Better Known

Joel Christensen discusses with Ivan six things about The Odyssey which should be better known.

Joel P. Christensen is Professor of Classics at the CUNY Graduate Center where he also serves as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. Joel has previously taught at UT San Antonio and Brandeis University. His research interests include early Greek poetry, myth, and literary theory. With Elton Barker, Joel has published Homer: A Beginner’s Guide (2013) and Homer’s Thebes (Harvard University Press 2020). Joel has also authored The Many-Minded Man: The Odyssey, Psychology, and the Therapy of Epic (2020) with Cornell Univ...

Jessica Fellowes discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jessica Fellowes is an author, journalist and public speaker. The Mitford Murders is her debut series as a novelist and has been nominated for awards in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and sold into eighteen territories. Jessica is also the author of five official companion books to ‘Downton Abbey,’ various of which hit the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller lists. Former columnist for the Mail on Sunday and deputy editor of Country Life, she has written business books with Sophie Cornish MBE, 'The Devi...

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

Sarah Wilson is a multi-New York Times bestselling author, journalist, social philosopher, international keynote speaker and philanthropist. Sarah leads dynamic, global conversations about modern philosophy, creativity, existential risk, and climate change via her keynote speaking, Wild podcast, and her Substack and social communities. She lives nomadically, but is based between Paris and Sydney, and is a compulsive hiker and adventurer. Her new book is I Eat the Stars, which is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/i-eat-the-stars/sarah-wilson/9781837827213.

Ian Proud discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Ian Proud is an expert in strategic thinking, politico-economic analysis and diplomatic tradecraft. He was a member of His Majesty's Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. During that time, he was one of the Foreign Office's most accomplished crisis experts and was Chair of the Crisis Committee at the British Embassy in Moscow when the Salisbury nerve agent attack happened in March 2018. He posts international relations articles and podcasts from his Substack page, The Peacemonger. His first novel, Searching, is now available at https://www.amazon.co...

Sahar Hashemi discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Sahar Hashemi OBE has enjoyed a successful career as an entrepreneur, bestselling author and business thought leader. Initially forging her success as the Co-Founder and former CEO of Coffee Republic, the UK’s first American-style coffee bar chain, Sahar has since built great authority as a business leader and earned an appointment of OBE for her services to the UK economy and charity. Now the Co-Founder of Buy Women Built and hired as a leading keynote speaker, Sahar is commended for her ability to build mo...

Eleanor Anstruther discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Eleanor Anstruther was educated at Westminster School but dropped out of university to travel the world where she was lost and found for twelve years. When she inherited a farm in southern England she set up a commune and began to write. Her debut, A Perfect Explanation (Salt Books) was a finalist for the Desmond Eliot Prize & Not The Booker. She now lives not quietly at all between London, Surrey and the south of France. Her latest novel, Fallout (Empress Editions) is out now at...

Mark Leonard discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Mark Leonard is Co-Founder and Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think-tank. His new book is Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics When The Rules Fail, which is available at https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=surviving-chaos-geopolitics-when-the-rules-fail--9781509575220.

Tahmima Anam discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Tahmima Anam is the author of the Bengal trilogy and a recipient of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and the O. Henry Award. Her short story ‘Garments’ was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She is a Granta Best of Young British Novelist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she trained as an anthropologist at Harvard University and now lives in London. Her new novel is Uprising, which is a Political Fiction Book Prize Fin...

Séamas O'Reilly discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Séamas O'Reilly is a writer and author who has worked as a columnist for the Observer, the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner. He is Features Editor of London satirical magazine, The Fence and his writing has appeared in The Guardian, the New Statesman and the New York Times. His memoir Did Ye Hear Mammy Died topped the Irish Times Bestseller List for seven weeks, and won Best Biography at the 2021 Irish Book Awards. Séamas currently lives in Walthamstow, London with his fam...

Ed Maklouf discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Ed Maklouf attended school in England before moving to the USA to study at Stanford University, where he conducted specialized research into group communication and how people make decisions together. After graduating, he went on to found several start-up companies in the emerging field of “democracy technology,” building tools designed to improve participation, representation, and large-scale deliberation.

His work eventually led him to Barcelona, where he began a sustained research project on voting systems. During this period, he came to know and collaborate with...

Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen discuss with Ivan six things which they think should be better known.

