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Unfortunately, She Was a Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome's Imperial Women by Joan Smith William Collins, [pounds sterling]25, pp. 272 Unfortunately, She Was a Nymphomaniac must be one of [...]

Farming Today; My Poetry and Other Animals BBC Radio 4 Farming Today airs at an undignified hour each morning on Radio 4. On the few occasions I've caught it live [...]

Nasa's Curious Universe; The Supermassive Podcast; Tales from the Green Benches Apple, Spotify and other platforms The podcasts I'm recommending to everyone at the moment are Nasa's Curious Universe and [...]

This Cultural Life: Salman Rushdie; Vessels of Memory: Glass Ships of Sunderland BBC Radio 4 Ask the man in the street to quote a line from one of Salman Rushdie's [...]

The Lucan Obsession BBC Radio 4 Extrasensory Apple, Spotify and other platforms It was 50 years ago this week, on 7 November 1974, that Lord Lucan fled what was destined [...]

Illuminated: We Are Not Alone; Surrealism Remixed BBC Radio 4 In October 1964, a young man was driving to a dance in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, when his radio began to pick [...]

Archive on 4: Bowie in Berlin; Off-Peak Performance BBC Radio 4 This week's Archive on 4 is a treat for David Bowie fans. Francis Whately, the producer behind several of [...]

The Forum: Etiquette BBC World Service Good Friday Meditation BBC Radio 4 When dining in France, it is considered rude to finish the bread before the main course has been [...]

No Worries if Not! Apple, Spotify and other platforms The Curious History of Your Home BBC Sounds Historically, when a woman was giving birth, she was attended by the women [...]

Geoff Norcott's Working Men's Club; Time of the Week BBC Radio 4 Do men and women need different podcasts? The notion goes against the unisex, every-sex, what-is-sex-anyway culture we have [...]

Shadow World: Thief at the British Museum; The Beauty of Everyday Things BBC Radio 4 It's August 2023 when news breaks that artefacts have gone missing, presumed stolen, from the [...]

Growing Solo BBC Radio 4 Terry Walton's Plotcast BBC Sounds Could you live off the land for a year without buying a single thing to eat? This was the challenge [...]

Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast Apple, Spotify and other podcasts Drama on 4: Sappho in Fragments BBC Radio 4 The late John Berryman described A.E. Housman as 'a detestable and miserable [...]

Raymond Briggs has often spoken of his annoyance at being associated with Christmas. His Snowman may fly across our screens each Christmas day, but in the book there is no [...]

Sara Wheeler finds Sybille Bedford a snobbish, manipulative monster Emily Bearn is fascinated by R.L. Stevenson and J.M. Barrie's strange bromance Olivia Potts welcomes Nigella's recipes for dining alone Alexandra [...]

Homer and His Iliad by Robin Lane Fox Allen Lane, [pounds sterling]30, pp. 464 Odysseus is tossed on the sea when he notices a rock and clings to it. 'As [...]

Do We Still Need the Pips? BBC Radio 4 When the Pips Stop BBC Radio 4 Extra Next week marks the centenary of the pips. On Monday at 9 p.m. [...]

James I. Porter Homer: The Very Idea. University of Chicago Press, 280 pages, $27.50 There was little doubt in antiquity that Homer existed. The author of the Iliad and the [...]

The Moomin Phenonmenon; Why Women Grow Apple Podcasts, Spotify and various platforms One of the lesser-known schools of modern philosophy is the Philosophy of Moomin. Like Cynicism or Epicureanism, it [...]

The Reinvention of Italy; Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics BBC Radio 4 Anne McElvoy is on the road again, exploring the state of modern Europe. Following her Radio [...]

The Musical Mouse that Roared: The Pioneering Baroque Revival of 1973; Five Cellos: Lost and Found BBC Radio 3 A recent Sunday Feature on Radio 3 contained some of the [...]

Political Currency Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms How to Win a Campaign BBC Radio 4 The first episode of George Osborne and Ed Balls's new podcast, Political Currency, opened [...]

The Immortals; This Cultural Life BBC Radio 4 The Immortals, which begins on Radio 4 this week, is not for the faint-hearted. While it professes to be about the human [...]

