Arts & Ideas

Martin Amis, Zachary Leader and Sarah Churchwell join Matthew Sweet to discuss Saul Bellow and his masterpiece, Herzog with readings by Kerry Shale.

Matthew Sweet has a go on Carsten Höller's slide at the Hayward Gallery with arts critic Charlotte Mullins and discusses freaks and fairgrounds with Dr Helen Davies, Vanessa Toulmin, Director of the National Fairground Archive and performance artist Martin O'Brien

Anne McElvoy discusses maths and music with Mathematician Eugenia Cheng. Susan Abulhawa talks about her latest book The Blue Between Sky and Water. And, New Generation Thinker Gregory Tate shares his research into the way British writers were inspired by the figure of Napoleon.

Rana Mitter talks to Kate Grenville, one of Australia's leading novelists, about depicting the history of white working class Australia and thinking herself into her mother’s life to write 'One Life: My Mother's Story'.

'One Man, Two Guvnors' playwright Richard Bean and novelists Steve Tolz and AD Miller join Matthew Sweet to discuss male friendships. Also filmmaker Johanna Hamilton on her new documentary - 1971, focusing on the events of March 8th that year when eight people broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania leading to embarrassing revelations for the agency.

BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council run a scheme to find the best young academics able to turn their research into radio. We meet some of this year's winners.

Rana Mitter and guests New York Times journalist David Brooks, the Iranian novelist Azar Nafisi and historian Tom Holland discuss the concept of humility. Vice or virtue? (Recorded earlier this week at the Hay Festival 2015)

Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy argues the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. Oxford scholar Theodore Zeldin celebrates the hidden pleasures of life and one of 2014 New Generation Thinkers, Preti Taneja reports on Romeo and Juliet performed in Kosovo.

Are work and progress making us inhuman? Anne McElvoy is joined by Steve Hilton, a former Senior Advisor to David Cameron, and Peter Fleming, Professor of Business and Society at City University, London. Actor Julian Glover performs an extract from Beowulf and talks about reworking the Old English poem for the stage. And New Generation Thinker Lucy Powell joins director Simon Godwin to discuss a new production of The Beaux' Stratagem at the National Theatre.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz discusses income inequality. Novelist Alain Mabanckou reflects on the experiences of the African diaspora in France. Presented by Philip Dodd.