Better Known

Ivan Wise

Each week, a guest makes a series of recommendations of things which they think should be better known. Our recommendations include interesting people, places, objects, stories, experiences and ideas which our guest feels haven't had the exposure that they deserve.

  1. HACE 3 DÍAS

    Daniel Hahn

    Daniel Hahn discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Daniel Hahn is an award-winning translator, author and editor of numerous fiction and non-fiction works. He is one of the editors of The Ultimate Book Guide, the first volume of which won the Blue Peter Book Award. Other titles include children’s works such as Happiness Is a Watermelon on Your Head (a picture-book for children) and a new edition of The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. He has been a chair for prestigious international prizes including the International Booker Prize, the IMPAC Dublin Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. He was previously chair for the Society of Authors and currently serves on the board of trustees for English PEN. His new book If This Be Magic is available at https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-this-be-magic-the-unlikely-art-of-shakespeare-in-translation-daniel-hahn/75a20e19805e32b5. Outside Over There by Maurice Sendak https://www.drttmk.com/books/outside-over-there Appalachian Waltz by Mark O’Connell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajkgNEO_Yeg&list=RDajkgNEO_Yeg&start_radio=1 Machado de Assis https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/12/17/machado-de-assis-well-ventilated-conscience/ Semicolons https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/colonandsemi/semi Asterix in English translation https://auntymuriel.com/2012/12/23/asterix-in-translation-the-genius-of-anthea-bell-and-derek-hockridge/ Hamlet Goes Business https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/hamlet-goes-business This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

    29 min

  2. 12 ABR

    Joanna Jensen

    Joanna Jensen discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Joanna Jensen is the founder of the British multi-award-winning baby and child personal care brand, Childs Farm which she created in 2010 as a result of her own daughters’ sensitive and eczema prone skin. A former Investment Banker in both London and Hong Kong, Jensen transformed an emotional need into a commercial brand from day one. Her brand was launched into mainstream retailers Boots and Waitrose in 2014 and became the number one brand in the baby and child toiletries category in 2019 disrupting the more established legacy brands with its natural, sustainable and fruity formulas, and seeing Johnson Baby’s market share tumble from 32% to 13% in just 5 years. In March 2022, Jensen sold 92% of Childs Farm for £36.8m to PZ Cussons Plc, the branded consumer goods business and owner of well-known brands such as St.Tropez, Imperial Leather, and Carex selling the final 8% in January 2025. Jensen is an active keen supporter of female founded businesses. She is an Angel Investor in 11 female founded brands and a leading advocate in supporting female founded businesses. She sits on the Angel Investment Committee for the Invest in Women Task Force. Jensen’s first book Making Business Child’s Play: How to build a winning brand was published in September 2025. From idea to launch, she details everything entrepreneurs don’t know they don’t know to endeavour to learn what took her six months to learn in 6 minutes. Small, consistent actions beat sporadic big ones Your brain treats uncertainty as a threat A ‘mast' year occurs every 3-5 years Relationships are the real currency in business Bees are infrastructure for our food system Strong social connection is a biological need This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

    29 min

  3. 5 ABR

    Alexandra Tolstoy live

    Alexandra Tolstoy returns to the podcast with a special live episode, recorded at a school. She discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Kyrgyzstan https://alexandratolstoytravel.com/ Female Explorers (Lady Jane Digby, Isabel Burton and the Decembrist Wives) https://www1.essex.ac.uk/history/documents/conferences/hero-soroka.pdf Sailor’s Valentines https://www.worldofinteriors.com/story/sailors-valentines Carbs https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/events/nutrition-for-sporting-events/carbohydrates-and-exercise Lesser-known Victorian literature https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/author-profile-emily-eden/ Nukus Art Museum in Uzbekistan https://museumstudiesabroad.org/lysenko-savitsky-preserving-soviet-avant-garde/ This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

    31 min

  4. 29 MAR

    Natalie Kyriacou

    Natalie Kyriacou discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Natalie Kyriacou OAM is an award-winning environmentalist, writer, professional public speaker and charity director with a passion to spark curiosity about the natural world. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and the Forbes 30 Under 30 honour for her services to wildlife and environmental conservation in 2018 and was recognised as one of The Australian’s Top 100 Innovators in 2022. She is a Board Director at the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife and CARE Australia, the Founder and Chair of My Green World, a UNESCO Green Citizens Pathfinder, and an Australian Delegate and Climate Justice Lead at the W20. She was the United Nations Environment Programme’s Young Champions of the Earth finalist for her innovation in wildlife and environmental conservation and is LinkedIn’s Top Green Voice. Her new book is Nature's Last Dance, which is available at https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/nature-s-last-dance-natalie-kyriacou/376cc16767a86ffa. Why Bonobos Have Peaceful Societies https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/bonobos-tolerant-peaceful-group-relationships-paved-way-for-human-peacemaking/ "Ugly" Animals https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/are-ugly-animals-lost-cause-180963807/ Chocolate and the Midge https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qFkUdZrfu2Q The Joy and Impact of Birdwatchers https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/12/birdwatching-australia-binoculars-going-birding-life Nature is the World's Original Pharmacy https://theconversation.com/nature-is-the-worlds-original-pharmacy-returning-to-medicines-roots-could-help-fill-drug-discovery-gaps-176963 Stories of Wonder to Change the World https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/24/hope-joy-absurdity-and-marvel-there-is-so-much-more-to-our-world-story-than-loss This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

