Shows
5x15Sunil Amrith And John Vaillant On The Burning Earth5x15 is delighted to announce a special online event with two award-winning authors, the acclaimed Yale professor Sunil Amrith, and John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in 2023. They will be in conversation about Amrith's new book The Burning Earth, a paradigm-shifting survey of how human history has reshaped the planet over the last 500 years.
Humans have always searched for freedom. Ever since innovations in agriculture vastly expanded production of the staples of food energy, our remarkable achievements in reshaping nature have brought about an overwhelming expansion in the life chances of billions...
2024-12-1658 min
5x15Oliver Burkeman On Meditations For Mortals5x15 is delighted to announce a special online event with Oliver Burkeman, author of the international breakout bestseller Four Thousand Weeks, a book that touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of readers.
Inspired by its investigation into time and how we use it, some of those readers changed their lives, and made big decisions to rethink careers, relationships, priorities, and misguided assumptions about productivity.
Now, Oliver Burkeman is back with Meditations for Mortals, a book that will take us on a liberating journey towards a more meaningful life. Addressing the fundamental questions about how to live, it offers a...
2024-11-251h 00
5x15Jonathan Haidt And Kirstie Allsopp On The Anxious Generation5x15 is delighted to announce a special online event with acclaimed psychologist Jonathan Haidt and television presenter Kirstie Allsopp, in partnership with Smartphone Free Childhood. Author of the groundbreaking, No.1 Sunday Times bestseller The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt has transformed the conversation around teenage mental health and galvanised a global movement.
Haidt argues that there are two major factors behind the epidemic of mental illness among adolescents: the rise in smartphone usage, and the decline of free-play in childhood. With so many of us glued to our screens, it is now harder than ever to rediscover time spent in the...
2024-10-111h 02
5x15Bella Mackie And Alexandra Heminsley On What A Way To Go5x15 is thrilled to announce a special event with author and journalist Bella Mackie, whose bestselling books include Jog On and How to Kill Your Family. In conversation with writer and broadcaster Alexandra Heminsley, Bella will be speaking about her hotly anticipated new novel What A Way To Go, a brilliantly funny and twisty mystery for fans of Succession and true crime.
Anthony Wistern is wealthy beyond imagination. Fragrant wife, gaggle of photogenic children, French chateau, Cotswold manor, plethora of mistresses, penchant for cutting moral corners, tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Unfortunately for him, he’s also dead. Suddenly po...
2024-09-2759 min
5x15Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall On How To Eat 30 Plants A Week5x15 is delighted to announce a special event in June with beloved chef, writer and broadcaster Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Hugh will be speaking with cross-bench peer and 5x15 co-founder Rosie Boycott about food, health, and his new book How to Eat 30 Plants a Week.
Leading nutritionists have confirmed that when it comes to eating plants, diversity is the key, and 30 is the magic number. As we add more plants to our diet, measurable health benefits accrue, thanks to their amazing micronutrients and differing fibres, and once we get to 30 per week the effects start to plateau. So hitting the magic 30 week...
2024-07-2959 min
5x15George Monbiot On The Invisible DoctrineJoin 5x15 for an explosive online event with leading writer and thinker George Monbiot on his #1 Sunday Times bestseller The Invisible Doctrine in conversation with Rosie Boycott.
How can you fight something if you don’t know it exists?
We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental wellbeing; the planet we inhabit – the very air we breathe. So pervasive has it become that, for most people, it has no name. It seems unavoidable, like a natural law.
But trace it back...
2024-07-261h 01
5x15Lauren Child On SmileLauren Child is an English children’s author and illustrator best known for her book series the Charlie and Lola picture books, which were adapted into a BAFTA-winning children’s television show, and the Clarice Bean series, which has sold over 7 million copies and won legions of fans over the world who have grown up with Clarice. Child won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association for the first Charlie and Lola book; for the 50th anniversary of the Medal, a panel named it one of the top ten winning works, which comprised the shortlist for a public vote...
2024-06-0314 min
5x15Dorian Lynskey On Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About The End Of The WorldDorian Lynskey writes about music, film, books and politics for publications including The Guardian, The Observer, the New Statesman, GQ, Billboard, Empire, and Mojo. His first book was 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs. A study of thirty-three pivotal songs with a political message, it was NME's Book of the Year and a 'Music Book of the Year' in The Daily Telegraph. His second book, The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984, was longlisted for both the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Orwell Prize. He hosts the podcasts 'Origin Story' and 'Oh God, What Now...
2024-05-3115 min
5x15Clover Stroud On The Giant On The SkylineClover Stroud is a writer and journalist, writing regularly for The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. She also hosts a popular podcast called Tiny Acts of Bravery. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild and Sleepless Nights: A Mother's Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated 'best books of the year'. She is currently living in Washington DC with her husband and the youngest three of her...
2024-05-2714 min
5x15Johann Hari On Magic PillJohann Hari is the author of three previous internationally bestselling books, translated into 40 languages. His TED talks have been viewed over 80 million times, and his work has been praised by a broad range of people, from Oprah to Noam Chomsky to Joe Rogan, Elton John, Hillary Clinton and Steven Bartlett. He was also the executive producer of an Oscar-nominated film, and an eight-part TV series with Samuel L. Jackson. His new book, Magic Pill, is a revelatory look at the new drugs transforming weight loss as we know it.
With thanks for your support for 5x15 online!
Learn more about 5...
2024-05-2416 min
5x15Suzi Ronson On Me And Mr Jones5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Suzi Ronson is an author, songwriter, and former hairdresser and stylist. At fifteen, she left school and enrolled in the Evelyn Paget College of Hair and Beauty, going on to become David Bowie’s stylist after helping create his iconic Ziggy Stardust hairstyle. She travelled the world with Bowie as his hairdresser, stylist and confidante. Ronson has also worked with Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and John Mellencamp. She divides her time between London and Ne...
2024-05-0616 min
5x15Andrew O’Hagan On Caledonian Road5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Andrew O’Hagan is one of the most exciting and serious chroniclers of our times. Born in Glasgow, he has been nominated for the Booker Prize three times, was voted one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003 and won the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Editor-at-Large of the London Review of Books and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His prev...
2024-05-0312 min
5x15Dr Agnes Arnold-Forster On Nostalgia: A Biography5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Dr Agnes Arnold-Forster has worked at McGill University, at the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University of London and as a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Centre for Human Development in Berlin. She is the author of an academic history of cancer and has written widely for academic, medical and mainstream outlets. She has also appeared on BBC Radio, consulted for television dramas and documentaries, and worked closely with...
