Shelf Healing: Recent Episodes
Rebecca Markwick
Shelf Healing is UCL's bibliotherapy and wellbeing podcast. Interviews with authors, editors, academics, and more discussing the therapeutic effect of books and reading as well as Work & Life discussions focusing on workplace wellbeing and wellbeing issues encountered in daily life @Shelf_Healing on twitter
I chat with author Orna Ross about writing, poetry, and starting the Alliance of Independent Authors.
We get drawn into the power of Buddhist poetry and the joy of reading about murders. Orna shares her thoughts on why guilt has no place in reading, no matter what the genre is.
Orna's website
Orna's Twitter
Things mentioned in the podcast:
Poldark series by Winston Graham
Thích Nhất Hạnh
WB Yeats
Middlemarch by George Eliot
George Eliot
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
I chat with fabulous Canadian author Susin Nielsen about her new book, writing for TV and how it differs to writing for children, and why she returns again and again to middle grade fiction. We also discuss the difference in showing internal thoughts in novels and on TV and how powerful and influencing children's books can be on our lives.
Susin's website
Susin's Twitter
Things mentioned in the episode:
Tremendous Things by Susin Nielsen
Family Law - tv series
Word Nerd by Susin Nielsen
David Sedaris
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
Elmer the Patchwork Elephant by David McKee
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Margaret Atwood
I chat with children's author Rashmi Sirdeshpande about her favourite books, her discovery of narrative poetry, beautiful books, and what gives her inspiration for her own writing.
Rashmi writes non-fiction books for children to inspire them and also be fun.
We chat about Rashmi's giant fact checking tables and how she found writing her first fiction book. Rashmi's non-fiction often covers important and heavy issues and we discuss how difficult this can be to write as well as to keep hopeful for the children reading it.
Rashmi's website
Rashmi's Twitter
Things mentioned in the episode:
Lucy Cuthew
Manjeet Mann
Elizabeth Acevedo
Blood Moon by Lucy Cuthew
Beowulf
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Michelle Harrison
Cloud Busting by Malorie Blackman
Dom Conlon
This Rock That Rock by Dom Conlon & Viviane Schwarz
Rikin Parekh
This Book Has Alpacas and Bears by Emma Perry, illustrated by Rikin Parekh
Cash by Rashmi Sirdeshpande
Never Show a T-Rex a Book by Rashmi Sirdeshpande
Never Teach a Stegasaurus to do Sums by Rashmi Sirdeshpande Diane Ewen
Stronger: Changing Everything I Knew About Women's Strength by Poorna Bell
I got the chance to chat with debut author Carly Heath all about her new book The Reckless Kind and the importance of representation in YA literature. There are lots of horses alongside the disability and LGBTQ+ storyline so of course we went on a magical journey discussing writing horses in literature and the joys and perils of carriage driving!
Carly's Twitter
Carly's website
Things mentioned in the episode:
The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath
Becky Albertalli
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Cerce by Madeline Miller
House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Daughters of a Dead Empire by Carolyn Tara O’Neil
Happy Times in Norway by Sigrid Undset
I catch up with Cat & Dan and we discuss Cat's research on disability in publishing, as well as all things friction, especially related to accessibility and disability. We talk about CV gaps, how accommodating accommodations are, the way reasonable adjustments can make a huge difference to people, and how reducing friction can make things more accessible.
Cat's Twitter
Dan's Twitter
Cat's report Access DeniedCat's piece in The Bookseller about the research findings
Cat's piece on the disability network
Dan's website Rogue Interrobang
Money and Mental Health Policy Institute's work on the disability income gap
FIDO Alliance
Content warning: we talk about mental illness, chronic illness, and suicide.
I chat to prolific and award winning author Marcus Sedgwick all about his writing process, the therapuetic effects of writing, and how important reading can be for mental wellbeing.
We also discuss Marcus' research into illness and writers and how illness has affected his writing practice, alongside his as yet unpublished book on chronic illness.
Marcus' Twitter
Marcus' website
Marcus' books
Things mentioned in the episode:
Midwinter Blood by Marcus Sedgwick Floodland by Marcus Sedgwick My Swordhand is Swinging by Marcus Sedgwick The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgwick The Dark Flight Down by Marcus Sedgwick The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick
David Almond
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick
All in Your Head by Marcus Sedgwick
This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
Sylvia Plath
Virginia Woolf
On Being Ill by Virginia Woolf
Sigmund Freud
Carl Jung
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction by Frank Kermode
This week I chat with cartoonist, illustrator and writer Tom Gauld all about drawing, writing, and creating witty comics. We also chat about his new book The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess which he wrote and illustrated. An interesting insight into the mind of a very busy creator!
Tom's Twitter
Tom's website
Tom's new book
Things mentioned in the episode:
Amphigoreyby Edward Gorey
PG Wodehouse
Jeeves and Wooster TV show
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey
Grimm's Fairy-Tales
The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage by the Brothers Grimm
This week UCL's Vice Dean of Wellbeing, Professor Samantha Rayner, chats with Henry Eliot, Creative Editor of Penguin Classics, about his new book. They meander through literary landscapes, how the time of year affects how we perceive stories, why we reach for classics, the wellbeing effects of walking and reading, and how one goes about creating compendium and companion books.
Henry's Twitter
Prof Rayner's Twitter
Henry's new book The Penguin Modern Classics BookHenry's previous book The Penguin Classics BookHint from Samantha that these make fabulous gifts for book lovers!Things mentioned in the episode:
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
William Morris
Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory
PG Wodehouse
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Iain Sinclair
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
Charles Dickens
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Small Hand by Susan Hill
The Penguin Modern Classics Book by Henry Eliot
Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Condé
Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta
The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
The Penguin Classics Book by Henry Eliot
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Women, Race and Class by Angela Y. Davis
The Book of Disquiet by Bernardo Soares
Água Viva (The Stream of Life) by Clarice Lispector
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Selected Poems of TS Eliot
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by John Mandeville
Ernest Hemingway
Graham Green
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Colette
JD Salinger
The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati
Franz Kafka
Samuel Beckett
Locos by Felipe Alfau
I chat with writer and academic Professor Sunny Singh all about translations, why representation is needed and how important it is to see other people's stories. We also chat about the Jhalak Prize, whether teaching creative pursuits is therapeutic, and how powerful the stories and relationships attached to books can be.
