In our latest book podcast, host George Miller talks to the immensely popular social historian, Juliet Gardiner, about her panoramic account of The Thirties, which has just come out in paperback. The book covers everything from hunger marches to greyhound racing, seaside holidays to the preparations for war. So does Gardiner share W. H. Auden's view of the thirties as a 'low, dishonest decade'?

Our guest on this podcast is Hugh Aldersey-Williams, whose Periodic Tales explores the cultural history of the elements and puts the fun back into chemistry. In the interview he talks about our often bizarre relationship with elements such as radium, which in the early twentieth century experienced a great surge in popularity and led to miracle claims being made for all sorts of household products - even shoe polish.

In this podcast, Robin Osborne, who is Professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge, tells George Miller about the importance of "joined-up thinking" when it comes to considering how Greek democracy actually worked.

Having peered into the distant future in his previous book, The Earth after Us, Geologist Jan Zalasiewicz winds back the clock of the earth's history in his latest publication to tell the story of The Planet in a Pebble.

Science journalist Mary Roach takes us on a trip to Mars, in one of this year's funniest popular science books, Packing for Mars, boldly going where other writers fear to tread. Among the questions she tackles are: what's it like to spend two weeks in the same spacesuit? And is there sex in space?

Francis Spufford is a former Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. His previous books include I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination and a memoir, The Child that Books Built. His new book, Red Plenty, skilfully blends fact and fiction to explore the heady years in the early 'sixties when the USSR entertained ambitions of becoming a Soviet paradise on earth.

Catharine Arnold is an author, journalist and popular historian who joins our show for the second time. With her 'London Trilogy', Catharine has explored the darker sides of the capital from Roman times through to present day. Starting with London's dead in 'Necropolis', via its insane in 'Bedlam', Catharine finishes her trilogy with 'City of Sin', a book that focuses squarely on the history of London's shocking sexual underground.

Madeleine Bunting is a journalist who writes for The Guardian. 'The Plot' is her book about discovery, people, the passing of time and most importantly, a place. That place is a one acre plot of land on the North York moors. Madeleine's father, an artist and visionary, had strong connections with this plot, erecting the chapel that stands there. Seeking to understand her father's passion for the area after his death, Madeleine soon discovers that this simple acre of land has many secrets to...

Paul Kriwaczek is a writer, director and producer. In 'Babylon', Paul tells the story of ancient Mesopotamia, the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system that gave birth to the first civilisations. From the earliest settlements around 5400 BC, to the eclipse of Babylon by the Persians in the sixth century BC, 'Babylon' charts the rise and fall of dynastic power, the numerous material, social and cultural innovations and most specifically, the glory of Babylon - 'gateway to the gods'.

In this latest Blackwell Classics podcast, we return to the interview recently recorded with Alastair Blanshard to complete our two-part special on his book 'Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity'. Mirroring the structure of the book, part one of the interview focussed on sex in classical Rome. Now with part two, we turn to Greece, looking at Greek love, homosexuality and the impact they have had on our modern views.

Catherine O'Flynn is an English novelist. Her debut title, 'What Was Lost', was a huge success winning the First Novel prize at the Costa Book Awards in 2008 as well as being long listed for the 2007 Man Booker and Orange prizes. Catherine's new novel, 'The News Where You Are', is set, like her first, in her home town of Birmingham and follows the story of local TV news presenter Frank. Frank is coming to terms with significant changes in the world around him, leading him to take a drastic...

American journalist Emma Larkin has been travelling to Burma and secretly reporting on the country for over 15 years. In her new book, 'Everything is Broken', Larkin, who writes under a pseudonym, focuses on Burma's history of the last few years, following a devastating tropical cyclone that hit in 2008. Astonishingly, the country's regime not only blocked all international aid from entering the area but provided little relief themselves. 'Everything is Broken' not only exposes the extent of...

British philosopher Julian Baggini returns to our show for a second time, joining us today to talk about his new book, 'Complaint'. The book carries the sub-title 'From Minor Moans to Principled Protests', and runs the full gamut of objections. From trivial grumbles about bad weather and public transport to the paradigm-shifting political protests of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Baggini gives philosophical answers to why we complain and how each case is perceived.