Emer McLysaght & Sarah Breen are co-authors of the Aisling series. Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling was the bestselling fiction title of 2017 in Ireland and its sequel, The Importance of Being Aisling, won the award for best popular fiction book at the 2018 Irish Book Awards. The third book in the series, Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling, won the same award the following year and the fourth book in the series, Aisling and the City, won again in 2021. The...

Charles Moore discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known.

Charles Moore was editor of the Daily Telegraph from 1995 to 2003, editor of the Sunday Telegraph from 1992 to 1995 and editor of the Spectator magazine from 1984 to 1990. He is now the Chairman of The Spectator. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020. He wrote the authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher, which is available at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/458867/margaret-thatcher-by-moore-charles/9780241687673.

Sean Murphy discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Sean Murphy is founder of the non-profit 1455 Lit Arts and directs the Center for Story at Shenandoah University. He has been publishing fiction, poetry, reviews (of music, movie, book, food), and essays on the technology industry for over twenty years. His latest book is red, white, and blues, his fourth poetry collection, which is available at https://www.seanmurphy.net/rwb/.

Steven Seidenberg discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Steven Seidenberg is the author of Anon (Omnidawn, 2022), plain sight (Roof Books, 2020), Situ (Black Sun Lit, 2018) Null Set (Spooky Action Books) and Itch (RAW ArT Press, 2015). His books have been published in Italian, Portuguese and Swedish translation, and his collections of photographs include The Architecture of Silence: Abandoned Lives of the Italian South (Contrasto, 2023) and Pipevalve: Berlin (Lodima Press, 2017). Coda is his latest published work and the cover features one of Steven’s photographs. It is available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coda-Steven-Seidenberg/dp/1632431734

Daniel Hahn discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Daniel Hahn is an award-winning translator, author and editor of numerous fiction and non-fiction works. He is one of the editors of The Ultimate Book Guide, the first volume of which won the Blue Peter Book Award. Other titles include children’s works such as Happiness Is a Watermelon on Your Head (a picture-book for children) and a new edition of The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. He has been a chair for prestigious international prizes including the International Booker Prize, the IMPAC Dublin Award an...

Joanna Jensen discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Joanna Jensen is the founder of the British multi-award-winning baby and child personal care brand, Childs Farm which she created in 2010 as a result of her own daughters’ sensitive and eczema prone skin.

A former Investment Banker in both London and Hong Kong, Jensen transformed an emotional need into a commercial brand from day one. Her brand was launched into mainstream retailers Boots and Waitrose in 2014 and became the number one brand in the baby and child toiletries category in 2019 disrupting the more es...

Alexandra Tolstoy returns to the podcast with a special live episode, recorded at a school. She discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Kyrgyzstan https://alexandratolstoytravel.com/

Female Explorers (Lady Jane Digby, Isabel Burton and the Decembrist Wives) https://www1.essex.ac.uk/history/documents/conferences/hero-soroka.pdf

Sailor’s Valentines https://www.worldofinteriors.com/story/sailors-valentines

Carbs https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/events/nutrition-for-sporting-events/carbohydrates-and-exercise

Lesser-known Victorian literature https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/author-profile-emily-eden/

Nukus Art Museum in Uzbekistan https://museumstudiesabroad.org/lysenko-savitsky-preserving-soviet-avant-garde/

Natalie Kyriacou discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Natalie Kyriacou OAM is an award-winning environmentalist, writer, professional public speaker and charity director with a passion to spark curiosity about the natural world. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and the Forbes 30 Under 30 honour for her services to wildlife and environmental conservation in 2018 and was recognised as one of The Australian’s Top 100 Innovators in 2022. She is a Board Director at the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife and CARE Australia, the Founder and Chair of My Green World, a UNE...

Danny Bate discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Danny Bate is a linguist, writer, broadcaster and podcaster who is fascinated by the study of historical languages and etymology. He took his BA and MPhil degrees from the University of York and the University of Cambridge respectively, and his PhD in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh. He can be found at dannybate.com. His new book is Why Q Needs U, which is available at https://dannybate.com/book/.

Deepa Anappara discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Deepa Anappara’s debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was named as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Guardian and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian literature. It has been translated into over twenty languages. Anappara is the co-editor of Letters to a Writer of Color, a collection of personal essays on fiction, race...