2024-04-2912 min
5x15Philip Lymbery On Cultivated Meat: To Secure Our Future5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Philip Lymbery is Chief Executive of leading international farm animal welfare organisation Compassion in World Farming, as well as being a Visiting Professor at the University of Winchester, award-winning author and animal advocate. He was appointed an ambassadorial ‘Champion’ for the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021. He has played a leading role in many major animal welfare reforms, including Europe-wide bans on veal crates for calves and barren battery cages for laying hens. He has...
2024-04-2614 min
5x15Henry Dimbleby On Ravenous5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Henry Dimbleby is the co-founder of LEON, and the Director of The Sustainable Restaurant Association, which runs some of London's most successful street food markets. His work with DEFRA culminated in the National Food Strategy – a policy proposal widely praised by industry wide figures such as Yotam Ottolenghi and Sir Partha Dasgupta. In 2013 he co-authored The School Food Plan, which set out actions to transform what children eat in schools and how they learn ab...
2024-04-1915 min
5x15Catherine Coldstream On Cloistered5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Catherine Coldstream grew up in London and converted to Catholicism in her early twenties. She was a Carmelite nun for twelve years. Since leaving the monastery, she took an undergraduate degree as a mature student, at the University of Oxford, and taught theology, philosophy and ethics for ten years. She has never stopped thinking about her life as a nun and wrote about it as a way of understanding the experiences that shaped her...
2024-04-1513 min
5x15Colum McCann On American Mother5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Colum McCann’s seven novels and three collections of short stories have been published in over forty languages and received some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards and honours, including the National Book Award for his novel Let the Great World Spin in 2013. TransAtlantic was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013, and his most recent novel, Apeirogon, also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, is an international bestseller on four continents. In h...
2024-04-1214 min
5x15Vincent Deary On How We Break- Navigating The Wear And Tear Of Living5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Vincent Deary is professor of applied health psychology at Northumbria University, where his research focuses on the development of new psychosocial interventions for people with a variety of health complaints, including cancer survivors and fear of falling in older adults. As a clinician he works in the UK's first trans-diagnostic Fatigue Clinic, to help people for whom fatigue is a disabling symptom. He is the author of How We Are. His highly acclaimed new...
2024-04-0813 min
5x15Chris Anderson On The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
After a career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2001 and has developed it as a global platform for identifying and disseminating ideas worth spreading. His TED mantra – ‘ideas worth spreading’ – continues to blossom on an international scale, with more than one billion TED Talks viewed annually. He lives in New York City and London.Blending cutting-edge psychological research with a wealth of inspiring stories, Infectious Generosity: The Ulti...
2024-04-0513 min
5x15Emma Tarlo On Under The Hornbeams5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Emma Tarlo is an anthropologist, writer and curator and an Emeritus Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London. Having authored numerous highly regarded academic titles, she published her first trade title, the prize-winning Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair (Oneworld), to great acclaim in 2016. In her new book, Under the Hornbeams, Tarlo follows the seasons of a single year in Regent's Park, where she meets two men living under the trees without shelter and discovers...
2024-03-2914 min
5x15John Vaillant On Fire Weather: A True Story From A Hotter World5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
John Vaillant is the international bestselling author of The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival and The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed. He has written for, among others, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic and the Guardian. His latest book, Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, is a page-turning account of a brutal urban wildfire, and a sweeping exploration of our rapidly changing...
2024-03-2514 min
5x15Cathy Newman On The Ladder5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Cathy Newman is one of Channel 4 News' main studio presenters. She joined Channel 4 News as political correspondent in January 2006 after seven years writing for the Financial Times. Cathy is an award-winning investigative journalist whose scoops have included allegations of sexual harassment in Westminster, an investigation into a British paedophile who abused vulnerable boys in Kenya; and allegations of violent abuse by the British barrister John Smyth. She was the only broadcast journalist to travel...
2024-03-2215 min
5x15Jackie Morris On The Book Of Birds5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Jackie Morris is an award-winning British writer and illustrator. Morris studied at the Bath Academy of Art and started her career as an illustrator by working for magazines including Radio Times, New Statesman, New Society and Country Living. She has illustrated over 60 books, and is best known for the stunning The Lost Words (2017), co-written with Robert Macfarlane – a love song to many increasingly rare words pertaining to nature and the natural world. These illustrations ea...
2024-03-1811 min
5x15Paula Byrne On Hardy Women5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Paula Byrne is the author of the bestselling biographies The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, Perdita, Mad World, The Real Jane Austen, Belle, Kick and The Genius of Jane Austen. She is founder and chief executive of ReLit, the Bibliotherapy Foundation, a charity devoted to the mental health benefits of reading. Her new book, Hardy Women, re-examines Thomas Hardy’s life through the eyes of the women who made him—mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muse...
2024-03-1512 min
5x155x15 On Botanic Gardens Past And Future With Royal Botanic Gardens, KewBuilding upon Kew's commitment to re-examine the history of its collections, this discussion explores the colonial legacies of botany and botanic gardens, featuring a panel of leading writers and thinkers in this area. All too often history shows us that the origins of botanic gardens are intertwined with the histories of colonialism, imperialism and enslavement. How can understanding these connections pave the way to a more inclusive future? Given this legacy, what is the role that botanic gardens play today in supporting and addressing climate justice?
Speakers
Sathnam Sanghera is a journalist and best-selling author. His acclaimed books include The...
2024-03-121h 00
5x15Merlin Sheldrake On Entangled Life5x15 is thrilled to announce a special event with multi-award-winning writer and biologist Merlin Sheldrake, author of the smash-hit bestseller Entangled Life, in conversation Gaia Vince.
The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them. They can change our minds, heal our bodies and even help us avoid environmental disaster; they are metabolic masters, earth-makers and key players in most of nature's processes. In Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake takes us on a mind-altering journey into their spectacular world.
Winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the Wainwright Prize, and named a Book of the Year...
2024-02-091h 02
5x15Nina Stibbe And Cathy Rentzenbrink On Went to London, Took the Dog5x15 is delighted to announce a special event with Nina Stibbe, the 'funniest person who owns a computer' (in the words of Ann Patchett), in conversation with acclaimed memoirist Cathy Rentzenbrink. This is not to be missed!
Ten years after her beloved and multi-award winning book Love, Nina, Nina is back with Went to London, Took the Dog, a diary of her return to London in her sixty-first year. After two decades away, Nina is back in the city she used to call home, with her dog, Peggy. Together they take up lodging in Camden for a 'year-long sabbatical'. It’s...
