Episodes

  • Little Atoms 962 - Mike Jay's Free Radicals

    Little Atoms 962 - Mike Jay's Free Radicals
    Jul 24 2025

    Mike Jay has written extensively on scientific and medical history and contributes regularly to the London Review of Books and the Wall Street Journal. His previous books on the history of drugs include High Society, Mescaline and Psychonauts. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book Free Radicals: How a Group of Romantic Experimenters Gave Birth to Psychedelic Science.


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    30 mins
  • Little Atoms 961 - Brandy Schillace's The Intermediaries

    Little Atoms 961 - Brandy Schillace's The Intermediaries
    Jul 22 2025

    Brandy Schillace is a historian, former professor and museum professional, and former editor of Medical Humanities, a social-justice journal. She writes about gender, medical history, and neurodiversity for outlets including Scientific American, Wired, CrimeReads, and Undark. She has previously appeared on Little Atoms talking about her books Death’s Summer Coat and Mr. Humble & Dr Butcher, and on this episode she talks to Neil Denny about her latest book The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story.


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    38 mins
  • Little Atoms 960 - Wendy Erskine's The Benefactors

    Little Atoms 960 - Wendy Erskine's The Benefactors
    Jul 18 2025
    Wendy Erskine is the author of two short story collections, Sweet Home and Dance Move. She was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and she received the Butler Literary Award and the Edge Hill Readers' Choice Award. She edited the art anthology well I just kind of like it. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she is a frequent broadcaster and interviewer, and works as a secondary school teacher in Belfast. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her debut novel The Benefactors.

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    33 mins
  • Little Atoms 959 - David Farrier's Nature's Genius

    Little Atoms 959 - David Farrier's Nature's Genius
    Jul 11 2025
    David Farrier is Professor of Literature and the Environment at the University of Edinburgh. David's first book, Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils, looked at the marks we are leaving on the planet and how these might appear in the fossil record in the deep future. It was published in March 2020 with both The Times and The Telegraph naming it a book of the year. Its fans include Robert Macfarlane and Margaret Atwood, and it has been translated into nine other languages. He has had pieces published in The Atlantic, BBC Future, Emergence, Prospect, Daily Telegraph, Orion, and Washington Post. He has spoken at numerous online events, has given an invited lecture at the Royal Geographical Society, and has appeared on radio and podcasts such as BBC Free Thinking and Little Atoms. On this week’s episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book Nature's Genius: Evolution's Lessons for a Changing Planet.

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    29 mins
  • Little Atoms 958 - Marie Rutkoski's Ordinary Love

    Little Atoms 958 - Marie Rutkoski's Ordinary Love
    Jul 4 2025
    Marie Rutkoski is a New York Times bestselling author of several novels for children and young adults. She grew up in Illinois as the oldest of four children, and has lived in Moscow, Prague, and Paris. She holds degrees from the University of Iowa and Harvard University, and is now a professor of English literature at Brooklyn College, where she teaches Shakespeare, children's literature, and fiction writing. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her first novel for an adult audience, Ordinary Love.

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    30 mins
  • Little Atoms 957 - Gurnaik Johal's Saraswati

    Little Atoms 957 - Gurnaik Johal's Saraswati
    Jun 26 2025
    Gurnaik Johal is a writer from West London. His 2022 collection We Move won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Tata Literature Live! Prize. Its opening story won the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his debut novel Saraswati.

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    28 mins
  • Little Atoms 956 - Nell Stevens's The Original

    Little Atoms 956 - Nell Stevens's The Original
    Jun 19 2025

    Nell Stevens writes memoir and fiction. Her debut novel, Briefly, a Delicious Life was longlisted for the 2023 Dylan Thomas Award. She is also the author of Bleaker House and Mrs Gaskell & Me, which won the 2019 Somerset Maugham Award. She was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018. Her writing is published in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, The Paris Review, New York Review of Books, Guardian, Granta and elsewhere. Nell is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest novel The Original.


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    30 mins
  • Little Atoms 955 - Matthew Specktor's The Golden Hour

    Little Atoms 955 - Matthew Specktor's The Golden Hour
    Jun 12 2025

    Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound, and the nonfiction books The Sting and Always Crashing in the Same Car. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Paris Review, The Believer, Tin House, Vogue, GQ, Black Clock, and Open City. He has been a MacDowell Fellow and is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. He resides in Los Angeles. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood.


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    29 mins