Conversations
A home filled with music — raising the Kanneh-Masons
Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason on what it takes to keep up with her seven children — all of them gifted classical musicians (R). Kadiatu is a former English ac...
Why Colm Toibin ran away with the circus — to Barcelona, Brooklyn and beyond
The Irish novelist has always been open to where life can unexpectedly take him, and the excitement that comes with that kind of freedom. Colm Toibin...
Hilde Hinton's home for the temporarily defeated
When Hilde Hinton was on the cusp of adolescence, her mother died. For years she protected her younger siblings from the truth about their mum. De...
The secret life of Scarlett, the octopus
When Alex Schnell was around 5 years old, playing in rock pools around Clovelly beach in Sydney, she had an alien encounter. The creature in the sha...
Encore: How Sean Sweeney found his deaf heart
Sean Sweeney on the complications and joys of growing up as a a hearing child in a deaf family, using Auslan, a distinctively Australian sign language...
The miserable lives and golden guns of tyrants, dictators and despots
Marcel Dirsus is fascinated by the treadmill of tyranny: how dictators gain power, how they stay there and how they fall. This is his blueprint for br...
Claire Keegan on bravery, writing and the single life
The bestselling Irish author grew up on a farm set on “50 acres on the side of a hill”. Growing up, she witnessed a harsh, misogynistic country that c...
Peter Godwin's complicated loves, great losses and occasional wars
The writer had a complex relationship with his mother, whose professional reputation built a wall between them, but also saved his life more than once...
Treating anorexia by nourishing the heart
Psychiatrist Warren Ward treats patients who are severely ill with eating disorders. Understanding the mystery of human nature has driven him since he...
Ghost stories and executions in Iceland — when Hannah Kent and Agnes Magnusdottir became entwined
When writer Hannah Kent first visited Iceland in 2003, she came across a gothic true story about Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman hanged in Iceland....