2024-02-051h 04
5x15David Grann On The WagerDavid Grann is a staff writer at The New Yorker. He has written about everything from New York City's antiquated water tunnels to the hunt for the giant squid. His stories have appeared in several anthologies. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and two children. His books include the international best-seller Killers of the Flower Moon, and his new book, The Wager, tells a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder.
With thanks for your...
2024-01-2917 min
5x155x15 On Health And Nature With Royal Botanic Gardens, KewAs plant-based diets gain popularity and outdoor activities like hiking and wild swimming become more advocated for wellness, the crucial link between nature and human health is gaining recognition. But what does it entail to derive nutrients, physical, and mental health benefits from the natural world? While the significance of dietary choices is well-established, can we also enhance agricultural practices to foster fertile soils, better health, and a deeper connection to the land?
David R. Montgomery, a geomorphologist, delves into how Earth's surface processes shape ecological systems and human societies. His research spans from landslide impacts on mountain heights to...
2024-01-261h 04
5x15Andy Mitchell & Anil Seth On Psychedelics, Philosophy & Consciousness5x15's new season kicks off in January with a special conversation about consciousness and the world of psychedelics with two highly acclaimed authors, neuropsychologist Andy Mitchell and neuroscientist Anil Seth.
The 'psychedelic renaissance' is upon us. While psychedelic drugs were once demonised, and are still largely illegal, they are now officially a 'breakthrough therapy' used to treat mental health disorders and enhance well-being. But there is a risk that making them safe or normal might ultimately destroy what makes them potent. What is at stake in normalising substances that alter our consciousness?
In his book Ten Trips, Andy Mitchell...
2024-01-221h 00
5x15Kassia St Clair On The Race To The FutureKassia St Clair studied the history of women's dress and the masquerade during the eighteenth century at Bristol and Oxford. She has since written about design and culture for the Economist, House & Garden, TLS, Quartz and New Statesman, and has had a column about colour in Elle Decoration since 2013. Her first book The Secret Lives of Colour was a top-ten bestseller, a Radio 4 Book of the Week and has been translated into over a dozen languages; her second, The Golden Thread, was a Sunday Times Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the Somerset Maugham Award. She lives in...
2024-01-1915 min
5x15Paul Caruana Galizia On A Death In MaltaPaul Caruana Galizia became a reporter after his mother Daphne was assassinated and since then has won a British Journalism Award, a Media Excellence Award from the Association of International Broadcasters, a silver medal at the British Podcast Awards, and a bronze medal at the Radio Academy ARIAs. With his two brothers, he won a Magnitsky Human Rights Award and an Anderson-Norman-Lucas Award for. His book A Death in Malta is a spellbinding account of the shocking murder of his muckraking mother and the search for justice that has reverberated far beyond their tiny homeland.
With thanks for your support...
2024-01-1517 min
5x15Rosamund Young On The Wisdom Of Sheep & Other AnimalsRosamund Young is the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Cows - named a Times book of the year - and the recently published The Wisdom of Sheep & Other Animals. Alongside her brother Richard and her partner Gareth she runs Kite’s Nest Farm on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment, where nature is left to itself as much as possible and the animals receive exceptional kindness and consideration. The farm produces beef and lamb from 100% grass-fed animals which are sold in the farm shop.
Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
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2024-01-1215 min
5x15Adam Sisman On The Secret Life Of John Le CarréAdam Sisman is a writer specialising in biography, living in Bristol, England. He is the author of Boswell's Presumptuous Task, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the biographer of John le Carré, A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper. Among his other works are two volumes of letters by Patrick Leigh Fermor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews. "Mr. Sisman has an ideal biographical style: inquisitive and open, serious yet not severe," Dwight Garner wrote of Sisman's life of Hugh Trevor-Roper in the N...
2024-01-0916 min
5x155x15 And Keystone Present: Six Ideas To Change The World: Jeff Goodell On HeatThe Six Ideas to Change the World series, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, concludes in November with writer and journalist Jeff Goodell, author of the best-selling book The Heat Will Kill You First.
The planet is changing in extreme ways. Spring is arriving a few weeks earlier and autumn a few weeks later. Heatwaves are becoming more intense and more common. Heat is the first order threat that drives other climate change impacts, and it will affect everything from our food supply to disease outbreaks. The basic science behind rising temperatures is not complicated, but the failure...
2023-11-2858 min
5x155x15 And Keystone Present: Six Ideas To Change The World: Elizabeth Kolbert on PlasticsThe Six Ideas to Change the World series, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, continues in October with award-winning writer and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the international best-seller The Sixth Extinction.
Plastics are poisoning us. In the midst of a global pollution crisis, research clearly illustrates the toxic effects of microplastics, which both release and attract dangerous chemicals. But while plastics are a relatively recent human invention, they have become so ubiquitous as to seem indispensable. Will our planet ever be rid of them?
Join us to hear Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert discuss life beyond plastics...
2023-11-0657 min
5x15Marcus Du Sautoy and Alex Bellos on GamesWhen it comes to playing games, asking the right questions is everything. Where should you move first in Connect 4? What is the best property in Monopoly? And how can pi help you win rock paper scissors?
In his new book Around the World in 80 Games, the award-winning mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explores the maths behind the games we love to play, and why we love to play them. Spanning millennia, countries and cultures, he discovers how maths and games have been integral to human psychology and culture.
For 5x15, Marcus is in conversation with Alex Bellos a grandmaster of the...
2023-10-301h 00
5x15Kate Humble and Helen Rebanks on HomeWhat is the meaning of home? As the nights begin to draw in and we head into the autumn, 5x15 is delighted to welcome the wonderful authors Kate Humble and Helen Rebanks for a special conversation about the time we spend at home.
Kate Humble has inspired many readers with her positive and purposeful approach to life, whether it's reconnecting with nature or changing our lifestyles. Now, in her new book Where the Hearth Is, she turns her attention to life indoors. In the move away from office buildings and traditional workplaces, how do we create spaces that feel happy...
2023-10-261h 05
5x15Mark O’Connell On A Thread Of Violence5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Mark O’Connell is the author of A Thread of Violence, Notes from an Apocalypse, and To Be a Machine, which was awarded the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, the 2019 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and The Guardian. He lives in...
2023-10-0915 min
5x15Sarah Ogilvie On The Dictionary People5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Sarah Ogilvie teaches at the University of Oxford, and specializes in language, dictionaries, and technology. As a lexicographer she has been an editor at the Oxford English Dictionary and was Chief Editor of Oxford Dictionaries in Australia. As a technologist she has worked in Silicon Valley at Lab 126, Amazon's innovation lab, where she was part of the team that developed the Kindle. She originally studied computer science and mathematics before taking her doctorate in...
