The Shrink and the Sage

On this week's programme we have two guests: Antonia Macaro and Julian Baggini, the eponymous shrink and sage, whose unique brand of self-help with a distinctly cerebral flavour is a regular feature in the FT Weekend magazine. Antonia Macaro is the shrink, an existential therapist and philosophical counsellor with many years� experience. And Julian Baggini is the sage, the founding editor of The Philosophers� Magazine and the author of numerous successful works of popular philosophy, some of which we have previously featured on this programme. Together they aim to bring the insights of philosophy, psychology and therapy to bear on some of the big questions we all grapple with at times in our daily lives.


Antonia Macaro and Julian Baggini

The Old Ways

This week, we're delighted to welcome to the programme Robert Macfarlane, one of the most distinguished of contemporary British nature writers and the author most recently of The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot. This book completes what Macfarlane has called 'a loose trilogy about landscape and the human heart' which began with Mountains of the Mind in 2003, followed four years later by The Wild Places. The Old Ways is an account of some of the most memorable of the seven or eight thousand miles of footpaths Robert has followed in his lifetime and the reflections they have given rise to, in him and in a host of other writers, venturers and restless souls. 


Robert Macfarlane

New Finnish Grammar

In part 2 of the podcast Diego introduces us to his latest book to appear in English, The Last of the Vostyachs, and talks about his interest in questions of language and identity which form a common thread between both works. He also reflects more widely on the fate of so-called minority languages and dialects in the modern world. 


Diego Marani Part 2

Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain

In this programme we are delighted to have as our guest Elaine Fox, who is professor of cognitive psychology at the university of Essex. Elaine has just published Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: The New Science of Optimism and Pessimism, which explores such fascinating questions as: how does having an optimistic or a pessimistic outlook affect the successes and failures in our lives? How do small biases to look on the bright or the dark side become confirmed, even ingrained? What part do genes play in all this? 


Elaine Fox

Heffers Staff Cambridge

In this programme, we hear the summer reading choices of two of Heffers' most experienced and knowledgeable booksellers, Richard Osborne and Richard Reynolds. Whether you're after the best of this season's crop of new crime fiction or food for thought in the shape of some outstanding recent non-fiction, listen to this programme and you're bound to find something you'll want to take with you on holiday. 


Summer Reading Choices

Blackwell Online Bookshop are pleased to bring you fortnightly podcasts featuring in-depth interviews with some of the book world's finest authors.

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