217 episodes
Conversations ABC listen
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- Society & Culture
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4.4 • 11.6K Ratings
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Spend an hour in someone else's life. Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met.
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Bonnie Garmus on becoming a global phenomenon in her 60s
When Bonnie Garmus tried to sell her first novel, it was rejected 98 times. Then at 66, she wrote a novel called Lessons in Chemistry, which sold four million copies around the world
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David Wengrow: everything we know about the human story is wrong
Archaeologist David Wengrow has discovered an entirely new way to think about the history of humanity, from the origins of farming, cities, democracy and slavery to civilisation itself
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Matt Hall's life at supersonic speed
Matt Hall made his first solo flight at 15 years old and has been addicted to life in the air ever since. He became a top gun fighter pilot and after serving for more than 20 years, he still hasn't come down to earth (R)
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The forgotten treasures of desert dwellers
Archaeologist Julien Cooper digs up the remote deserts of Sudan and Egypt, finding forgotten artefacts, which tell the uninterrupted, thousands-year-old story of the nomadic peoples of Northeast Africa
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Billy Bragg — the boy from Barking
Billy Bragg grew up in working-class Barking, east of London. The expected path was to go from school to the local car factory, but Billy his sights set further, and even a brief stint in the army couldn’t keep him away from a life in music (R)
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How Rafael Bonachela let his inner showgirl out
At the make or break moment of his choreography career, the last person Rafael expected to hear from was Australia’s pop princess — Kylie Minogue
Customer Reviews
Open to diverse learnings
Thanks Richard and the team for a fabulous presentation of information. I love the variety and scope of the people that you converse with. You can be listening to a murder investigation one day and insect life the next. It has opened me to learning about so many different things and broadened my horizons. You become interested in things that you didn’t previously know about. My favourites are still the Icelandic folk tales.
Mary Beard
I was considering buying Beard’s book until I heard this episode when she dragged in the concept of a “trans” Emperor on very flimsy evidence. Having listened to other podcasts and read quite extensively on Roman leaders and not seen anyone else make this wild link, I think I’ll spend my money elsewhere. (Talk about 2 + 2 = any number you like except 4.) Conversations is usually an excellent podcast, but this one was off-putting because there was no challenge from Richard as to why others hadn’t made that same “discovery”.
Excellent podcast
One of my favourite podcasts, always a reliable listen with good stories, the hosts Richard and Sarah are interesting and interested.. and I appreciate the fact they get straight into the subject in the very first few seconds, unlike a lot of American podcast hosts who waffle on about themselves for 5-10 mins! Well done.