2023-10-0518 min
5x15Justine Picardie On Coco Chanel5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Justine Picardie is the author of six books, including her bestselling memoir If the Spirit Moves You; Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture; and the international bestseller, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, which will be reissued in a new, revised edition in August 2023 to coincide with the forthcoming Chanel exhibition at the V&A. She has also contributed essays to several anthologies and museum exhibitions on art, fashion and photography...
2023-10-0221 min
5x15Octavia Bright On This Ragged Grace: A Memoir Of Recovery And Renewal5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Octavia Bright is a writer and broadcaster. She co-hosts Literary Friction, the literary podcast and NTS Radio show, with Carrie Plitt. Recommended by the New York Times, Guardian, BBC Culture, Electric Literature, Sunday Times and others, it has run for ten years and has listeners worldwide. She has also presented programmes for BBC R4 including Open Book, and hosts literary events for bookshops, publishers, and festivals – such as Cheltenham Literature Festival and events for Th...
2023-09-2813 min
5x15Ed Yong On I Contain Multitudes5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Ed Yong's first book, I Contain Multitudes, about the amazing partnerships between microbes and animals, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the Wellcome Book Prize. It was a New York Times bestseller. He is a science writer on the staff of The Atlantic, where he won the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Polk Award for science reporting, among other honours...
2023-09-2521 min
5x15Colm Tóibín And Seán Hewitt On A Guest At The Feast5x15 welcomes Colm Tóibín, novelist, critic, essayist and one of the most highly acclaimed writers of our time.
In his new essay collection A Guest at the Feast, Tóibín traverses life in all its complexity, capturing moments that are both melancholy and amusing, rich and strange. Travelling between the streets of Buenos Aires and a deserted Venice, and the works of writers such as John McGahern and Marilynne Robinson, these essays uncover the places where life and fiction overlap.
Don't miss the chance to hear this most erudite and important storyteller, live in conversation with award-winning poet...
2023-09-181h 00
5x155x15 And Keystone Present: Six Ideas To Change The World: Gaia Vince On MigrationThe Six Ideas to Change the World series, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, continues in July with Gaia Vince on Migration.
Migration is one of the most underreported consequences of the climate crisis, but it is also one of the most seismic. Put simply, the changing temperatures on our planet will force us to change where - and how - we live.
What will the ongoing climate upheaval mean practically? How can we prepare for mass migration, and who will be the most affected by these changes?
To address these urgent and complex questions, we are thrilled...
2023-09-141h 02
5x15Polly Morland And Rachel Clarke On A Fortunate WomanIn July, 5x15 is thrilled to welcome the highly acclaimed and best-selling authors Polly Morland and Rachel Clarke, for a vital conversation about medicine, the NHS and the fascinating story behind Morland's new book A FORTUNATE WOMAN: A Country Doctor's Story, a Sunday Times bestseller that was shortlisted for the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.
Polly Morland was clearing her late mother’s house when she found a battered paperback fallen behind the family bookshelf. Opening it, she was astonished to see reproduced in it an old photograph of the remote, wooded valley in which she lives. The book was A...
2023-09-111h 01
5x15Dr Michael Mosley And Thomasina Miers On Just One ThingIf you were going to do just one thing to transform your health, what would it be?
With the sheer amount of information we consume daily about diet, fitness and wellbeing, this can be an increasingly difficult question to answer. But Dr Michael Mosley, No.1 international best-selling author of the 5:2 diet books, is here to help. We are delighted to welcome him to 5x15's virtual stage for an energizing conversation about small changes that make all the difference, with cook, writer and presenter Thomasina Miers.
Based on the popular BBC podcast, Just One Thing, Dr Mosley’s new book un...
2023-09-071h 00
5x155x15 And Keystone Present: Tim Smedley And Alok Jha On Six Ideas To Change The World: WaterThe Six Ideas to Change the World series, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, continues in June with Tim Smedley and Alok Jha on Water.
Water scarcity is an urgent problem. While some of the world's water crisis can be attributed to changes wrought by climate change, like droughts and floods, there is also a long history of human mismanagement. What can we learn from past mistakes, and how will those lessons inform the future?
In his new book The Last Drop: Solving the World's Water Crisis, the award-winning environmental journalist Tim Smedley offers a timely and ultimately...
2023-07-2056 min
5x15Lucy Jones And Amy Liptrot On Matrescence5x15 is delighted to welcome two best-selling and award-winning authors back to our virtual stage. This time, Lucy Jones and Amy Liptrot will be in conversation about Jones's highly anticipated new book MATRESCENCE: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Motherhood.
Other than adolescence, there is no other time in a human's life course that entails such dramatic change than pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood. So why has this transformation been so neglected by science, medicine and philosophy, and gone largely unrepresented across literature and the arts?
Lucy Jones's new book is a groundbreaking, deeply personal investigation into the...
2023-07-1759 min
5x15Andrew Motion On Sleeping On Islands: A Life In PoetryAndrew Motion was UK Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009, is co-founder of the online Poetry Archive, and has written acclaimed biographies of Philip Larkin and John Keats among others. His memoir of childhood, In the Blood, was published in 2006, and its sequel, Sleeping on Islands: A Life in Poetry, appeared alongside Selected Poems: 1977 – 2022 in 2023. He is Homewood Professor in the Arts at Johns Hopkins University, and lives in Baltimore.
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Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
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2023-06-0918 min
5x15Angela Saini On The PatriarchsAngela Saini is an award-winning journalist and author. She presents radio, podcasts, and television programmes, and her writing has appeared across the world, including in The Financial Times, Wired, and National Geographic. Angela's 2019 book Superior: The Return of Race Science was published to enormous critical acclaim, and became a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the Hughes Prize, and the Foyles Book of the Year. Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong was published in 2017, and has been translated into fourteen languages. In her bold and radical fourth book, The Patriarchs, she goes in search of the true roots of...
2023-06-0613 min
5x15Ariel Bruce On Long Lost Family: Born Without TraceDescribed as the Agatha Christie of the adoption world, Ariel Bruce works on ITV’s Long Lost Family and specialises in finding people affected by adoption, using her unique skills as a social worker and her background in care to reunite families all over the world. Born in London, Ariel’s parents were Jewish refugees and at the age of 12, she was placed into care and went on to have 6 different foster parents. Based in London, Ariel carries out extensive work in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, as well as in many countries worldwide, including the USA and Canada, Australia, New...