Prof Singh's Twitter account
Prof Singh's books
The Jhalak Prize
Fabindia
Things mentioned in the episode:
Salman Rushdie
Amitabh Bachchan by Prof Sunny Singh
Georgette Heyer
Hindi and Urdu poetry
The Grand Sophie by Georgette Heyer
Inferno by Dante
Hotel Arcadia by Prof Sunny Singh
Alice Walker
Critical Fictions: The Politics of Imaginative Writing
bell hooks
Three Fat Men (Три толстяка) by Yury Olesha
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Illustrator and bookseller Tamsin Rosewell joins me today to talk about her experiences of reading and how she made the move into bookselling and illustration. She shares her deep love of non-fiction and how the speed at which you read has no bearing on how good a book is. We chat about parcel hogs, window displays, and whether Blake's Tyger was in fact an epic cat.
Tamsin's Twitter account
Kenilworth Books Twitter account
The Parcelhogs instagram account
Things mentioned in the episode:
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Catherine Johnson
Cecily by Annie Garthwaite
Shadowghast by Thomas Taylor
M. R. James
Georgette Heyer
Thornhill by Pam Smy
The Reacher Guy by Lee Child
Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake
The Tyger by William Blake
Tiger Heart by Penny Chrimes
The wonderful Elise Valmorbida joins me this week to talk all about her new book The Happy Writing Bookand the positive power of creative writing for our mental wellbeing.
We chat Lord of the Rings, Flaubert, Shakespeare, philosophy and more in this fun and informative episode that winds its way through the worlds of creative writing.
Elise's website
The Happy Writing Book by Elise Valmorbida
Things mentioned in the episode:
Virginia Woolf
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Why I Write by George Orwell
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise Valmorbida
The Happy Writing Book by Elise Valmorbida
Discourses of Epictetus by Epictetus
Epicurus
Joan Didion
The TV President by Elise Valmorbida
Shakespeare
Samuel Becket
TS Elliot
Toni Morrison
Michael Ondaatje
The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
How to Change the World by John-Paul Flintoff
We welcome Gyles back to the Shelf Healing podcast, this time to talk all about his new Memoir Odd Boy Out and how he found writing memoir. We talk about how he chose what to write in his memoir, and how different it is to writing any other type of book, especially for someone who has written prolifically and many biographies.
Gyles also talks about the relationships between sons and fathers, why diary writing is important, and how he's crammed as much wisdom and gossip as possible in his new book!
Also a big shoutout to libraries!
Find Gyles on Twitter
Find Gyles' new book Odd Boy Out here
This week I chat with Associate Publisher for Angry Robot, Eleanor Teasdale, all about her comfort reads, what books she chooses for the Angry Robot list, how she rereads outside of the genre she works in for a solid mind reset, and Angry Robot's passion and promotion of diverse fiction. We also talk about how she named her cat (and how I named mine!).
Eleanor's Twitter
Angry Robot's website
Angry Robot's Twitter
Things mentioned in the episode:
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Old Kingdom series (Sabriel & Lirael mentioned) by Garth Nix
Broken Harbour by Tana French
Just William Audiobooks
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
Marc Gascoigne
Midsommar (film) Get Out (film)
Gemma Amor
The Cabinet by Un-Su Kim
Tower by Bae Myung-hoon published by Honford Star
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Composite Creatures by Caroline Hardaker
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
Educated by Tara Westover
I chat with the lovely Lisa Edwards, former publisher, now author and yoga teacher, all about her memoir Cheat, Play, Live and her thoughts on the theraprutic effects of reading and writing. We have a wonderful dive into travel writing too.
Links to Lisa's book
Link to Lisa's blog Because I CanLink to Lisa's Twitter
Things mentioned in the podcast:
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Paul Theroux
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed
TW: Horror and gore
Horror writer extraordinaire Cassandra Khaw joins me on the podcast this week chatting all about researching for their visceral horror writing, the impact and inclusion of Malaysian mythos and folklore in their work, and how the pandemic has affected not only their daily life, but also their writing. We chat about how horror can be a comforting experience for the reader and how the writing process can be cathartic. Also haggis and the boob ghost Hantu Tetek.
Cassandra has two new books coming out this year which are linked below.
Nothing But Blackened Teeth available 17th October
The All-Consuming World available 21st September 2021
Cassandra's website
Cassandra's Twitter
Things mentioned in the episode:
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Rupert Wong: Cannibal Chef by Cassandra Khaw
Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
Sophie Kinsella
Frances Hardinge
Holly Black
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Bloodtide by Melvyn Burgess
Travelogues: Vignettes from Trains in Motion by Kathleen Jennings
Saint Death's Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney Desdemona and the Deep by C. S. E. Cooney
These Deathless Bones by Cassandra Khaw (link to audio)
Don't Turn On The Lights by Cassandra Khaw (link to audio)
I chat with the marvellous Professor Gloria Mark and Tyler Shores all about the idea of digital wellbeing. We take a dive into the world of digital shorthand, how emotions can be contagious over digital media and the effects that task switching has on the brain. Tyler chats about how multitasking and busyness can be seen as a sort of badge of honour and why that is problematic, and we end up with a fun discussion on the value of boredom and what we all do with our browser tabs.
Gloria's website
Tyler's website
Things mentioned in the episode:
The Zeigarnik Effect (handy little article on this)
Browser tab parking (handy little study)
BBC values based wellbeing framework
The Now Habit by Neil Fiore
Tabs by Ohm-I
I chat with the lovely author, teacher, mentor, and mental health advocate Anna Vaught all about bibliotherapy, southern gothic, reading aloud, and mentoring. We discuss her love for poetry and horror stories, mental health and the myth of recovery, and the difficulties involved in being editied.
There's a small trigger warning as we lightly discuss trauma in this episode
Anna's Twitter
Anna's website
Anna on The Bookseller
Things mentioned in the episode:
Out of the Darkness anthology
Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison by Dorothy Rowe
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
William Faulkner
A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas
Influx
Galley Beggar
Charles Dickens
I conclude my chat with Daniel about comics and we chat and laugh about tie-ins, keeping fans on side, character design, the brilliant rise of creator owned IP, and the expressive art found in comics. This episode has plenty of laughs, me chatting horses in comics, and Daniel struggling to pick his favourite IP.
