Hal LaCroix discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Hal LaCroix lives outside Boston with his wife, Elahna. He has worked as a journalist at newspapers in New England, a reporter and editor at Harvard Medical School, a conservation writer for non-profits and an instructor at Boston University. Here and Beyond is his first novel, which is available at https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/here-and-beyond-9781526678249/.
Senator Charles Sumner. Sumner was a mid-19th century senator with laser focus on one issue: slavery. He had a profound impact on Lincoln, pushing him to expand rights of African Americans after emancipation. Sumner became epic villain in Confederacy, where souvenir canes commemorated the beating were hot items.
Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mt. Fuji. Fuji is sacred, a symbol of Japan. The 36 mostly long-range views, all around the compass, provide a wraparound view of Japanese life in 1831.
Exoplanets. More than 5,000 have been confirmed so far, out of hundreds of billions of planets in the Milky Way galaxy. Until the 1990s no one even knew if there were any planets outside our solar system!
Wingspan. This is a board game about birds that my wife and I are a bit obsessed with. Each player has a board with forest, grassland and water habitats.
Boston Cream Pie and Boston Cream Donuts. My grandfather used to bring cakes and pies when he visited us on Cape Cod. He’d pull up in his Oldsmobile Cutlass with all these white boxes tied with string from Montilio’s bakery.
We Need a Global, Unifying Mission. We live on a planet with 8.2 billion people and the vast majority of us just know our neighborhood, our route back and forth to work. But on the spinning ark ship in Here and Beyond, the entire world is visible within the sphere. You look up and see buildings upside down, people upside down.
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Peter Lamont
Peter Lamont discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Peter Lamont is Professor of History and Theory of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. He has written about a variety of curious topics such as magic, belief, wonder and critical thinking. He is also a former professional magician and an Associate of the Inner Magic Circle. His new book is Radical Thinking, which is available at https://swiftpress.com/book/radical-thinking/
The Radical Road https://www.cockburnassociation.org.uk/history-blogs/edinburghs-radical-road-its-history-its-uncertain-future/
Encyclopaedia Britannica (2nd edition) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_Second_Edition
Daniel Dunglas Home https://www.otislibrarynorwich.org/2024/01/04/daniel-dunglas-home/
The original Self-help book https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n04/peter-mandler/gold-out-of-straw
Alternative points of view https://ajehrenberg.medium.com/the-importance-of-alternative-perspectives-cac0f447737b
The past https://www.mooc.org/blog/why-is-it-important-to-study-history
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Sarah Stein Lubrano
Sarah Stein Lubrano discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Dr Sarah Stein Lubrano holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge. Her thinking often reaches the public through the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab. She was previously the Head of Content at The School of Life, tutored in prisons and wrote obituaries. She regularly appears on public radio and a variety of podcasts. Her book Don't Talk About Politics is available at https://linktr.ee/donttalkaboutpolitics.
Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/reading-a-novel-set-entirely-in-slack
The game Billionaires and Guillotines https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745398808/billionaires-and-guillotines/
Looking at other people's algorithms https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-algorithms/
The play Sancho and Me by Paterson Joseph https://www.sanchoproductions.co.uk/
The band Japanese house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Japanese_House
Cooperation Town https://cooperation.town/
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Sarah Dunant
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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/.
How the Dutch traded Manhattan for nutmeg https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/island-traded-for-manhattan
The Nightmovers: Japanese service to help people disappear https://www.bbc.co.uk/worklife/article/20200903-the-companies-that-help-people-vanish
The moment the Porsche 911 was almost killed off https://turo.com/blog/gearheads/how-the-porsche-911-almost-died/
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/
The Lake Bodom Murders https://vocal.media/history/the-lake-bodom-murders-finland-s-unsolved-mystery
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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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.
Ireland