2023-06-0215 min
5x155x15 And Keystone Present: Six Ideas To Change The World: FoodThe Six Ideas to Change the World series, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, launches in May with Henry Dimbleby on Food.
The co-founder of LEON restaurant chain and author of the National Food Strategy, Dimbleby is a leading voice on how the food we eat affects of our own health and the health of the planet.
His new book Ravenous: How to Get Ourselves and Our Planet Into Shape (with Jemima Lewis), was named a Sunday Times best-seller upon its publication in March, and has been highly acclaimed by critics and figures within the food industry. In...
2023-05-3159 min
5x15Dr Tom Moorhouse On Ghosts In The Hedgerow: A Hedgehog WhodunnitDr Tom Moorhouse is a conservation research scientist who has worked for twenty years at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, part of Oxford University's Biology Department. His work has focussed on the conservation ecology of water voles, the management of signal crayfish, hedgehog conservation and the impacts of wildlife tourism. He is the author of Elegy for a River and also award-winning children's fiction. His latest book is Ghosts in the Hedgerow: A Hedgehog Whodunnit. He lives with his wife and daughter in Oxford.
With thanks for your support for 5x15 online!
Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
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2023-05-3013 min
5x15Anne - Marie Imafidon On She’s In CTRLDr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE is a prodigy in every sense of the word. Aged 11, she was the youngest girl ever to pass A-level computing, and was just 20 years old when she received her Master’s Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Oxford. Since then, she has forged an enviable CV, including positions at Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard and Deutsche Bank. Then there are the Honorary Doctorates from Open University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Kent University, Bristol University & Coventry University and an Honorary Fellowship at Keble College, Oxford. It is this wealth of experience and pioneering spirit that led he...
2023-05-2810 min
5x155x15 And Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Foods Of The Future5x15 is delighted to announce a new series of events in collaboration with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
From spring into summer, we will host a range of expert writers, thinkers and scientists from Kew. They will reflect on what we must do to prevent biodiversity loss and protect life on Earth, and address some of the most important questions of our time.
The series kicks off in April with a panel about Foods of the Future. From the benefits of no-dig gardening and new crop techniques, to the versatility of legumes and the power of regenerative farming, this discussion will...
2023-05-111h 02
5x15Blake Morrison On Two SistersBlake Morrison is a poet, novelist and journalist. His non-fiction books include And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize and the Esquire/Volvo/Waterstone's Non-Fiction Book Award, As If (1997), about the murder of the toddler James Bulger in Liverpool in 1993, and a memoir of his mother, Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002). His poetry includes the collections Dark Glasses (1984), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award, and Shingle Street (2015). He is a regular literary critic for the Guardian. His new book, Two Sisters, is a heartbreaking memoir about his late sister and half-sister...
2023-04-0313 min
5x15Julie McDowall On Attack Warning Red!Julie McDowall is a freelance journalist and book critic specialising in the nuclear threat. Her writing has appeared in The Times, Economist, Spectator, Guardian, TLS, Prospect and Independent, and she is also the host of the Atomic Hobo podcast in which she reveals findings in the nuclear archives and reports on her travels to nuclear bunkers and other Cold War sites. Her book Attack Warning Red! How Britain Prepared for Nuclear War, is the first book to tell the story of day-to-day life on the nuclear home front. While today we may read about the Cold War and life in...
2023-03-3014 min
5x15Tania Branigan On Red Memory: Living, Remembering And Forgetting China's Culture RevolutionTania Branigan is a Guardian foreign leader writer. Having spent seven years as the Guardian’s China correspondent, she has also written for the Washington Post and The Australian. Her first book, Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Culture Revolution, explores how the revolution has shaped China today, and uncovers forty years of silence through the rarely heard stories of individuals who lived through Mao's decade of madness.
5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x1...
2023-03-2712 min
5x15Jeremy Denk On Every Good Boy Does FineJeremy Denk is one of America's foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur 'Genius' Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Denk returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has appeared with renowned ensembles including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. His recordings have received critical acclaim, including reaching No. 1 on the Billboard classical charts, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, New Republic, Guardian, and the New York Times Book Review. In Every Good Boy Does Fine, Denk passes on to his readers the...
2023-03-2316 min
5x15Katherine Rundell On Super-Infinite: The Transformations Of John DonneKatherine Rundell is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than thirty languages and have won multiple awards. Rundell is also the author of a book for adults, Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. She has written for, among others, the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books and The New York Times: mostly about books, though sometimes about night climbing, tightrope walking, and animals. Her book Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, an 'u...
2023-03-2012 min
5x15Suzanne Wrack On A Woman's GameSuzanne Wrack is the Guardian and Observer’s women’s football correspondent - the first person to hold this role at a national newspaper. In A WOMAN’S GAME, she explores the history of women’s football from the Victorian era – when players wore high-heeled boots – to the present day. It is the story of a rise, fall, and rise again, from the game’s first appearance in England in the late nineteenth century, through to the height of its popularity in 1920, when crowds of 53,000 flocked to Goodison Park. Subsequently banned for 50 years in the UK, Wrack’s story ends in triumph, with...
2023-03-0915 min
5x15Thomas Halliday On OtherlandsThomas Halliday is an Associate Research Fellow at the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Birmingham. His PhD won the Linnean Society Medal for the best thesis in the biological sciences in the UK, and he won the Hugh Miller Writing Competition in 2018. His book OTHERLANDS, a history of life on earth, was a Sunday Times bestseller, a Foyles Book of the Year 2022, and longlisted for Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He was raised in Rannoch in the Scottish Highlands, and now lives in London with his family.
5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their...
2023-03-0614 min
5x15Kirsty Sedgman On On Being UnreasonableKirsty Sedgman is an award-winning cultural studies scholar based at the University of Bristol. She publishes and speaks on art, media, participation, and cultural sociology. She is the author of numerous academic publications, including two monographs and an edited book on theatre fandom, and is Editor of the Routledge book series in Audience Research. Kirsty has also written for The Stage, Exeunt, and the BBC’s Expert Series, and her work has been featured in the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, and the New York Times. In ON BEING UNREASONABLE, she argues that sometimes we need to act unreasonably to br...
2023-03-0211 min
5x15Patrick Radden Keefe And Rosie Boycott On The SnakeheadPatrick Radden Keefe is an award-winning staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of the international bestsellers EMPIRE OF PAIN (winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction), SAY NOTHING (winner of the Orwell Prize) and, most recently, ROGUES: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks. First published in 2009, THE SNAKEHEAD is a sweeping history of the American dream, Manhattan’s Chinatown underbelly, and the mastermind behind one of the largest human-smuggling rings – a middle-aged grandmother. Described as a ‘mash-up of The Godfather and Chinatown’, it is both a kaleidoscopic crime story and a brilliant exploration of the iron...
