Richard Grant has lived in Arizona for more than twenty years, and his latest book — A Race to the Bottom of Crazy — is a fascinating blend of memoir, history, local issues and encounters with strange characters.
It’s a place where social guardrails are weak, and outlandish behaviour is the order of the day. Arizona doesn’t just reflect national trends, it exaggerates them. Is it a bellwether for the world to come?
We spoke about the lure of the desert, Arizona’s southern border, water shortages, and the world’s biggest machine gun shoot.
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1:06:32
Lesley Downer on poetry in Japan’s deep north
Lesley Downer's fascination with Japan's most famous poet took her from Tokyo's drab industrial concrete into what was then a seldom-visited part of Honshu.
It was a place of sake-drenched poetry sessions in thatched-roof highland villages, and holy mountains where modern ascetics continued to roam between their past and future lives in search of atonement. Her book about this journey, On The Narrow Road to the Deep North, was reissued by Eland in 2024.
We spoke about Matsuo Basho’s haiku, mountain ascetics and Japan’s undiscovered north.
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1:19:17
Thomas Swick: Life in Cold War Poland
Thomas Swick moved to Warsaw at the height of the Cold War. His newest book Falling Into Place is a memoir of his life behind the Iron Curtain, but it’s also a writer’s coming of age in the heyday of post-Watergate journalism.
We spoke about life in the Eastern Bloc, Polish films, and the ten sins of travel writing.
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1:12:02
Ian Fleming with biographer Nicholas Shakespeare
Ian Fleming was overshadowed by the fictional character he created in the final decade of his life, but his own story is far more interesting.
Biographer Nicholas Shakespeare joined me to talk about Fleming’s troubled childhood, his wartime intelligence work, and how an American president made James Bond a bestseller.
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1:27:08
Kapka Kassabova: Europe’s last nomadic pastoralists
Kapka Kassabova writes about marginal places and the interdependence of humans and animals in traditional societies. In her last four books, she has made the Balkans her subject — a region I love visiting for its rugged geography and people. She’s one of today’s most interesting writers on place, and one whose work will stand the test of time.
We spoke about her newest book Anima: A Wild Pastoral, the interdependence of humans and animals, and what it’s like to live as a shepherd in a vertical world.
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