A Good Read: Merlin Sheldrake and Jo Marchant
Books and Authors
BBC
4.2 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
Biologist and author Merlin Sheldrake (of 'Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures') is joined by the science journalist Jo Marchant (of 'Human Cosmos' and 'Cure') and presenter Harriett Gilbert.
Merlin picks 'The Age of Wonder' by Richard Holmes, a biographical portrait of scientific innovators in the late 18th century. In this historical book. Holmes explores the scientific ferment that swept across Britain, and how it became an age of great discovery.
Jo's choice, 'You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto', is by computer scientist and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier. In this prescient book from 2010, Jaron delves into the digital world, examining what went wrong in its development, and how we might fix these problems.
And Harriett recommends the classic, magical children's novel, 'The Sword In The Stone' by T. H. White, which she argues merits re-reading as an adult.
Produced by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio, Bristol. Comment on Instagram @agoodreadbbc
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation. |
| 0:07.0 | It was an extraordinary news story. |
| 0:09.0 | The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny, |
| 0:14.0 | mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared. |
| 0:18.0 | One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for |
| 0:21.7 | Leukin. It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. I'm Alex von |
| 0:26.7 | Tunselman. This is The Lucan Obsession. Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:37.2 | Hello, I'm Harriet Gilbert. |
| 0:38.9 | Thank you for downloading a good read, the podcasts, |
| 0:42.0 | where two guests and I recommend books we love and describe why we love them. |
| 0:46.3 | We don't always see eye to eye, but I hope you'll find some great reading suggestions here. |
| 0:51.2 | Today I'm joined by Merlin Sheldrake, biologist and author of Entangled Life, |
| 0:56.4 | subtitled How Fungy, Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. |
| 1:01.8 | With him is the science journalist Joe Marchant. Her books include Cure, a journey into |
| 1:06.5 | the science of mind over body, and most recently the human cosmos, a secret history of the stars. |
| 1:13.7 | Joe Marchand, would you start us off? What's your choice of a good read? |
| 1:17.9 | Yeah, hi, it's You Are Not a Gadget by Geron Lanyer. It came out in 2010, and it had a really |
| 1:23.6 | big effect on me at the time, but it's also a book that I've been thinking more and |
| 1:28.1 | more about recently as well. So that was the reason that I chose that particular book. So |
| 1:32.4 | Geron Lanier is a computer scientist and philosopher. He's one of the founders of virtual reality, |
| 1:38.5 | and he's writing about technology and how technology changes us. So when we interact with technology, we kind of mold ourselves to fit the technology. |
| 1:49.4 | And he's arguing that in some cases, particularly with the way that internet and social media were developing, |
... |
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