2023-02-2713 min
5x15Dr. Dean Burnett On Emotional IgnoranceDr Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist, blogger, sometime comedian and author. His previous books, THE IDIOT BRAIN and THE HAPPY BRAIN, were international bestsellers, while his Guardian articles have been read over sixteen million times. In EMOTIONAL IGNORANCE, he puts his own feelings under the microscope to ask where they come from, what purpose they serve, and why they make us feel the way they do. Addressing questions such as ‘Why can’t we think straight when hungry?’, ‘What’s the point of nightmares?’, and ‘Why can’t we forget embarrassing memories?’, as well as his grief at losing his dad to COVID-19, h...
2023-02-2312 min
5x15Will Self | 5x15 & WritersMosaicWill Self is the author of many novels and books of nonfiction, including How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year; The Butt, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction; and Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His latest work is Why Read: Selected Writings 2001-2021.
5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.
Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
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2023-02-2013 min
5x15Simon Liebesny | 5x15 & WritersMosaicSimon Liebesny is a freelance editor and publishing consultant. From shortly after September 11th until shortly before Covid-19, he was first mate at Pluto Press, radical publisher of authors including bell hooks, Augusto Boal, Sheila Rowbotham and Ariel Dorfman. In a previous incarnation he was an organiser, trustee and all round wrangler for International Jazz Day, in spite of having absolutely no musical talent whatsoever. He is working on amplifying the WritersMosaic guest edition on Jewish Multiculturalism into a larger project, including panel events, author interviews and further contributions from international authors and artistic creators.
5x15 brings together five outstanding...
2023-02-1714 min
5x155x15 and The Moth: How To Tell A Story5x15 and renowned nonprofit The Moth present a night of stories, inspired by the New York Times Bestselling book, How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth. Join us for an evening of true stories from two Moth speakers, storyteller interviews, and tips from some of the authors from the book, including Moth Directors Catherine Burns, Meg Bowles, and Kate Tellers. Hosted by poet, playwright, author, and Moth Storyteller Jon Goode.
With thanks for your support for 5x15
Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
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2023-02-031h 12
5x15Pico Iyer And Katherine May On The Half Known Life: Finding Paradise In A Divided WorldIn January, the month of resolutions, join 5x15 to hear the acclaimed author Pico Iyer on how we might find paradise in the present.
Paradise is a universal but elusive concept; a place we might spend our whole lives looking for. Moving between Iran, North Korea, the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas and the temples of Japan, Pico Iyer’s new book The Half Known Life: Finding Paradise in a Divided World reflects on ideas of utopia and ways of finding solace in these fractious times. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many...
2023-01-3159 min
5x15Philip Lymbery On Sixty Harvests LeftPhilip Lymbery is Chief Executive of leading international farm animal welfare organisation Compassion in World Farming, as well as being a Visiting Professor at the University of Winchester, award-winning author and animal advocate. His new book, SIXTY HARVESTS LEFT, takes its title from a chilling warning made by the United Nations that the world’s soils could be gone within a lifetime. Uncovering how the food industry and ‘Big Ag’ threatens our world, it also spotlights the pioneers who are battling to bring landscapes back to life.
5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspir...
2022-12-1611 min
5x15Luke Harding And Gideon Rachman On The Ukraine War5x15 is thrilled to welcome best-selling writer and journalist Luke Harding to talk about his new book Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival, a powerful and urgent account of the war in Ukraine.
Reporting from Ukraine as foreign correspondent for the Guardian, Luke Harding has had unique insights into this conflict. Invasion, which is the first book of reportage from the front line, is a 'superb first draft of history' (Anne Applebaum) that examines the personal, religious and ideological motivations behind Putin’s decision to invade, and offers a moving testament to Ukrainian survival.
For this s...
2022-12-1359 min
5x15Raynor Winn On LandlinesRaynor Winn’s new memoir Landlines is a story that begins in fear but ends in hope. As the health of Moth, Raynor’s husband, declines, the couple set out to walk the gruelling, remote and stunningly beautiful terrain of Scotland’s Cape Wrath Trail, reflecting on community and the environment along the way. Raynor is the bestselling author of the astonishing, multi-award-winning The Salt Path (2019) which told the story of another remarkable journey, when nature first saved the couple. Just days after Raynor learnt that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, was terminally ill, their home was taken away and th...
2022-12-0115 min
5x15Colm Tóibín On A Guest At The FeastColm Tóibín's new book, A Guest at the Feast, is a celebration of writing and brings together essays about growing up in Ireland during radical change; about cancer, priests, popes, homosexuality, and literature. He was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of ten novels, and his work has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, as well as the Folio Prize in 2015; and has won the Costa Novel Award, the Impac Award and the David Cohen Prize for Literature, amongst others.
5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. Th...
2022-11-2814 min
5x15Gail Whiteman On Arctic ChangeGail Whiteman is an expert on global risk arising from the systemic changes occurring in the natural environment. She is Professor of Sustainability at the University of Exeter’s Business School and founder of Arctic Basecamp, a team of Arctic experts and scientists who, for the last five years, have brought their Arctic-based research to the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos. In so doing, their aim is to call for action from global leaders to apply responsive and responsible leadership to address global risks from Arctic change.
5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, pa...
2022-11-2513 min
5x15Abi Morgan And David Nicholls On This Is Not A Pity MemoirJoin 5x15 online in November to hear acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Abi Morgan in conversation with beloved One Day author and screenwriter David Nicholls.
THIS IS NOT A PITY MEMOIR is BAFTA and Emmy-award winner Abi Morgan’s extraordinary story, written in the wake of her partner’s devastating illness. When she found the man she had loved for nearly twenty years lying on the bathroom floor, it was clear that life for both of them would never be the same again.
But this is not a pity memoir – this is a love story.
This is a book about the things...
2022-11-0859 min
5x15Sam Knight on The Premonitions BureauSam Knight is a staff writer for the New Yorker, has won two Foreign Press Association awards and was shortlisted for the 2018 Orwell Prize for political writing. His 2017 Guardian Long Read on the events that will follow the death of the Queen, ‘London Bridge is Down’, was viewed four million times. In THE PREMONITIONS BUREAU, his first book, he reveals the strange, true and unsettling tale of a 1960s psychiatrist obsessed with investigating why some people seemed able to predict disaster. A story of madness and wonder, science and the supernatural, it is a journey to the outer edges of reas...
