Writers and Readers Festivals Podcast Options

4:00 PM.Three lively commentators on the arts Sarah Thornton, Denis Dutton and John Carey discuss its complexities, contradictions, and enduring attractions with Linda Tyler. John Carey's controversial book… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.With Treasa Dunworth in the chair, Antony Loewenstein examines the prospects of the Middle East peace process in the new geo-political context, and alternative suggestions on how to tackle the crisis… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.Jill Dawson has published six novels and also writes poetry. Her latest novel, The Great Lover, captures the allure of poet Rupert Brooke and his intriguing relationships, in the euphoric period… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.Two master storytellers with very different backgrounds talk with Kim Hill about the origins of their success, their shared passion for history, the joys of discovery, and the satisfaction that comes… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.In conversation with Sean Plunket, journalist and human rights consultant Michael Otterman explores the recent history of Iraq. Highly critical of what the USA has achieved since George W. Bush's… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.Three panellists discuss their divergent views on the global and regional rise of religion and its impact on every-day lives, particularly on the vulnerable residents in war-torn parts of the world… Read more Audio

4:00 PM.Sam Elworthy, Laurie Chittenden, Michael Heyward and Derek Johns consider whether the future of the book in a digital, technological, future. Noel Murphy chairs. Audio

4:00 PM.Kamila Shamsie and Ilija Trojanow explore from their positions on the margins of their adopted cultures what it means to write for, and about, a globalised world. John Newton is in the chair. Audio

4:00 PM.Margo Lanagan and Neil Gaiman discuss their approaches towards creating literature for young adult readers. In the chair is Kate De Goldi. Audio

4:06 PM.Simon Schama and Margo Lanagan reflect on their different approaches to narrative and history, in a session chaired by Lydia Wevers. Audio

4:06 PM.This outspoken atheist and evolutionary biologist sets out his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. Bernard Beckett chairs. Audio

4:06 PM.One of the UK's leading historians discusses his craft, and explores why he uses television as a key means of communication to a wide audience. In the chair is Sean Plunket. Audio

9:02 AM."I'm wondering if… we will have a more balanced hedonism, a more balanced understanding of pleasure, of the art of living. I would hope that… economists might begin to envisage more sustainable, but… Read more Audio

9:01 AM."Although this is not the truth, it's actual." Beginning with readings from the self-described "odd men out" of New Zealand literature, this session traces Greg McGee's writing of a TV mini-series on… Read more Audio

9:00 AM."When you've been fired and made redundant, you tend to lose faith in the people who employ you. And you think that you might like to employ yourself for a while, because you can guarantee that you… Read more Audio

9:00 AM."Every fact in the New Yorker is checked. Every fact. Every name, every place, every price, every noun, every adjective… (even) the cartoons are checked." In a good-humoured and lively session, New… Read more Audio

9:00 AM."Some glittering, eventful lives are in fact, repetitive and depressing… It's the drama of individuation which gives a biography its suspense, and cuts through the trivia of life to its vital… Read more Audio

1:02 PM.Australian novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist, talking about her first novel for 15 years. Read more Audio

9:00 AM.Is there a New Zealand cuisine or have we been swept away into a miasma of 'Asian-Pacific fusion'? Food writers Helen Leach, Alexa Johnston and Ray McVinnie discuss with Lauraine Jacobs the state of… Read more Audio

9:00 AM.Travel was once seen as a rite of passage for New Zealanders, but today's decision to get on an aeroplane is not so simple. Graeme Lay, Lloyd Spencer Davis and Thomas Kohnstamm explore areas in common… Read more Audio

4:06 PM.In this second of a series of panel discussions recorded in May, Joan Druett, Mary McCallum, and Barbara Else talk with Graham Beattie about how the ocean around New Zealand connects some very… Read more Audio

4:06 PM.Auckland as a location and an imaginative idea is explored by writers Stephanie Johnson, Derek Hansen and Paula Morris, with Paula Green in the chair. Stephanie Johnson's work explores the city of her… Read more Audio

6:00 AM.Part five of the Writers and Readers week discussions. Panellists Patricia Grace, David Mitchell and Alexis Wright take part in a discussion chaired by Jane Stafford. Patricia Grace, winner of the… Read more Audio

6:00 PM.According to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the war in Iraq will become the world's first three trillion dollar war. He joins cartoonist Garry Trudeau, novelist and journalist… Read more Audio

6:00 PM."After a couple of hours at their desks, on September 12, 2001, all the writers on earth were reluctantly considering a change of occupation" (Martin Amis). In this programme three very different… Read more Audio