Things mentioned in the episode:
Deadpool
Black Widow
Rob Liefeld
Louise Simonson
Paper Girls
Miss Marvel
Marvel Assembly - Preeti Chibber
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
The Inhumans
Marvel Knights
BlackSad
Blade Runner
Snowpiercer
Thor
The Avengers
The Walking Dead
The Flash
Flashpoint
Wolverine
Dr Strange
Savage Avengers
Batman
The Joker
The Riddler
Catwoman
Jim Lee
Frank Miller
Alan Moore's Swamp Thing
Dune
Shirow Masamune
Ghost in the Shell
Kieran Gillan's The Wicked and the Divine
I chat with fabulous publisher and author Jordi Nadal all about bibliotherapy and his new book, Book Therapy. Jordi is incredibly eloquent on the subject and if you aren't quite sure what bibliotherapy is this really does strike right at its core. A beautiful, thoughtful episode I hope you love as much as I do.
Jordi's new book, Book Therapy
Authors and books mentioned in the episode:
F Scott Fitzgerald
James Salter
Elena Ferrante
The First Man by Albert Camus
Man in the Search of Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Chekhov
Natalia Ginzburg
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Octavio Paz
Groucho Marx
Virginia Woolf
I chat with Dr Daniel Boswell about comics research, the way comics can help learn new languages, how they are therapeutic, and how different styles mean that pretty much everyone is covered if they would like a comfort comic book!
Mentioned in this episode are:
Tintin
Asterix and Obelix
2000AD
Superman
X-Men
Alan Moore
Garth Ennis
Patrick Zircher
Inkblot
Jimmy Palmiotti
Archie
In this second part of my interview with Liam we go into detail about Liam's struggles with mental health, how writing and reading helped him and how carefully he worked on Wonder Woman knowing how important a character she is to so many people.
We also chat about the huge success of Liam's kickstarter campaign and how unexpected and life changing it will be for him. To have readers so visibly show their love and support has been incredible.
Liam's website
Liam's Twitter
More comics and creators mentioned here!
Wonder Woman
Greg Rucka
Arkham Asylum
Dave McKean
I chat with comics artist, writer, and novelist Liam Sharp about the therapeutic effects of reading and the power of comics in this, the first part of our interview.
Liam does a wonderful deep dive into the world of drawing comics and mental health.
Liam's website
Liam's Twitter
So many comic creators and writers were mentioned I hope I have covered them all!
Grant Morrison
Philip Larkin
The Boys
Garth Ennis
Marlon Brando
Elektra Assassin
Stray Toaster
Bill Sienkiewicz
Green Lantern
Dave Gibbons
Neil Adams
I chat with Tinker Secor former US Marine and penetration tester in information security and current security tester in Industrial Control Systems and Operational Technology. We chat about the role infosec has and it's importance as well as the pressure the work puts on staff. Tinker discusses his experience of severe burnout that lead to an FND diagnosis and how important it is for management to take care of staff. We finish up with a brief chat about how security and safety are becoming intrinsically linked in the worl of OT and how online security is an ever changing set of goalposts that many people work very hard to keep up with.
This is a great journey through the perils of burnout and trying to push through it as well as a dive into the hidden world of infosec - something we all brush up against on a daily basis without realising.
Tinker Secor on Twitter
Malware Tech on Twitter
Malware Tech blog
Dallas Hackers Association
Dallas Hackers Association Twitter
Mental Health Hackers
I chat with award winning comic writer Ram V this week all about how he fell into writing for comics and his interesting journey into reading comics. We discuss how comics are subtle or not so subtle pieces of social commentary, how representation and new takes on classic characters is essential for the future of comics.
Links to:
Ram's website
Ram's Twitter
Works and creators mentioned in the episode:
Joe Abercrombie
Jon Delillo
Bill Sienkiewicz
Liam Sharp
Sandman by Neil Gaiman
Sequential Art by Will Eisner
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Black Mumba by Ram V
Alan Moore
Swamp Thing by Alan Moore
On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
Essex County Trilogy by Jeff Lemire
Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire
The Picture of Everything Else by Dan Watters
Pluto by Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa
This week I chat with illustrator and artist Bonnie Hawkins. We discuss how reading has saved her life, how illustrations appear in her head as she reads, her love of illustrated books, and whether drawing is therapeutic.
An absolutely delightful episode with so much joy and beautiful books!
Do go check out:
Bonnie's website
Bonnie's Twitter
The 52 Crows Project
This week's episode artwork is the drawing that started Bonnie's illustration career.
Works and people mentioned in the episode
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières Fairies by Brian Froud and Alan Lee
Masquerade by Kit Williams
Grimm's Fairytales Illustrated by Arthur Rackham
The Liveship Traders Trilogy by Robin Hobb
The Rain Wild Chronicles by Robin Hobb
PJ Lynch
East o' the Sun West o' the Moon
Alan Lee
I chat with Head of HR at the award winning games developer Creative Assembly, Sarah Howell, alongside Sarah and Rosie from Safe in Our World, a videogames specific mental health charity.
We discuss the importance of wellbeing in an industry that is rife with burnout and crunch, what support is available both at CA and SIOW, the difficulty of working from home and how to move forward with flexible working conditions, and we finish up with a great discussion on the importance of diversity and inclusion in the industry and what CA do to help improve this area and be the change we want to see.
Creative Assembly Legacy Project
Safe in Our World
Black Girl Gamers
Autistica
POC in Play
This week I chat with Prof Martin Eve about what therapeutic reading actually means when you look hard at it and how writing can be significantly more therapeutic at times. We discuss the wellbeing benefits of Open Access publishing, the fears surrounding it, and how entwined the nature of the literary critic is for Martin when he reads.
Works and Authors mentioned in the episode:
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Brett Easton-Ellis
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchen
See Under: Love by David Grossman
China Mieville
The Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkien
Civilisation and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud
Lesley Thompson
Rosewater (The Wormwood Trilogy) by Tade Thompson
The Day of the Triffids by Jeff Wyndham
Distant Horizons by Ted Underwood
Redlining Culture by Richard Jean So
Toni Morrison
This week I chat with Philip Connor, Commissioning Editor at Penguin Random House Audio and host of the podcast What Editors Want. We chat about how Philip's reading habits have changed and moved more into non fiction as well as how he found himself searching for himself in books on grief and dying. The importance and suprising nature of finding representation in literature and how audio has lent itself to him rereading books and now commissioning works in audio.