2022-11-0313 min
5x15Lucy Siegle On The Ultimate Friend Of The EarthLucy Siegle is a journalist, broadcaster and eco expert. She is the Observer and Guardian’s Ethical Living columnist, the BBC’s The One Show’s resident environmental expert, and set up the Observer Ethical Awards in 2005. In BE THE ULTIMATE FRIEND OF THE EARTH, she tackles ten big topics involved in our quest to reach net zero. She explores how every one of us can be an ally to the planet; how we can discover how our consumer habits and lifestyles really impact the environment – and how we can all be engines for change. Along the way, she introduces the proj...
2022-10-3114 min
5x15Katy Hessel On The Story Of Art Without MenKaty Hessel is an art historian, broadcaster and curator dedicated to celebrating women artists from all over the world. How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? In her new book, THE STORY OF ART WITHOUT MEN, Katy Hessel challenges the canon as we know it and showcases the female and gender non-conformist artists who are so often excluded from the history books. Discover the glittering Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century USA, and the artist who really invented the Readymade. Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work...
2022-10-2816 min
5x15Tom Mustill and Lucy Jones on How to Speak WhaleJoin 5x15 for a thrilling investigation into whale science and animal communication with Tom Mustill, author of the ground-breaking new book How to Speak Whale and Lucy Jones author of Losing Eden. How could breakthroughs in science change our relationship with animals forever?
In 2015, wildlife filmmaker Tom Mustill was whale watching when a humpback breached onto his kayak and nearly killed him. After a VIDEO CLIP of the event went viral, Tom found himself inundated with theories about what happened. He became obsessed with trying to find out what the whale had been thinking and sometimes wished he could just...
2022-10-251h 01
5x15Jack Parlett on Fire IslandJack Parlett is a writer, poet and scholar specialising in queer studies and American literature. In FIRE ISLAND, he tells the story of a slim strip of land off the coast of New York that has become iconic as a place of hedonism, reinvention and liberation. A book full of literary intrigue – from the halcyon scenes of Frank O’Hara’s poetry to the bars where Patricia Highsmith got drunk – it moves from the island’s early life as a discreet home for same-sex love, via the post-Stonewall disco era and the AIDS epidemic, to consider the present challenges faced by its res...
2022-10-2114 min
5x15For The Love Of Plants: Jonathan Drori And Nicola SpenceThe hugely popular Jonathan Drori – writer and plant-lover – returns to 5x15 for a very special conversation with Professor Nicola Spence CBE, Defra’s Chief Plant Health Officer and the Head of the UK National Plant Protection Organisation.
Both Jonathan and Nicola have been inspired in their love of plants by visits to Kew Gardens from a young age. In this event, they will explore how those early experiences led them both on journeys of discovery to the far reaches of the botanical universe. Join us as Jonathan and Nicola share stories about their love of the natural world, the importance of pla...
2022-10-171h 01
5x15Carlo Rovelli And Oliver Burkeman In ConversationJoin two of 5x15’s favourite guests, Carlo Rovelli and Oliver Burkeman, to discuss time, the universe and our place in it.
Carlo Rovelli’s HELOGLAND was an instant bestseller when it was published in 2021, and was chosen as a book of the year by The Times, Financial Times, Sunday Times, Guardian and Prospect. To celebrate its paperback publication, we are delighted to welcome Carlo back to 5x15 to revisit this beautiful, thrilling and mind-bending journey into the world of quantum physics.
In HELGOLAND, Carlo Rovelli tells the story of the birth of quantum physics and its bright young founders, who...
2022-09-231h 01
5x15Robert Harris On Act Of Oblivion5x15 is thrilled to welcome Robert Harris to our virtual stage for a conversation with 5x15 co-founder Rosie Boycott.
Robert Harris is the author of fourteen bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave, Munich, The Second Sleep and V2.
Now he returns with a thrilling new novel, Act of Oblivion, which takes the reader back to 1660. Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Colonel William Goffe, cross the Atlantic. They...
2022-09-1959 min
5x15Andrea Wulf And Kirsty Lang On Magnificent RebelsJoin 5x15 in September to hear about acclaimed biographer Andrea Wulf’s thrilling, and timely, story of a group of friends who changed the world in conversation with broadcaster Kirsty Lang.
In the 1790s an extraordinary group of friends from the small German town of Jena changed the world. They were the first Romantics, and their ideas transformed society and shaped the way we lead our lives today.
In Magnificent Rebels, Andrea Wulf, the Costa Prize-winning author of The Invention of Nature, tells the riveting story of this revolutionary band of poets, novelists and philosophers. Disappointed by the French Revolution's ra...
2022-09-0659 min
5x15Hannah Critchlow And Rowan Williams On Joined Up ThinkingAt a time of existential global challenges, we need our best brainpower. How do we create genius environments, help our brains flourish and boost group thinking?
Neuroscientist and bestselling author of The Science of Fate Hannah Critchlow shows how two heads can be better than one in her ground-breaking new book Joined up Thinking. She joins 5x15 for a very special online event with Dr Rowan Williams, Honorary Professor of Contemporary Christian Thought in the University of Cambridge and former Archbishop of Canterbury.
Almost everything we've ever achieved has been done by groups working together, sometimes across time and space...
2022-09-021h 01
5x15Chris Blackhurst & Oliver Bullough on Too Big to JailA special 5x15 event with Chris Blackhurst- an acclaimed writer, commentator, former editor of The Independent and author of Too Big To Jail (Macmillan)- in conversation with investigative reporter Oliver Bullough, author of Butler to the World and Moneyland.
El Chapo, the world’s number one drug baron, had a problem: he needed to launder the billions of dollars he netted from peddling drugs across the United States. Step forward, HSBC...
Too Big to Jail : Inside HSBC, the Mexican drug cartels and the greatest banking scandal of the century by Chris Blackhurst tells the shocking story of how the ba...
2022-08-021h 02
5x15Sarah Churchwell and Justin Webb on The Wrath To ComeJoin 5x15 for an online event with the acclaimed historian Sarah Churchwell in conversation with Today presenter Justin Webb to delve into American myth-making and denialism past and present.
In THE WRATH TO COME: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells, historian Sarah Churchwell uses one of the most enduringly popular stories of all time as a lens through which to examine the divisions ripping apart the United States today. Sarah will be joined in conversation by Justin Webb, the longest serving presenter of BBC Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme Today. For eight years, Webb...
