Sarah Dunant discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Sarah Dunant studied history at Newnham College, Cambridge from where she went on to become a writer, broadcaster, teacher and critic. She has written twelve novels, four of which have been short-listed for awards, and edited two books of essays. She is an accredited lecturer with The Arts Society, lecturing on Italian history and renaissance art, has taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis and creative writing at University of Oxford Brookes. Her new novel is The Marchesa, which is available at https://www.sarahdunant.com/the-marchesa.

1. The Discovery of the Laocoon, 1st century roman sculpture in Rome in 1506. One of those fluke stories history throws up that just gets richer and richer the more you dig (literally) into it.
2. Erich Maria Remarque. He was a 17-year-old soldier in World War One, who goes on to to write the most famous novel on war. He ends up in Switzerland with a Hollywood film star wife, Paulette Goddard.
3. The Last Supper by Plautilla Nelli. In the museum of Santa Maria Novella – a great church in Florence, there is a painting of the Last Supper done in the 1560s, by a nun who spent her whole life in a convent in Florence, who was entirely self-taught as a painter
4. Newark Park. It started as a Tudor hunting lodge. It was donated to the National Trust in 1949 and, in a state of decay, was then saved by an American, Bob Parsons.
5. Sailing to Philadelphia by Mark Knopfler. This is like listening to a short story by John Carver. American poet and master of realism and creating worlds within a couple of pages.
6. Machiavelli’s Farm House. This is the place where Machiavelli went after he lost his job as a diplomat in Florence and was sent into exile in 1512.

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AE Gauntlett discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

AE Gauntlett completed an MA in English Literature at King’s College London in 2010. He then went on to find success as a literary agent with Peters Fraser and Dunlop, earning himself a prestigious Shooting Star nomination from The Bookseller in 2017. The Stranger at the Wedding, written secretly as he represented the work of his numerous bestselling authors, marks Gauntlett’s literary debut. It is available at https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/stranger-at-the-wedding-9781526659774/.

1. How the Dutch traded Manhattan for nutmeg https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/island-traded-for-manhattan

2. The Nightmovers: Japanese service to help people disappear https://www.bbc.co.uk/worklife/article/20200903-the-companies-that-help-people-vanish

3. The moment the Porsche 911 was almost killed off https://turo.com/blog/gearheads/how-the-porsche-911-almost-died/

4. Jean Purdy, British embryologist, pioneer of IVF with Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/history/blog/2025/reclaiming-jean-purdys-legacy/

5. The Lake Bodom Murders https://vocal.media/history/the-lake-bodom-murders-finland-s-unsolved-mystery

6. How to get published/ what literary agents really want to see in a submission letter https://literaryconsultancy.co.uk/2025/04/what-agents-are-really-looking-for/

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Simon Tolkien discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Simon Tolkien is the grandson of JRR Tolkien and a director of the Tolkien Estate. He is also series consultant for the Amazon series, The Rings of Power. Simon studied Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford and went on to become a barrister specializing in criminal defence. He left the law to become a writer in 2001 and has published five novels which mine the history of the first half of the last century to explore dark subjects – capital punishment, the Holocaust, the Blitz and the Battle of the Somme. The epic coming-of-age story of Theo Sterling, set in 1930s New York, England and Spain, is being published in two volumes, The Palace at the End of the Sea in June, which is available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Palace-End-Sea-Novel-Sterling/dp/1662528647 and The Room of Lost Steps, which will be available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Room-Lost-Steps-Novel-Sterling/dp/1662528663 on 16th September this year.

1. The International Brigades https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/02/24/soldiers-of-solidarity-spanish-civil-war/
2. Gustave Caillebotte https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20150706-caillebotte-the-painter-who-captured-paris-in-flux
3. Port Meadow, Oxford https://www.oxford.gov.uk/directory-record/673/port-meadow
4. The Conversation https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/jul/04/the-conversation-review-gene-hackman-is-unforgettable-in-coppolas-paranoid-classic
5. Gerard Manley Hopkins https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n07/helen-vendler/i-have-not-lived-up-to-it
6. Santa Barbara, California https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/guide-to-santa-barbara

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Daria Lavelle discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Daria Lavelle was born in Kyiv, immigrated to the US with her family as a child and now lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three children. She holds a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She writes fiction, with short stories published in a variety of US outlets. Aftertaste is her debut novel. It’s already sold into 13 territories with a major motion picture in development. It is available at https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/aftertaste-daria-lavelle/7752339

1. Putting Salt on Fruit - the easiest way to elevate and bring out the deepest flavors of your food (even out of season)! But one that most people don't think of combining with their fruit dishes.

2. Opera for Fantasy Lovers - Opera is woefully unfashionable among younger people, and most high-fantasy and speculative fiction lovers I know have no interest in this stuffy art form, and yet, some of the most formative and epic and compelling narratives ever presented are operatic in form.

3. The Hoboken, NJ food scene - New York (and Brooklyn, and Queens) get most of the love and accolades for their restaurant offerings, but Hoboken, NJ, is like the best kept secret of Italian-American cuisine and fabulous cocktails.

4. The film What Dreams May Come - this 1998 film is largely forgotten / unknown among anyone under the age of 30, but it's worth revisiting as one of the most interesting and beautiful explorations of death, grief, love, and the Afterlife.

5. Family Recipes - this is perhaps an imperative to listeners to take the time to learn their family recipes from their older generations.