The Venice Conundrum; The Balsall Heath Bohemians BBC Radio 4 Where Are You Going? Apple Podcasts, Spotify and various platforms The playwright Carlo Gozzi marvelled at 'The spectacle of women [...]

During the liberation of Paris in August 1944, the photographer Lee Miller made her way to Picasso's studio on rue des Grands-Augustins, where she was greeted with a wide-eyed grin. [...]

The Gucci Podcast Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms 3.55 Chanel One of the New York Met Gala stylists is sharing tips for wearing a corset to an evening do. [...]

Prayer for the Day; Tweet of the Day BBC Radio 4 As the owner of a radio alarm clock, I could theoretically start listening to the Today programme before I'm [...]

Sister Wendy Beckett, who died this past Boxing Day aged eighty-eight, was as extraordinary as she was unexpected. A nun who spent much of her life in silent contemplation, she [...]

Battle Elephants and Flaming Foxes: Animals in the Roman World by Caroline Freeman-Cuerden The History Press, [pounds sterling]20, pp. 280 Did you know that the elephant was the most written [...]

Great Lives; Playing the Prince BBC Radio 4 Whenever I listen to Great Lives on Radio 4, which is often, I am reminded of the gulf between fame and achievement. [...]

Ican no longer remember when it was that high streets did not all look the same. The architectural writer James Maude Richards bemoaned the disappearance of local character from our [...]

'Enviably well-connected, strikingly handsome, immensely rich, intensely charismatic, unashamedly louche, and, like the Homeric hero Achilles, motivated by the ambition 'always to be best and to surpass all others'' Is [...]

Learn to Paint; PleinAir; Everything but the Flame Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms There's a great documentary film on Netflix at the moment about the late artist Bob Ross, [...]

RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2021 Saatchi Gallery, until 3 October Elizabeth Blackadder, who died last month at the age of 89, was probably the most distinctive botanical artist [...]

The best thing on the radio last week was, without question, Kind Hearts and Coronets. You may have missed it because it was on Radio 4 Extra, the poor, forgotten [...]

Hot Money: Who Rules Porn?; Visible Women with Caroline Criado Perez Apple, Spotify and other platforms It was recently reported that almost 8 per cent of global internet traffic is [...]

Percy Shelley, Reformer and Radical; Severus BBC Radio 4 Last week I heard the actor Julian Sands give a virtuoso performance of work by Percy Bysshe Shelley to mark the [...]

Today, few teenagers learn Latin or Greek. but would we understand the world better if we read and studied classics? On a blustery evening in November, more than 2,000 people [...]

Manet's 'Botte d'asperges' are probably the most famous asparagus in the world. The artist painted the delicious white- and lilac-tinged spears for the collector Charles Ephrussi in 1880 before invoicing [...]

Renegades: Born in the USA; Tes: My Best Teacher Apple, Spotify and various platforms My Teenage Diary BBC Radio 4 Barack Obama wants the world to know how much he [...]

Looking at the sketchbook of William Whitelock Lloyd, a soldier-artist who joined a P&O liner after surviving the Anglo-Zulu War, I'm reminded why I avoid cruises. On board this India-bound [...]

Kermode and Mayo's Take Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms The Essay: Adrian Edmondson on the pursuit of laughter BBC Radio 3 Last April Fools' Day, Mark Kermode and Simon [...]

Deeply Human BBC World Service Hidden Brain Apple Podcasts, Spotify and various platforms 'I like to have a martini,/ Two at the very most./ After three I'm under the table,/ [...]

The article discusses Roman lawyer and senator, Pliny the Younger's correspondence documenting his life in Rome, Italy and dealing with Christians in the province of Bithynia-Pontus. Topics discussed include his correspondence with Emperor Trajan about the Christians, the tension between Christians and Romans, his method of interrogating those accused of practicing Christianity, Romans' view of Christians as atheists and Pliny's trials indicating his interest to understand Christian belief.

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue BBC Radio 4 In Vogue: The 1990s; Stig Abell's Guide to Reading Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue [...]