Joan Didion
CS Lewis
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms
Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton
Ubik by Philip K Dick
Emmanuel Carrère
Emma Southern
Mary Beard
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
F Scott Fitzgerald
Virginia Woolf
Vladimir Nabokov
WG Sebald
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
Why I Write by George Orwell
Dr Samantha Rayner talks with Cathy Rentzenbrink about her book Dear Reader, and the therapeutic effects of reading on mental health and wellbeing. It's a lovely episode that travels through time with books that affect multiple generations, how books are enjoyed for what they are not who they are marketed at, and how writing can be hard but the satisfaction of finishing is worth the difficulty.
Cathy Rentzenbrink's books
Everyone is Still Alive debut novelThe Last Act of Love
A Manual for Heartache
Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Booksand her debut novel Everyone Is Still Alive is released in July 2021
Authors and works mentioned in the episode:
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Agatha Christie
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
Georgette Heyer
Jean Plaidy
Harriet Evans
Cathy's book recommendation
Humankind by Rutger Bregman
eA lively and entertaining interview with Professor John Mullan about theraprutic reading and his very favourite authors Charles Dickens and Janes Austen.
John takes us on a deep dive into what we can enjoy in literature and how he finds humour to be the very best comfort read possible. We travel through literature from Shakespeare, stopping at 18th century literature, then right though to modern day authors and thrillers.
John's most recent books:
The Artful DickensWhat Matters in Jane Austen?
Authors and works mentioned in the podcast:
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Charles Bukowski
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Dante's Inferno
Jane Austen
Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son
Great Expectations
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
Vladimir Nabokov
Agatha Christie
P.D James
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Lie with Me by Sabine Durrant
Emma by Jane Austen
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
A la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Prelude by William Wordsworth
Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
Symposium by Muriel Spark
I have the great honour this week of interviewing a podcasting legend, Jordan Harbinger.
On The Jordan Harbinger Show, Jordan deconstructs the playbooks of the most successful people on earth and shares their strategies, perspectives, and practical insights with the rest of us. He has hosted a Top 50 iTunes podcast for over 14 years and receives over eleven million downloads per month, making The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the most popular podcasts in the world.
Huge thanks to Jen Harbinger for helping to schedule this in across very different timezones!
We talk about why his show has worksheets and how unexpectedly popular they are, why it's important to cover the difficult and gross topics that are happening in the world, Jordan's strong belief in exposing cults and scams and how you can support friends and family who are trapped in them. We also spend time discussing his Feedback Friday episodes and the amount of research that goes into the responses and how vital that is in order to help people with very niche problems. Lastly we talk about how hard it can be to restart in business from scratch and how looking at those around you who support you and realising what you have done so far can help you to dive back in and start again.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
Episodes mentioned:
David Kilgour - The Heartless Art of Forced Organ Harvesting
Frank Bourassa - The World's Greatest Counterfeiter Part One
Rutger Bregman - Humankind: A Hopeful History
Feedback Fridays
Psychopath after your son
Chased by a European gangster
I chat with the wonderful Joanne Harris MBE, an author across an incredible number of media. We chat about the therapeutic effects of reading and writing, how personifying illness can be beneficial and the ups and downs of translations. We have a very interting chat about reading as a bilingual, the joy of graphic novels, and sneaking those books your mother doesn't want you to read at the library.
Works and authors mentioned:
Lee Child
Georgette Heyer
Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
Gustave Flaubert
Andre Gide
Guy de Maupassant
Alexandre Dumas
Francoise Mauriac
Stephen King
George R.R. Martin
Mervyn Peake
Agatha Christie
Laura Grandi Italian translator and author
P.G. Wodehouse
John Mortimer
Sandman by Neil Gaiman
Brian Vaughan
Becoming Unbecoming by Una
Chi's Sweet Home by Kanata Konami
Inkblot by Emma Kubert and Rusty Glad
Wayfareres Series by Becky Chambers
I have a wonderful chat with Chair of the Hay Literary Festival Caroline Michel all about the festival in all its forms across the globe. We discuss the move to digital online festivals, the succes of the festival in multiple countries, the difficulty in discoverability of events in an online setting, and how wonderful authors and speakers are.
We also chat about the therapeutic effects of reading and books, and how wide ranging the Hay Festival talks and authors are across multiple languages.
Hay Literary Festival
Works and authors mentioned in the podcast:
Agenda magazine
The Rattle Bag edited by Seamus Heany and Ted Hughes
Donal Óg poem
Ted Hughes
Seamus Heaney
W.B. Yeats
T.S. Eliot
John Keats
Robert Frost
Sylvia Plath
Toni Morrison
Tom Wolfe
Rough Magic by Lra Prior-Palmer
Lemn Sissay
Mario Vargas Llosa
Laura Bates
Stephen Fry
Simon Schama
Elif Shafak
I chat with the wonderful Audioverse Award winner and multiple Hugo and BFA finalist pop culture journalist and podcaster Alasdair Stuart all about the therapeutic effects of reading, consuming media, and writing about your favourite things. This is a fun lively chat that goes from magicians Penn and Teller all the way to The Abyss, stopping via Nick Cage and a Dalek Escape Room. All in all a wonderful insight into the perspective of a pop culture journalist writing on very popular IP with steadfast and vocal fans.
Photo credit to ©Edge Portraits 2019
Link to Alasdair's website
Link to Alasdair's Twitter
Link to The Full Lid
Link to the Escape Artists podcast website where you'll find PseudoPod and the Escape Pod
Link to Alasdair's Twitch
List of things mentioned in the podcast:
Books
Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski
More than Meets the Eye (Transformers comic) Lost Light (Transformers comic)
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Film, TV, nd Theatre
Red Dwarf
Twilight Zone Theatrical Production
JiuJitsu
The Abyss
Doctor Who
Parks and Recreation
New Girl
Leverage
Awards
IGNYTE awards
Aurealis awards
Sir Julius Vogel Award (The Vogel's)
I chat with the delightful Ian Livingstone, games legend. Co-founder of Games Workshop, co-creater of the Fighting Fantasy genre of books, videogames star who brought us the brilliant Lara Croft. We chat all about the therapeutic effects of reading, how he and Steve Jackson created an entirely new genre of books that encouraged children to read and increased literacy rates. He shares some amusing stories about the launch of the first book and how they are still in print today. We also discuss co-writing, how important games are for critical thinking, and why having a sense of agency is so important when engaging in media.
