Home - The Hedgehog and the Fox

Conversations with Publishers: Margo Irvin, Stanford University Press

In this new episode in the Conversations with Publishers series, guest is Margo Irvin, who’s an editor at Stanford University Press, where she’s been commissioning history and Jewish studies for… Read More

Conversations with Publishers: Rob Tempio, Princeton University Press

In the summer of 2019, which now feels as though it belongs to a different geological epoch, I interviewed some of people who work in Princeton University Press’s UK office… Read More

Conversations with publishers: Dean Smith, Duke University Press

In this episode, I talk to Dean Smith, who’s been director of Duke University Press for almost a year and a half, before which he was director of Cornell University… Read More

Conversations with Publishers: Doug Armato, University of Minnesota Press

This episode is another in the series of Conversations with Publishers, which aims to find out more about the people who decide what gets published. Our guest is Doug Armato,… Read More

Conversations with Publishers: Sarah Caro, Princeton University Press

This week we have an interview with Sarah Caro, who describes herself on Twitter as ‘Editorial Director for Social Sciences at Princeton University Press, long-suffering Arsenal fan and qualified optimist’.… Read More

Conversations with Publishers: Amy Brand, MIT Press

Hedgehog & Fox This week we have an interview with Amy Brand, who for the past four years has been director of the MIT Press. In a recent Q&A that… Read More

Conversations with Translators: Laura Marris on translating Camus

Translator Laura Marris, my guest on this episode, had long wanted to translate Albert Camus’s The Plague, his novel about a fictional pestilence that afflicted the Algerian coastal city of… Read More

Conversations with Translators: Polly Barton (part 2)

This is the second half of the conversation I had last autumn with Polly Barton, a translator from Japanese and the author of a terrific memoir-cum-reflection on language and translation,… Read More

Conversations with Translators: Polly Barton (part 1)

This episode is part one of a two-part conversation I had last autumn with Polly Barton, a translator from Japanese and the author of Fifty Sounds, which was one of… Read More

Conversations with Translators: Joyce Zonana

A young man inherits a house on an island in the middle of the raging waters of a mighty river from his mysterious great-uncle Malicroix. But to satisfy the conditions… Read More

Conversations with Translators: Meredith McKinney

This week, another interview in the series of Conversations with Translators. My guest is Meredith McKinney, a translator from Japanese whose anthology of classical Japanese travel writing was published in… Read More

Tim Allen on Vietnam’s national epic

This week, another in our series of Conversations with Translators. And with my guest Tim Allen, we move for the first time (at last) beyond European languages. I’m always interested… Read More

Mark Polizzotti: a translation manifesto

My guest this week is Mark Polizzotti, author notably of a biography of surrealist André Breton; publisher at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and acclaimed translator from French of books… Read More

Jonathan Loesberg on translating a ‘lurid and breathless’ bestseller

A few weeks ago, I put up an interview with Anne O’Neill-Henry about her book Mastering the Marketplace, which examines the dawn of the era of the bestseller in nineteenth-century… Read More

Conversations with Translators, France, language, literature, podcast

Conversations with Translators: Laura Marris on translating Camus

history, podcast, politics

Laura Clancy: on running the (royal) family firm

This week a conversation about the British royal family with Laura Clancy, who’s a lecturer in media in the sociology department at Lancaster University. Last autumn I spoke to Laura… Read More

Conversations with Translators, language, literature, podcast

Conversations with Translators: Polly Barton (part 2)

Conversations with Translators, language, literature, podcast

Conversations with Translators: Polly Barton (part 1)

This episode is part one of a two-part conversation I had last autumn with Polly Barton, a translator from Japanese and the author of Fifty Sounds, which was one of… Read More

cultural history, music, podcast

Nicholas Cook: More to music than meets the ear

In this programme we’re talking about the recently published new edition of a book that first came out over twenty years ago, Nicholas Cook’s Music: A Very Short Introduction. (And… Read More

cultural history, design, video

Paul Luna on the typographer’s task (video)

cultural history, history, podcast

Craig Robertson: Cabinets of curiosities

In this programme we’re looking at what I used to think of as ‘the humble filing cabinet’ until I read Craig Robertson’s fascinating book, The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History… Read More

podcast, psychology

James Danckert: Boredom is trying to tell you something

In this episode, we tackle boredom head-on. Danish philosopher Kierkegaard suggested the gods created humanity out of boredom, and the poet Charles Baudelaire foresaw its French version, ennui, one day… Read More

animals, cultural history, history, podcast

Juliana Adelman on the beasts of Dublin

In this episode, I’m talking to Juliana Adelman, who’s assistant professor of history at Dublin City University. Juliana’s recent book, Civilised by Beasts: Animals and Urban Change in Nineteenth-Century Dublin,… Read More

books & publishing, Conversations with Publishers, history, podcast

Conversations with Publishers: Margo Irvin, Stanford University Press

history, podcast, psychology, sociology

Jennifer Howard: Disentangling the clutter

In this episode, we delve deep into clutter with Jennifer Howard, author of a recent book entitled Clutter: An Untidy History. This book is for you if you have a… Read More

anthropology, history, podcast, politics, science

Sonia Shah on lemmings, Linnaeus, and human migration

To start 2021, an interview about one of my favourite non-fiction books of last year: The Next Great Migration by Sonia Shah. Sonia is a science journalist and prizewinning author,… Read More