Alastair Blanshard joins us for the latest Blackwell Classics podcast, in a two-part special about his book 'Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity'. The book examines the impact that sexual fantasies in the classical world have had on modern Western culture, charting the evolution of erotic discourse from antiquity to the present day. Part one of the interview focuses on sex in classical Rome and we will be returning with Alastair for part two, on Greece, in the next programme.

Marek Kohn is an author and journalist, specialising in science and society. Having published books on drug use in post-war Britain ('Dope Girls') and the 'Englishness' of evolutionary theory ('A Reason for Everything'), Kohn is back with a new book with the British Isles at the centre. 'Turned Out Nice' offers a stark view on how the climate, wildlife, terrain and inhabitants of Britain and Ireland may change over the course of the forthcoming century due to the ever-increasing threat of...

Stuart Kelly is a freelance critic and writer and the Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday. In his new paperback, 'The Book of Lost Books - An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You'll Never Read', Kelly provides an witty and enjoyable account of history's books that never quite saw the light of day. From authors of varying degrees of fame and popularity, Kelly unearths the books that were destroyed, misplaced, never finished, or never even begun - from ancient Greek and Arabic...

With over seventy dazzling writers, from outsiders to insiders, from classic to cutting-edge, 'City-pick Amsterdam' has some of the finest writing on this amazing and unique city. The celebrate the release, we sent our podcast host George Miller to the Dutch captial to spend some time with co-editor Victor Schiferli to get an insider's view on the city and further insight into the book. The resulting interview and audio diary, recorded in a number of historic Amsterdam locations including...

Robert Rowland Smith is a former Prize Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a lecturer and writer on philosophy, literature and psychoanalysis. In his book 'Breakfast with Socrates', Robert provides philosophical musings on the happenings of everyday life providing an hour-by-hour commentary on everything we do. From getting ready in the morning, through our day at work, to evening social activities and back to bed again, 'Breakfast with Socrates' tells us what history's greatest...

Lucy Worsley is Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces and a leading young historian. With that, Lucy is more than qualified to take readers on a historical tour of Kensington Palace, as she does in her new title 'Courtiers'. The book tells the story of the Georgian court from the perspective of the numerous royal servants for whom the palace was home, while throwing new light on the dramatic life of George II and Queen Caroline.

Matthew Crawford is a motorcycle mechanic and a philosopher. In 'The Case for Working with Your Hands', Matthew utilises his knowledge of both fields to argue that the skilled manual trades and much more fulfilling that your average office job. Drawing on the work of our greatest thinkers, from Aristotle to Heidegger, Karl Marx to Iris Murdoch, as well as on his own experiences as an electrician and motorcycle mechanic, Crawford delivers a radical, timely and extremely enjoyable re-evaluation...

Joe Moran joins us to discuss his new paperback, 'On Roads: A Hidden History'. The book presents a history of Britain's roads, showing how a relatively simple road system turned into a maze-like pattern of roundabouts, flyovers, and spaghetti junctions. Revealing numerous quirky nuggets of history along the way on subjects ranging from speed limits and driving on the left, to the to the unwritten laws of traffic jams, Moran uses a unique blend of travel writing, anthropology, history and...

Paul Collier is Professor of Economics at Oxford University. When he released 'The Bottom Billion', he significantly changed the way that poverty in world's poorest countries is perceived. Now, with 'The Plundered Planet', he is back with an even bigger ambition: to reconcile the needs of the ever-growing global population with a sustainable environmental future. Collier provides an ethical framework on which to agree future policy and based on his own ground-breaking research into these...

In the latest Blackwell Classics podcast special, we welcome Richard Buxton, Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Bristol, to talk about his book 'Forms of Astonishment'. The book is an illustrated study of a number of Greek myths about the metamorphosis of humans and gods. Buxton explores how these transformations were present through a wide variety of contexts and asks whether the Greeks really took these tales seriously.

In this special Blackwell Classics programme, we are joined by Simon Price and Peter Thonemann, authors of the eagerly awaited new title, 'The Birth of Classical Europe'. The book presents a wide-ranging account of over 2,000 years of European history and reveals how we are the descendants of a 'classical Europe', using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures.

Daisy Hay joins us to talk about her debut book, 'Young Romantics', a group biography which describes the lives of a circle of second-generation Romantics including Byron, Keats and the Shelleys. In the book Hay dispels the myth of the romantic poet as a solitary, introspective genius, showing how the astonishingly young group drew inspiration from each other to produce their artistic triumphs.