Nigel Biggar discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor in the University of Oxford and Fellow of Christ Church. He founded in Oxford the MacDonald Institute for the study of Ethics and Empire. He is now a Fellow of St Cross College Oxford, and an author, lecturer and broadcaster throughout the English-speaking world. After many acclaimed academic books, he wrote and published the bestselling Colonialism. His new book is The New Dark Age: Why Liberals Must Win The Culture Wars, which is available at https://www.politybooks.com...

Matt Kaplan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at the Economist. He is the author of The Science of Monsters and Science of the Magical, and co-author of David Attenborough’s First Life: A Journey Through Time. His new book is I Told You So! Scientists who were Ridiculed, Exiled and Imprisoned for Being Right, which is available at https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250372284/itoldyouso/.

The few doctors who worked out that handwashing was essential for preventing the spread of disease were attacked by their pe...

Jane Dougherty discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jane Dougherty, of Irish origin, grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in France. She began writing by coming up with short stories and a YA series for her teenage children. Her first novel was published by an American publisher Musa in 2014. Since then, her poetry and short stories have been published online, in anthologies and magazines. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and has published three poetry pamphlets. Her most recent novel, The Darkest Tide was published by Northodox Press in 2025. Pa...

Adam Steiner discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Adam Steiner is a swim-teacher, freelance journalist and author. When not saving lives he sits dreaming about all the books he will never write. 

He has written several books of music criticism: Into The Never: Nine Inch Nails And The Creation Of The Downward Spiral, Silhouettes And Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) and Darker With The Dawn: Nick Cave's Songs Of Love And Death.

He runs the Disappear Here poetry film project – 27 x colla...

Erin Somers discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Erin Somers is a reporter and news editor at Publishers Lunch. Her first novel, Stay Up with Hugo Best was a Vogue Best Book of the Year in 2019. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, New York Times Book Review, New Republic, New York Magazine, Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, Best American Short Stories and many other publications. She has been the recipient of an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the NYC Centre for Fiction, a fellowship from the Millay Colony, and was a 2020 finalist...

Tharik Hussain, who previously appeared on the podcast in 2022, discusses with Ivan six further things which should be better known.

Tharik Hussain is an award-winning author and journalist specialising in global Muslim heritage and culture. He has written for newspapers such as The Times, Guardian and Telegraph, magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, and broadcast media such as Al Jazeera and the BBC. For the latter, he produced award-winning radio program America’s Mosques. Tharik has written or contributed to travel books on areas including the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Europe, and his book on Islam in...

Richard Johnson and Lee Evans discuss with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Richard Johnson is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary University of London. With Lee Evans, he is the co-host of the 'Since Attlee and Churchill' podcast. He is the author of several books on British and US politics, including The End of the Second Reconstruction: Obama, Trump, and the Crisis of Civil Rights and Keeping the Red Flag Flying: The Labour Party in Opposition since 1922 (with Gavin Hyman and Mark Garnett).

Lee David Evans is John Ramsden Fellow at...

Historian Brooke Newman discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dr. Brooke Newman is an Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She specializes in the history of early modern Britain and the British Atlantic, with a focus on slavery and its legacies. She is the author of the award-winning book, A Dark Inheritance: Blood, Race, and Sex in Colonial Jamaica (Yale, 2018), and The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of Slavery and the British Monarchy (Mudlark, 2026), which is available at https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/the-crowns-silence-the-hidden-history-of-slavery-and-the-british-monarchy-brooke-newman?variant=55509554397563...

Dean Koontz discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dean Koontz won an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition when he was a senior in college, and has been writing ever since. Fourteen of his novels have risen to number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list (One Door Away From Heaven, From the Corner of His Eye, Midnight, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Hideaway, Dragon Tears, Intensity, Sole Survivor, The Husband, Odd Hours, Relentless, What the Night Knows, and 77 Shadow Street), making him one of only a dozen writers ever to have achieved...

Ryan Gingeras discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Ryan Gingeras is a professor in the Institute of Regional and International Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School and is an expert in modern Eastern European and Middle East history. He is the author of seven books, including The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire and Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of the Ottoman Empire 1912–1923, which was shortlisted for numerous book prizes. He has published on a wide variety of topics related to history and politics in publications such as Foreign Affairs, New Yo...