Ian's Twitter
Ian and Steve's new book from Unbound
Things mentioned in this episode:
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Fighting Fantasy books mentioned
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Citadel of Chaos
Forest of Doom
City of Thieves
Deathtrap Dungeon
Assassins of AlansiaGames Mentioned
Skyrim
Dark Souls
Minecraft
Rollercoaster Tycoon
This episode introduces UCL's new MASc (Master of Arts and Science) in Creative Health. I chat with The Rt Hon. Lord Alan Howarth of Newport CBE and Professor Helen Chatterjee MBE who have spent many years working and researching in the area of Creative Health. We discuss what Creative Health is, how it can help people, and what the new Masters degree will cover.
Links to everything mentioned in this episode
UCL MASc in Creative Health
National Centre for Creative Health
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing - Creative Health:The Arts for Health and Wellbeing
Artlift
National Academy for Social Prescribing
Creative Families
Staying Well Project
This week I have the delightful job of chatting to my old Shakespeare professor, Emeritus Professor Kiernan Ryan, all about the therapeutic effects of his sonnets, speeches, and plays. How Shakespeare has remained relevant four centuries after first being performed, and what there is to be gained and lost in watching, listening, and reading his work.
We discuss rhetoric, the draw of tragedies, how Shakespeare mirrors both the audience and the characters themselves, the importance of empathy, and how gender fluid many of the comedies are.
Do check out Kiernan's books available from Bloomsbury here
Kiernan's new book, coming out in August 2021
The Shakespeare works most mentioned and quoted from are:
Sonnet 29
The Tempest
The Merchant of Venice
Hamlet
King Lear
Much Ado About Nothing
Twelfth Night
I chat with the wonderful Nick Coveney of Rakuten Kobo. We chat about Nick's early experience of reading It and what kinds of books he finds therapeutic. We also chat about problematic authors and their effects on being able to gain comfort from their books, how well represented LGBTQ+ is in literature and publishing and problems arising from perceived rulebooks. We discuss the role of the ebook and audiobook on reading habits and how publishers like Rakuten Kobo can decide which books are available on their platform.
Authors and works mentioned in the podcast:
Peter F Hamilton
It by Stephen King
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Quartet by Orson Scott Card
It's A Sin by Russel T Davis (TV)
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Dragonriders of PERN by Anne McCaffrey
The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
With me today are UCL's Dean of Arts and Humanities, Stella Bruzzi, and the Dean of Social and Historical Sciences, Sasha Roseneil.
We talk about the difficulties of balancing work and life, how research fits into the role of a Dean, the effects of the pandemic on academic life and research, and the joy of being allowed to go out swimming again. We also talk about Pebbles the Warwick campus cat, Indiana Bones UCL's Archaeology therapy dog and how all departments should have a pet. Sasha talks about her lovely dog, and Stella talks about her two lockdown kittens. We discuss plans for returning to physical university and how important having a holiday is, especially this year.
This is an enlightening and fun episode that hopes to give insight into the inner workings of being a university Dean in a time of great change.
I chat to the fabulous people behind the Tor family of twitter accounts Rachel Taylor and Amanda Melfi all about how they try to be fun and engaging on social media on behalf of the Tor family without putting pressure on their authors. We chat about favourite books, hilarious twitter moments, sending John Scalzi secret burritos, and why it's important to them to make the Tor spaces a safe space for authors and readers alike.
Check out the Shelf Healing Twitter account for debates on what counts as a dragon!
Twitter accounts:
Tor Books
Tor.com
Tor.com Publishing
Nightfire
Tor Teen
Rachel's account
Amanda's account
Books, authors, and twitter accounts mentioned in the episode:
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke
John Scalzi
The Invisible Life of Addie by V.E. Schwab
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Murderbot by Martha Wells
Twitter accounts
Effin birds
Spark Notes
This week I chat with award winning author Diana Evans about the therapeutic effects of reading, why we no longer lend books to people, the emotional connection one has with a physical book, and why audiobooks are wonderful creations.
Link to Diana's website where you can buy all of her books
Link to Diana's Twitter profile
Diana gives a whole host of wonderful author and book suggestions which are listed below:
Mary Oliver
Mark Doty
Anne Sexton
Ursula le Guin
James Baldwin
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty
In Search of our Mother's Gardens by Aice Walker
My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead edited by Jeffrey Eugenides
Behold the Dreamers Imbolo Mbue
The Beautiful and The Damned by F Scott Fitzgerald
A brilliant episode in which myself, Cat Mitchell, and Dan Holloway discuss the role of accessibility in the workplace, how those with disabilities should be included in decision making processes for accesibility, and how the pandemic has affected the accessibility of the workplace. We also chat about our worries of the disabled community being left behind as the country leaves lockdown, and how accessibility needs to be incorporated into many more things including job applications and workplace culture.
We encourage you to engage with us on Twitter about the ideas in insights discussed in the podcast and look forward to hearing from you!
Link to Cat Mitchell's Twitter
Link to Dan Holloway's Twitter
Link to Rebecca's Twitter
Link to Shelf Healing's Twitter
I got the chance to chat with the lovely Dr Xine Yao all about literature, the potential harm to be found in reading, and the sense of entitlement often seen when discussing and reviewing books in an ethnographic space.
Some seriously fascinating thoughts in this episode alongside great recommendations. So many great ideas and topics covered in our short thirty minutes!
Works and authors mentonined in the podcast:
Works:
Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende
So Long A Letter by Mariama Bâ
The Heads of the Coloured People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
An American Marriage by Teyari Jones
The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Skim by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki
Authors:
Franz Kafka
Audre Lorde
Sui Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton)
I had a blast chatting to Hugo Award Winning author Mary Robinette Kowal all about her thoughts on bibliotherapy, the therapeutic effects of writing, and the importance of the membership non profit Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America of which Mary Robinette is President. We chatted a lot about the role of the intermediary in storytelling, both through audio with her work as a voice artist and with the visual with her work as a puppeteer. We discuss that distance between author and audience and how it affects our wellbeing. A fabulous chat with a fabulous author, voice actor, and puppeteer!
Link to Mary Robinette Kowal's website
As promised all the books and authors mentioned in this episode:
John Scalzi
Guy Gavriel Kay
Martha Wells
Jane Austen
The Sun, The Moon, & The Stars by Stephen Brust
Philip K Dick
Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Glamorous Histories series by Mary Robinette Kowal
Jane Espensen
The Midnight Bargain by CL Polk
I have a lovely catch up with one of my lovely old colleagues from Sony Mobile in Sweden, Gabriella Bergstedt. We chat about the joy of fika and what it entails. The differences between working in Sweden, Denmark, and Ireland, and how important it is to have certain types of policies and workplace attitudes to create a productive welcoming environment.
