associated Press Award for Best Spot News, and the Wiscons...

Imran Mahmood discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Imran Mahmood is a criminal defence barrister with over thirty years’ experience. His debut novel You Don’t Know Me was longlisted for both the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA Gold Dagger in 2017, and selected by Simon Mayo as a BBC Radio 2 Book Club choice in the same year. It was then adapted into a four-part BBC crime drama, airing on a prim...

Dani Heywood-Lonsdale discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dani Heywood-Lonsdale is a writer with family roots in Hawaii and the Philippines. She holds a Doctorate in Education and teaches English Literature in Oxfordshire, having previously taught in Florence and London over the past decade. Before pursuing a career in academia, she worked for a nonprofit in New York City and studied social policy and devel...

Kathleen deLaski discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Kathleen deLaski is an education and workforce designer, as well as a futurist. She founded the Education Design Lab in 2013 to help colleges begin the journey to reimagine higher education toward the future of work. Her non-profit has helped 1200 colleges, orgs and economic regions design shorter, more affordable pathways for learners to achieve their ec...

Ivan selects five conversations from previous Better Known episodes, including discussions with Henry Hemming, Brooke Allen, Mark William Jones, AJ Jacob and Meg Rosoff.

1. Eric Maschwitz https://spartacus-educational.com/SPYmaschwitz.htm

2. The correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/livingrev/religion/text3/adamsjeffersoncor.pdf

3. Rommel in 1942 https://en.wikipedia.org/w...

Jeff Sebo discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jeff Sebo is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law, Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, Director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, and Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program at New York University. His research focuses on animal minds, eth...