6. Finding Your Tribe - I'd love to talk about several ways this has been true in my life, from writing cohorts to mom groups with my kids, to the debut groups I'm part of this year as I move toward publication.

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Michelle Young discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Michelle Young, a journalist and professor of architecture at Columbia University, spent four years researching The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland, which is available at https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-art-spy-michelle-young?variant=43046200836130. A veritable female Monuments Man, Valland has, until now, mostly been written out of the annals, despite bearing witness to history’s largest art theft. While Hitler was amassing stolen art for his future Führermuseum, Valland secretly worked to stop him.

Michelle Young is an award-winning journalist, author, and professor whose writing on looted and lost art has appeared in Hyperallergic, The Forward, and The Wilson Quarterly. She is a graduate of Harvard College in the History of Art and Architecture and holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she is a professor of architecture.

1. Rose Valland was one of the most medalled women from all of WWII

2. Hollywood optioned Rose's memoir and it became the Burt Lancaster caper The Train

3. Rose witnessed the Nazis burn approx 500 modern paintings of art and it really happened

1. Rose was lesbian and started living with Joyce Heer, her life partner, starting in the mid 1930s.

2. Rose was spying in the field, as well as in the museum. She also worked directly with Resistance operatives, which is how she directly helped sabotage the last train of art intended to leave France, carrying 1000 paintings.

3. One of the very first things the Nazis did when they occupied a country was to loot its art, in particular from Jewish families. There is a direct line between art looting and the extermination camps

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Róisín Lanigan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Róisín Lanigan is an editor and writer based in London and Belfast. Her work has appeared in i-D, VICE, The Atlantic, New Statesman, The Fence and Prospect, amongst other publications. She was longlisted for the Curtis Brown First Novel Prize in 2019, and won the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award in 2020. I Want to Go Home But I'm Already There is her first novel and is available at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/459281/i-want-to-go-home-but-im-already-there-by-lanigan-roisin/9780241668535

1. Dulse https://pacificharvest.co/blogs/learn/7-mindblowing-health-benefits-of-atlantic-dulse?srsltid=AfmBOoq6KFW9CJ2ZhY0K-LZcyK3zhku4Xe2I0CniSHs1noqs-VRI7Mq-
2. Pigeons https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/lx86p7/pigeons_are_underrated_animals/?rdt=55432
3. The Montreal Screwjob https://prowrestling.fandom.com/wiki/Montreal_Screwjob
4. Paris Is Burning https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/paris-is-burning-1991
5. Parkland Walk https://www.parkland-walk.org.uk/
6. The Ballymurphy Massacre https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/11/the-ballymurphy-shootings-36-hours-in-belfast-that-left-10-dead

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Laura Spinney discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Laura Spinney is a writer and science journalist. Her writing on science has appeared in The Guardian, The Economist, Nature and National Geographic, among others. She is the author of two novels, The Doctor (2001) and The Quick (2007), and a collection of oral history, Rue Centrale (2013). Her bestselling non-fiction account of the 1918 flu pandemic, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World (2017), was translated into more than 20 languages. Her latest book, Proto: How Once Ancient Language Went Global, the story of the Indo-European languages, appeared in 2025. She lives in Paris.

1. Osmothèque – international perfume archive in Versailles. Conserves 4,000 perfumes, of which 800 have “disappeared”

2. Studs Terkel. Legendary American broadcaster, writer, actor and historian

3. Circus elephants, or rather their owner-handlers. A dying breed, as they should be, but they deserve our compassion and respect

4. Papuan languages. Nearly 900 of them, vast majority of which are undocumented

5. Gloria! 2024 Italian-Swiss film, directorial debut of Margherita Vicario

6. Marija Gimbutas. Lithuanian-born archaeologist who got it right on the word's largest language family, Indo-European

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Sara Leila Sherman and Mort Sherman discuss six things which should be better known.

Sara Leila Sherman is a distinguished classical musician and educator, renowned for her work in making music accessible to young audiences through her children's concert series, Mozart for Munchkins, and the non-profit Little Mozart Foundation.

Morton Sherman, PhD is the retired Senior Associate Executive Director of The School Superintendents Association, known for his visionary leadership during a 25-year career as a superintendent dedicated to elevating academic standards.

Their new book is Resonant Minds, which is available at https://www.amazon.com/Resonant-Minds-Transformative-Power-Music/dp/1475874960.

1. Audiences used to participate in classical music performances. During Mozart’s time, audiences didn’t sit silently—they clapped between movements, shouted requests, and sometimes even sang along.

2. Music has always been a deep part of our lives, socially, culturally, and politically. For example, the song “Amazing Grace” has been used as a tool for healing in nearly every American crisis.

3. Music affects the brain faster than conscious thought. Our nervous system begins responding to music—adjusting heart rate, releasing dopamine, and even triggering memory—before our brains fully process the sound.

4. The best leaders intentionally listen like musicians. Great conductors don’t just give cues—they respond to the ensemble.

5. Groove isn’t just a feeling—it’s your brainwaves syncing with sound. When we listen to music with a steady beat—especially music with a strong groove—our brainwaves begin to entrain to the rhythm. That’s not poetic language—it’s neuroscience.

6. Music builds memory—and memory builds culture. When students or communities sing the same song across generations, they’re not just repeating notes. They’re participating in a kind of living history.

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