We go over Sweden's parental leave policy and what it means for parents, how well rounded the work benefits are, the wonderful ergonomics accommodations as standard, and how well structured Swedish companies are for encouraging employees back to the workplace after sick leave.
It's a great episode and one that raises some very important points about companies taking care of employees as standard.
I chat with Nigel Beale and my co host Lisa Dalton all about beautiful books this week. We take a journey into Nigel's literary critic role, his podcast interviews and how they intersect with his love of literary tourism. Nigel discusses how the very visual nature of a book can be therapeutic in and of itself and how he collects a wide variety of books and book related items, all chosen for their beauty.
Things mentioned in the podcast:
Shakespeare
Bruce Taylor
Martin Amis
JM Coetzee
Cultural Amnesia by Clive James
Hamlet
Othello
King Lear
The Novel Cure: An A to Z of Literary Remedies by Susan Elderkin and Ella Berthoud
Think and Grow Rich by Andrew Carnegie
Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas
Houghton Library at Harvard
Beinecke Rare Books Library at Yale
British Library
Book of Kells at Trinity College Dublin
I get the chance to chat with Dave Player, founder of Team BRIT and KartForce, and Andy Tucker, one of Team BRIT's racing drivers all about the motosport team and the role of disability.
Team BRIT is a competitive motor racing team consisting of disabled drivers. They are a competitive racing team, not a charity, and they race against teams of able-bodied drivers on a totally level playing field — something that no other sport can offer. They aim to make racing history and take a team to the world famous Le Mans 24hr endurance race, becoming the first ever British all-disabled team to do so.
We talk about how Team BRIT has pioneered accessible driving control that suit all of their drivers and their varying levels of disability. We also chat about the role the team has played in helping many of their drivers to rediscover themselves after injuries, become better at managing their disabilities, and how many past members have gone on to achieve great things after being part of the Team BRIT family. We visit the current and past cars Team BRIT race in and have an exciting bit of news about their upcoming season.
This episode highlights Team BRIT's vision to support, inspire and motivate people facing physical and psychological challenges by demonstrating what can be achieved through motorsport.
If you'd like more information about Dave, Andy, and Team BRIT, check out:
Team BRIT's website
Team BRIT's twitter
I chat to the lovely academic librarian Megan Rosenbloom this week all about her thoughts on therapeutic reading, death positivity, researching human skin books, and how Ulysses has stayed with her and should be read as part of a community.
There is so much in this episode, brilliant ideas about librarianship along with a hidden gem of an archive open to the public. Megan's constant journey to read all the books that she can, and how being a medical librarian affected her way of looking at books. There is book history and book anecdotes galore in this glorious extra long episode!
I would also thoroughly recommed Megan's fantastic book Dark Archives.
Megan's photo for this episode by Polly Antonia Barrowman.
Authors, works, and places mentioned:
Authors
Ernest Becker
Works
Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom
A Cat's Tale: A Journey Through Feline History by Baba the Cat and Paul Koudounaris
The Dreamsongs by John Berryman
Ulysses by James Joyce
Places
The Rosenbach - museum in Philadelphia
The Huntingdon Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens - in LA
A fascinating episode with the bookseller James Daunt. We talk all about bookshops, libraries, the therapeutic nature of books for both humans and other books on the shelf. James tells us about why libraries and bookshops are essential and the changing nature of books when you re-read them.
Works mentioned:
Moomins by Tove Jansson
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Fyoder Dostoevsky
The Little Grey Men by Denys Watkins-Pitchford "BB"
Grief Is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Claudia Rubenstein Director of Jewish Book Week Literary Festival chats therapuetic reading & what to expect from this year's online festival.
Cynthia Ozick
Jean Plaidy
Isaiah Berlin
Delphine Horvilleur
Jay Rayner
Hermione Lee
Nicole Krauss
Howard Jacobson
Edmund de Waal
Simon Schama
Simon Sebag Montefiori
The Magician of Lublin Isaac Bashevis Singer
A Little History of the World E. H. Gombrich
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood Neal Garber
The Lion in Winter
Jews Don't Count David Baddiel
A Place of Greater Safety Hilary Mantel
Panels:
Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution Shlomo Avineri, chair: John Gray
Why Do Jews Love The Godfather? Harlan Lebo and Rich Cohen
Modern Jewish Literature Howard Jacobson, Dara Horn, and Adam Kirsch
You Talkin' To Me E J White
The Language of Thieves Martin Puchner
Signatures David Pryce-Jones
How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division Elif Shafak
Burning the Books Richard Ovenden
Mending the Mind Oliver Kamm
The Lives of Lucian Freud William Feaver
The House of Fragile Things James McAuley
Survivors Rob Rinder and Rebecca Clifford
The Pandemic, the NHS and Me: Michael Rosen and Rachel Clarke
This is a special bonus Shelf Healing episode to celebrate the unconference and launch of a new book of essays about the historical romance novelist Georgette Heyer. I chat with carriage historian Amy Bracey of The Carriage Foundation, and carriage commentator and auctioneer Sarah Dance of The Carriage Commentator all about Regency Era carriages. You won't find two people more knowledgeable about carriages.
We talk high flyers, coaches, gigs, and the way that carriages were an extension of your personal and household fashion. The expense of carriages, the cost of the Grand Tour, and a couple of very Georgette Heyer stories from the early 1800s.
If you want to know how much a coach would have cost you, what your carriage said about you, or what colours you could use on your carriage this is the episode for you.
Some handy links from the episode:
The Carriage Foundation
The Carriage Commentator
Thimbleby & Shorland Auctioneers
Amy Bracey's book The A-Z of Carriages with a forward by HRH Prince Michael of Kent
(or contact Amy via email for your copy)
This week I chat with Dr Samantha Rayner, Vice Dean of Wellbeing and Director of Publishing at UCL. We talk about how books affect our wellbeing and how we reach for different books for different reasons. We dive through historical fiction and make a quick stop in the world of mediaeval literature.