    30 min

  5. 22 MAR

    Danny Bate

    Danny Bate discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Danny Bate is a linguist, writer, broadcaster and podcaster who is fascinated by the study of historical languages and etymology. He took his BA and MPhil degrees from the University of York and the University of Cambridge respectively, and his PhD in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh. He can be found at dannybate.com. His new book is Why Q Needs U, which is available at https://dannybate.com/book/. The alphabet is a product of migration, born out of a meeting of different peoples and their languages Our letters started out as depictions of things (body parts, animals, everyday objects) English's letters are connected via a big family tree to many other scripts, including many that seem 'alien' to its readers (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew) There isn't universal one way to create writing, you pick which aspects of language (words, syllables, consonants) as a primary base English and related alphabets aren't phonetically accurate (and that's okay) Even when spelling diverges from a strict letter-to-sound ratio, new principles and processes can emerge This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

    30 min

  6. 15 MAR

    Deepa Anappara

    Deepa Anappara discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Deepa Anappara’s debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was named as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Guardian and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian literature. It has been translated into over twenty languages. Anappara is the co-editor of Letters to a Writer of Color, a collection of personal essays on fiction, race, and culture. The Last of Earth is her second novel and is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-last-of-earth/deepa-anappara/9780861548620 19th century British mapping of Tibet by Indian surveyors https://royalsociety.org/blog/2023/09/mapping-india/ Cartography as a tool for furthering imperialism https://www.theelephant.info/analysis/2026/01/21/cartographic-colonialism-and-the-true-size-of-africa/ How we can find the colonised's experience in the coloniser's records and archives? https://shura.shu.ac.uk/30780/3/Cere-UncoveringColonialLegacy%28AM%29.pdf The problems with 'Show, Don't Tell' and other similar creative writing diktats https://www.emwelsh.com/blog/show-dont-tell-rule Indian is not a language! https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/25/should-a-country-speak-a-single-language Tipu's Tiger at V&A https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/tipus-tiger This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

    30 min

  7. 8 MAR

    Nigel Biggar

    Nigel Biggar discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor in the University of Oxford and Fellow of Christ Church. He founded in Oxford the MacDonald Institute for the study of Ethics and Empire. He is now a Fellow of St Cross College Oxford, and an author, lecturer and broadcaster throughout the English-speaking world. After many acclaimed academic books, he wrote and published the bestselling Colonialism. His new book is The New Dark Age: Why Liberals Must Win The Culture Wars, which is available at https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-new-dark-age-why-liberals-must-win-the-culture-wars--9781509568321. Terence Malick's 1998 film, The Thin Red Line https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/feb/26/film-of-the-week-the-thin-red-line Helmuth James von Moltke (1907-45), anti-Nazi martyr https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/19666775-last-letters-the-prison-correspondence-between-helmuth-and-freya-von-mo Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833): exemplar of empire https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/sir-john-malcolm 'Mass graves' discovery in grounds of an Indian Residential School at Kamloops, BC, Canada, May 2021: to this day, no body has been disinterred. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/no-evidence-of-mass-graves-or-genocide-in-residential-schools The World Values Survey 2023: showing Britain to be one of the least racist countries on earth. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/research-analysis/uk-world-values-survey Kathleen Stock, martyr in the cause of free and honest thinking on campus https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/26/university-of-sussex-fined-freedom-of-speech-investigation-kathleen-stock This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

    30 min

  8. 1 MAR

    Matt Kaplan

    Matt Kaplan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at the Economist. He is the author of The Science of Monsters and Science of the Magical, and co-author of David Attenborough’s First Life: A Journey Through Time. His new book is I Told You So! Scientists who were Ridiculed, Exiled and Imprisoned for Being Right, which is available at https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250372284/itoldyouso/. The few doctors who worked out that handwashing was essential for preventing the spread of disease were attacked by their peers https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/ignaz-semmelweis-doctor-prescribed-hand-washing George Washington disobeyed direct orders from the Continental Congress and inoculated his troops against smallpox during the Revolutionary War https://historyofvaccines.org/blog/washingtons-war-against-smallpox-revolutionary-inoculation-campaign/ Louis Pasteur was a vicious fellow who engaged in academic fraud. https://cms.viroliegy.com/2022/02/25/louis-pasteurs-unethical-rabies-fraud/ The mild mannered French physician Pierre Alexandre Louis worked out that the common practice of blood-letting was terrible for patients. https://www.grunge.com/812824/the-radical-history-of-bloodletting-explained/ Katalin Kariko https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/scientists-egos-key-barrier-to-progress-covid-vaccine-pioneer-katalin-kariko Experiments exploring novel ideas are getting rarer as the effort needed to get research done steadily goes up https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180338 This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

    30 min
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Each week, a guest makes a series of recommendations of things which they think should be better known. Our recommendations include interesting people, places, objects, stories, experiences and ideas which our guest feels haven't had the exposure that they deserve.

Información

  • Creador
    Ivan Wise
  • Años de actividad
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodios
    425
  • Clasificación
    Apto
  • Copyright
    © 2017
  • Mostrar sitio web
    Better Known

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