Stuart Jeffries discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Stuart Jeffries was born in Wolverhampton in 1962. He was educated in Dudley, Oxford and London.

Stuart started his journalistic career as a cub reporter at the Birmingham Post and Mail in 1985. He used to edit the Walsall Observer's children's page under the pseudonym Uncle Tom. Later he was the jazz critic of the Morning Star under the pseudonym Lew Lewis. In 1987, he moved to the Hampstead and Highgate Express, where he had many duties, chief among which was interviewing Hampstead lady novelists, which h...

Pete Brown discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Pete Brown (https://petebrown.net/) is a British author, journalist, broadcaster and consultant specialising in food and drink. Since February 2025, he has been the Sunday Times Magazine’s weekly beer columnist – the only regular broadsheet newspaper or magazine beer columnist in the UK.

He is currently Chair of Judges for the World Beer Awards. He was named British Beer Writer of the Year in 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2021, has won three Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards, been shortlisted twice for the André Simon Awards, and in 20...

Sandy Pentland discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Alex Pentland is a Stanford HAI Fellow and MIT Toshiba Professor. Named one of the “100 People to Watch This Century” by Newsweek and “one of the seven most powerful data scientists in the world” by Forbes, he is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, an advisor to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority Lab, and an advisor to the UN Secretary General’s office. His work has helped manage privacy and security for the world’s digital networks by establishing authentication standards, protect personal privacy by c...

Jaime Davila discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jaime Dávila earned an engineering degree in the United States. Choosing a career in the creative industries, he worked primarily in broadcasting and eventually led operations at Mexico’s largest media company. He became intrigued by the creation of the first mechanised sawmill by Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593. This invention, whose significance has been overlooked, inspired his new book. Find out more at https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/jaime-davila/.

Mankind’s first industrial machine was Dutch.

The Dutch invented participatory capitalism.

The...

To celebrate the 400th episode of Better Known, previous guest Richard Elwes discusses with Ivan Wise six aspects of the Better Known podcast which Ivan thinks should be better known.

Many thanks to Caroline Crampton and Laurence Bergreen for adding their choices of things which should be better known.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Christopher Hill discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Christopher Hill was working in finance in London when, in 2002, he took a trip to South Africa which changed his life. He left his job, moved to Canada, and worked on the business plan for what became Hands Up Holidays. He spent the next two years traveling the world, building relationships with communities, formed a team of like-minded people, and launched the business in 2006. You can find out more at https://handsupholidays.com/.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Eleanor Doughty discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Eleanor Doughty began her career in journalism at the Daily Telegraph, before going freelance to focus on writing. She has written the 'Great Estates' column in the Telegraph since 2017, and specialises in writing about the British moneyed and titles classes. Her first book Heirs and Graces, a history of the modern British aristocracy was published in September by Hutchinson Heinemann. Her writing appears in Country Life, The Times and Sunday Times, the Telegraph, the Spectator, the Financial Times, The Field and many other publications. When...

Sasha Butler discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Sasha Butler is a Birmingham based writer. Her first novel, The Marriage Contract (Salt, 2025), was shortlisted for the Cheshire Novel Prize 2022 and the Bath Novel Award 2022, under the former title As Soft as Dreams. In addition to novels, she occasionally writes short stories. Her short story ‘Map of an Affair’ features in Floodgate Press’ anthology, Night Time Economy (September 2024). The Marriage Contract is available at https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/the-marriage-contract-9781784633608

The decline of the skirret https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/82232/sium-sisarum/detail...

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

Doug Lemov is a former teacher and school principal whose books describe the techniques of high-performing teachers. His best-known book, Teach Like a Champion (now in its 3.0 version) has been translated into more than a dozen languages. The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading, out in July and co-written with Colleen Driggs and Erica Woolway, looks at how cognitive science can be better applied to the teaching of reading. Doug holds a BA in English from Hamilton College, an MA in...

Sudhir Hazareesingh discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Professor Sudhir Hazareesingh was born in Mauritius. He is a Fellow of the British Academy a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, His books include The Legend of Napoleon (Granta, 2004), In the Shadow of the General (OUP, 2012) and How the French Think (Allen Lane, 2015). He won the Prix du Mémorial d’Ajaccio and the Prix de la Fondation Napoléon for the first of these, a Prix d’Histoire du Sénat for the second, and the Grand Prix du Livre d’Idées for...