Sam has edited a new book on Georgette Heyer which you can find here
Authors and works mentioned in the episode:
Authors:
Georgette Heyer
Robin Hobb
J.R.R. Tolkien
Dorothy Dunnett
Margaret Campbell Barnes
Anya Seaton
Chaucer
Works:
Wilding by Isabella Tree
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Selected Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Katherine by Anya Seton
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Abelard and Heloise by Peter Waddell
Love Without End: A Story of Heloise and Abelard by Melvyn Bragg
La Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Pearl
David Fox of MOXI Health and Professor Sarah Stewart-Brown join me to discuss physical and mental wellbeing in the workplace.
We talk about what wellbeing is and how to define it and why it's important to be self aware of our physical and emotional states. understand the consequences of stress and poor wellbeing. We discuss stress, it's effects, and the addictive nature of the fight or flight response. We also talk about the importance of sick days and how stress and low wellbeing can be contagious. All in all this is an excellent panel on the importance of good wellbeing in life and in the workplace. We need functioning people who feel good in order to have good wellbeing.
David Fox is a physiotherapist and Founder and CEO of MOXI Health.
Professor Sarah Stewart-Brown is Professor of Public Health at Warwick University.
Things from the episode:
MOXI Health
Catalyst Physio
WEBWMS (The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scales)
Professor Sarah Stewart-Brown
David Fox
Stressaholic: 5 Steps to Transform Your Relationship with Stress by Heidi Hanna
I chat with the lovely Nadya Menuhin this week all about theatre, playwriting, and agenting. We discuss favourite books, mental health, the power of theatre and so much more in a fabulous interview. There's even some fun squirrel facts at the very end.
Nadya's twitter
Hive Mind project
Authors and works mentioned:
Authors
David Sedaris
Jeanette Winterson
A. M. Homes
Rachel Cusk
Max Frisch
André Breton
Simon Stevens
Christopher Hampton
Simon McBurney
Yuval Noah Harari
Joseph Conrad
Works
Graceling by Kristin Cashore Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes
Homo Faber by Max Frisch
Nadja by André Breton
Art by Yasmina Reza
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
I chat with Jonny Geller, literary agent and CEO of Curtis Brown. We talk all about agenting and the stresses attached to it, what books Jonny likes to read (and re-read!) and why as well as about the benefits on mental health of a large literary agency and the difficulties of agenting in a pandemic.
(Jonny's picture by Dean Belcher)
Link to Curtis Brown Group - Literary Agency
Link to Jonny's twitter
Link to Curtis Brown twitter
List of authors and works mentioned:
Authors:
Susanna Clarke
Taschen (Publisher)
Gustav Flaubert
Marcel Proust
Ivan Turgenev
Gabriel García Márquez
Tracy Chevalier
David Nicholls
Matthew Syed
John le Carré
William Boyd
David Mitchell
Jane Austen
Anton Chekhov
Works:
Yes, but is it Good for the Jews? by Jonny Geller
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Short stories by Chekhov
Our first Work & Life episode sees me chatting with Michael Chivers about his global journey in HR. How Michael learned to ask 'how can we help?' and focused in on the importance of caring for employees as an HR Director for companies such as Sony and Maersk. We also discuss the difficulties of funding performance by results and the ways in which human wellbeing can be lost in a results driven business model.
In this Shelf Healing interview we chat to Clare Balding, author, broadcaster, and advocate for women in sport. We talk about books that help us understand ourselves better, the power of animals and animals in books, audio and walking, and getting around to reading newspapers.
Link to Clare's website
Link to Clare's twitter
Links to charities, people, and podcasts mentioned in the episode:
Strength and Learning Through Horses
Ted the Assiantance Dog
Ebony Riding School
RDA (Riding for the Disabled)
Fortunately
Economist Radio
Authors and works mentioned in the podcast:
Heroic Animals by Clare Balding
How to Win a Life Without Losing Yourself by Dr Pippa Grange
The Long Win: The search for a better way to succeed by Cath Bishop
The Chimp Paradox by Dr Steve Peters
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
My Animals and Other Family by Clare Balding
After You've Gone by Maggie O'Farrell
One Day by David Nicholls
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Triumps and Turbulence by Chris Boardman
A Few Wise Words
The History of the World in 100 Animals by Simon Barnes
This week we chat to Professor Raymond Mar of the MAR Lab (York University, Canada). Raymond is a Professor of psychology and employs personality, social, and cognitive psychology along with neuroscience to study imaginative experiences such as engaging with fictional narratives across different forms of media. We talk all about the effects of narrative on social cognition, some surprising results of his psychology studies, and how this relatively new research area is full of interesting topics to explore.
Link to the MAR Lab published papers
Highly recommend reading some of the papers published by Raymond's lab.
Here are a few relevant papers:
Link to Elizabeth van Monsjou & Raymond Mar's study on shipping mentioned in the episode
Link to Raymond Mar's article in Current Directions in Psychological Science about Stories and the Promotion of Social Cognition
Link to an article on how humour appreciation and prodution have different predictors
Works mentioned in the podcast:
Poetics by Aristotle
Short stories from The New Yorker
This week our guest is Dr Douglas Cowie, senior lecturer in creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. We talk about the therapeutic effects of reading and writing, Moby Dick, and how everyone approaches texts differently and gets different things out of them.
Link to Doug's website
List of texts and authors mentioned:
Authors:
WH Auden
John Berryman
Patrick Kavanaugh
Eve L Ewing
Herman Melville
Texts:
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Dream Song by John Berryman
Black Girl Magic the second BreakBeat Poets anthology
“what I mean when I say I'm sharpening my oyster knife” by Eve L Ewing
In this Shelf Healing interview we chat to Deborah Alma, poet and founder of The Poetry Pharmacy. We discuss bibliotherapy, poetry, prescribing poems, and wellbeing, and what literature Deborah reaches for to improve mental health. This week I am joined by a guest co-host, Sara Cheraghlou.
Link to The Poetry Pharmacy website
Link to Deborah's twitter account
Authors and works mentioned in the podcast:
Authors:
Tove Jansson
Seamus Heaney
Derek Walcott
John Keats
William Shakespeare
Esther Morgan
Works:
The Moomin books by Tove Jansson
Love After Love by Derek Walcott
Postscript by Seamus Heaney
Grace by Esther Morgan
East Coker by TS Eliot
In this Shelf Healing interview we chat to Dr Radha Modgil, GP, mental health activist, and broadcaster. We discuss bibliotherapy, the rise of anxiety, the vitalness of therapuetic tools, and how important it is to care for one's mental wellbeing.