2022-07-221h 03
5x15Geoff Dyer on The Last Days Of Roger FedererGeoff Dyer is a ‘national treasure’ (Zadie Smith): the award-winning author of ten non-fiction books and four novels, including Out of Sheer Rage and Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It, which have been translated into 24 languages worldwide. He is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California. In THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER FEDERER, he turns his attention to last things - the last days and last achievements of writers, painters, athletes and musicians from J.W Turner to Bob Dylan to Roger Federer himself. Could it be that our deepest desire is for it...
2022-07-0414 min
5x15Jackie Morris on Feather, Leaf, Bark & StoneJackie Morris is an author and illustrator. The Lost Words, which she wrote with Robert Macfarlane, won the 2019 Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration, and she was nominated for the same award in 2021 for The Unwinding, her ‘book for dreamers’. FEATHER, LEAF, BARK & STONE is a pillow book of more than 100 short poems and meditations, typed onto gold leaf, leaves, bark and feathers. Written in the wake of Morris’s father’s death, it grew out of her grief, and was guided by her deep intimacy with the natural world. The result is an exquisite book full of the light and wind...
2022-07-0114 min
5x15Jonathan Freedland on The Escape ArtistJonathan Freedland is an award-winning Guardian columnist, presenter of BBC Radio Four’s The Long View, and a multi-million selling thriller author under the name Sam Bourne. His new book, THE ESCAPE ARTIST, marks a return to non-fiction, telling the story of Rudolf Vrba, ‘the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world’. Vrba’s testimony would reach Roosevelt, Churchill and the pope, and eventually save over 200,000 lives, but the escape from Auschwitz was not his last. After the war, he kept running - from his past, from his home country, from his adopted country, even from his own name...
2022-06-2714 min
5x15Leila Mottley on NightcrawlingLeila Mottley has been hailed as ‘the voice of a generation’. An acclaimed youth poet, her first novel, NIGHTCRAWLING, was bought in a thirteen-way auction in the States, a nine-way auction in the UK and has already sold into eight languages. Inspired by a true scandal underpinning the police department in Oakland, California, Mottley’s home town, it is an unforgettable novel about young people navigating the darkest corners of an adult world, told with a humanity that is at once agonising and utterly mesmerising.
With thanks for your support for 5x15.
5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of the...
2022-06-2414 min
5x15Amia Srinivasan And Lisa Taddeo On The Right To SexPhilosopher Amia Srinivasan, bestselling author of The Right to Sex, in conversation with the author of Three Women, Lisa Taddeo.
'[This] ambitious, magisterial work stands out in the ongoing tide of dull, girl boss feminism arguing for personal empowerment over collective liberation . . . In a world of easy, one-dimensional answers, [Srinivasan] is unquestionably the real deal' – Vogue
Amia Srinivasan is the author of one of the most talked about books in recent times, The Right to Sex, which is published in paperback this May. A landmark collection of essays from one of the most exciting young philosophers at work today, it...
2022-06-2059 min
5x15William Atkins On ExilesWilliam Atkins’s third book, EXILES, tells the story of three nineteenth-century dissidents whose lives were profoundly shaped by the winds of empire, nationalism and autocracy that continue to blow today. A masterpiece of storytelling, travel writing and imaginative empathy, it is a book about displacement, colonialism and what it means to have a home. The Moor, William’s first book, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize; his second, The Immeasurable World, won the Stanford Dolman Travel Writing Award and the British Library Eccles Prize. He recently guest-edited a special travel-writing edition of Granta, and his journalism and reviews have appe...
2022-06-1714 min
5x15The Secret Barrister On Nothing But The TruthThe Secret Barrister is a junior barrister specialising in criminal law. Their first book, The Secret Barrister, won a number of awards and has been in the top ten bestsellers for more than a year; their second, Fake Law, was also an instant bestseller. In NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, the Secret Barrister reveals their personal story, charting their journey to the Bar and lifting the lid on life inside the Inns of Court. They also describe their transformation into a campaigner for reform, intent on exposing the lies, secrets, crises and failures of our creaking, ailing justice system.
With thanks...
2022-06-1314 min
5x15Lea Ypi On FreeLea Ypi’s memoir of growing up in communist Albania, FREE, is an unforgettable coming-of-age story exploring the meaning of freedom in all its forms. It was hailed by Phillipe Sands as ‘a lyrical memoir, of deep and affecting power, of the sweet smell of humanity mingled with flesh, blood and hope’ and was shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Biography Award and the 2021 Baille Gifford Prize. Lea Ypi is Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics, and Political Science and Adjunct Professor in Philosophy at the Australian National University. She speaks six languages and lives in London.
With thanks...
2022-06-1013 min
5x15Luke Harding On Ukraine, Russia, Putin And What Happens NextLuke Harding returns to 5x15 to discuss Ukraine, Russia, Putin and what happens next. Luke is an award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief; the Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the cold war. He is the author of Collusion, A Very Expensive Poison, The Snowden Files, and Mafia State, as well as the co-author of WikiLeaks and The Liar (nominated for the Orwell Prize). Two of Harding's books – The Fifth Estate and Snowden – have been made into...
2022-06-0615 min
5x15Brian Eno And James Bridle On Ways Of BeingA special online event with musician and visual artist Brian Eno and writer and artist James Bridle on AI, non-human intelligence, ecology, biological computing, more-than-human relations, and much more.
James Bridle's new ground-breaking book is Ways of Being, which considers the fascinating, uncanny and multiple ways of existing on earth. What can we learn from these other forms of intelligence and personhood, and how can we change our societies to live more equitably with one another and the non-human world?
Recent years have seen rapid advances in 'artificial' intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined...
2022-05-301h 07
5x15Delia Ephron On Left On TenthDelia Ephron is a bestselling author, screenwriter and playwright, whose movies include You’ve Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Hanging Up and Michael. She collaborated with sister, Nora Ephron, on a play - Love, Loss and What I Wore - which ran for two years off-Broadway. In her new memoir, LEFT ON TENTH, she tells the story of how, in her seventies and recently widowed, she fell in love with a man she’d dated in college. But at the same time that she was embarking on a whirlwind romance, she discovered she was seriously ill. ‘Tender, witty...
2022-05-2716 min
5x15Howard Jacobson On Mother's BoyHoward Jacobson has written sixteen novels and five works of non-fiction. He has twice won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic fiction, and in 2010 he won the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question. Published in the year of his 80th birthday, his new memoir, MOTHER’S BOY, is an exploration of being an insider and outsider, both English and Jewish. It is also a record of a writer’s beginnings - a story of learning to understand who you are before you can become the writer you were meant to be.
5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell...
2022-05-2015 min