Link to Dr Radha's website
Link to Dr Radha's twitter
Books and authors mentioned:
Authors:
Philip Pullman
Roald Dahl
Eckhart Tolle
Oprah Winfrey
Maya Angelou
Walter de la Mare
Books:
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
Boy by Roald Dahl
Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey
Life Doesn't Frighten Me by Maya Angelou
In this Shelf Healing interview we chat to Ian Evans, UCL's Publishing MA and DIS reserach students' administrator. We discuss reading, graphic novels, the effects of lockdown on Ian's reading habits, and what literature he reaches for to improve his own mental health.
Link to Ian's twitter account
Books and authors mentioned in the podcast:
Authors:
Alan Moore
John Higgs
James Roberts
Oliver Burkeman
Books:
Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jerusalem by Alan Moore
Watchmen by Alan Moore
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
Prometheo by Alan Moore
The Bible
Stranger Than We Can Imagine by John Higgs
Watling Street by John Higgs
The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye by James Roberts
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done by Oliver Burkeman
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
In this Shelf Healing interview we chat to Cory Doctorow, science fiction author, activist, and journalist. We discuss therapeutic reading, writing, commonplace books, interesting use cases for CC licenced work, and what literature Cory reaches for to improve his own mental health. Cory's photograph by Jonathan Worth.
Link to Cory's website
Link to Cory's daily blog PluralisticLink to find all of Cory's books
Link to Cory's twitter account
Books and authors mentioned in the podcast:
Authors:
Cory Doctorow
Terry Pratchett
Stephen Berry (aka Neal Stephenson)
Bruce Sterling
Ayn Rand
Adolf Hitler
William Gibson
Daniel Pink Waters
Ray Bradbury
George Orwell
Iain M Banks
Ken MacLeod
Hannu Rajaniemi
Charlie Stross
Books:
Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow
Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
Interface by Stephen Berry (aka Neal Stephenson)
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
Someone comes to town, someone leaves town by Cory Doctorow
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
The Bible
Culture novels by Iain M Banks
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Alan Mendelson, the boy from Mars by Daniel Pink Waters
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles by Cory Doctorow
1984 by George Orwell
Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Homeland by Cory Doctorow
In this Shelf Healing interview we chat to Gyles Brandreth, author, actor, and broadcaster. We discuss bibliotherapy, where to read, memorising poetry, and what literature Gyles reaches for from his bedisde book trough. For all of Gyles' jumper wearing and poetry reading follow #poetryandjumpers and find Gyles on twitter.
Link to Gyles' twitter account
Link to Gyles' website
Link to Gyles' Instagram account
Link to Gyles' podcast, Something Rhymes with Purple
Books and authors mentioned in the podcast:
Authors:
Aphra Behn
Philip Larkin
Bertrand Russell
Rupert Everett
Oscar Wilde
Professor Anthony Clare
Gyles Brandreth
T S Eliot
Mae West
Dorothy Parker
Emily Dickinson
Virginia Woolf
Anne Olivier Bell
Mary Tourtel
AA Milne
Christopher Robin Milne
JM Barrie
Anton Chekov
Arnold Bennett
Jane Austen
George Eliot
Charles Dickens
PG Wodehouse
Ben Schott
Evelyn Waugh
Frank Richards
Terry Pratchett
Iain Banks
Enid Blyton
Jilly Cooper
Mark Twain
Professor Usha Goswami
Elizabeth Browning
William Shakespeare
Roger McGough
Michael Rosen
Spike Milligan
Robert Graves
John Keats
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Steve Turner
John Donne
Andrew Marvell
Derek Mahon
Mary Wesley
Titles:
This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin
To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar by Rupert Everett
The 7 Secrets of Happiness by Gyles Brandreth
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
A Moment's Liberty: Shorter Diary of Virginia Woolf by Virginia Woolf, ed Anne Olivier Bell
Rupert Bear by Mary Tourtel
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Peter Pan by JM Barrie
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekov
The Old Wives Tale by Arnold Bennett
Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett
Jeeves and Wooster series by PG Wodehouse
Billy Bunter books by Frank Richards
Malory Towers books by Enid Blyton
Riders by Jilly Cooper
Tintin by Georges Remi
Histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Dancing in the Light of the Moon by Gyles Brandreth
The Death of a Fly by Steve Turner
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear
If I can stop one heart from breaking by Emily Dickinson
Everything Is Going to Be All Right by Derek Mahon
In this Shelf Healing interview we chat to Giles Paley-Phillips, children's picture book author and podcast host. We discuss bibliotherapy, writing, and mental wellbeing, and what literature Giles reaches for to improve his own mental health.
Link to Blank Giles' podcast
Link to Giles' lovely twitter account
Link to Giles' author page
Books and authors mentioned in the podcast:
Authors:
Giles Paley-Phillips
Ian Livingstone
Steve Jackson
Chuck Palahnuik
Don DeLillo
Paul Auster
Jon Ronson
Ian Rankin
John Fowles
Glen David Gold
Sharon Olds
Bret Easton Ellis
Gelong Thubten
Titles:
Fighting Fantasies by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson
The Magus by John Fowles
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Father by Sharon Olds
One Hundred and Fifty-Two Days by Giles Paley-Phillips
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
A Monks Guide to Happiness by Gelong Thubten
Beautiful Lego by Mike Doyle
The Property by Rutu Modan
Blankets by Craig Thompson
Sandman: 30th Anniversary Edition by Neil Gaiman
In our first Shelf Healing interview we chat to Dr Paula Byrne, author and founder and CEO of ReLit: The Bibliotherapy Foundation. We discuss bibliotherapy, reading and mental health, and what literature Paula reaches for to improve her own mental health.
Link to Paula's charity ReLit: The Bibliotherapy Foundation
Link to Paula's twitter account
Link to Paula's author website
Link to LibriVox
Books and authors mentioned in the podcast:
Authors:
Dr Paula Byrne
Jane Austen
Evelyn Waugh
Jonathan Bate
P.G. Wodehouse
Barbara Pym
Thomas Hardy
Elizabeth Taylor
William Shakespeare
William Wordsworth
Matt Haig
Titles:
Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
The Diary for Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans
Othello by William Shakespeare
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
The Anti-Romantic Child: A Story of Unexpected Joy by Priscilla Gilman
Daffodils by William Wordsworth
Stressed, Unstressed by Jonathan Bate and Paula Byrne
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
On the Birth and Death of My Dearest Child Hector Phillips by Katherine Phillips
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig