The British Academy Book Prize 2021

New ways of thinking about global problems - Rana Mitter reads this year's shortlist.

• 44 mins

Choice

Do poets choose their words or are they predetermined?

• 44 mins

Frieze: Museums in the 21st century

Anne McElvoy talks to the directors at London's National Gallery, Yale and New York's Met.

• 44 mins

Colour

Artist Lubna Chowdhary, author Michèle Roberts, art historians James Fox and Kelly Grovier

• 44 mins

Sugar

Matthew Sweet examines how sugar built the modern world.

• 44 mins

Black British theatre archives and an Afro-Cuban star

From an 18th-century Black Juliet to Ira Aldridge’s daughter Amanda. Plus, Rita Montaner.

• 44 mins

Rationality and Tradition

Tim Stanley on tradition and Steven Pinker on rationality. Anne McElvoy hosts.

• 44 mins

The Language of Flowers

Rebecca Solnit's new book on George Orwell explores his interest in gardening and the land

• 44 mins

Twilight

Poet Pascale Petit, photographer Jasper Goodall, Alexandra Harris, composer Sally Beamish.

• 44 mins

Time

As the clocks go back, Matthew Sweet and guests host a party for time travellers.

• 44 mins

Oceans, art and pacific poetry

Tania Kovats describes her sculptures from bleached coral and concrete moulded wetsuits.

• 44 mins

Caesar, Hogarth and images of power

Rana Mitter talks to Professor Mary Beard, artist Ali Cherri and looks at Hogarth's art.

• 44 mins

God's Body

Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Hetta Howes and Mark Vernon join Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

The Imperial War Museum Remembrance Discussion 2021

How do we define a war? Anne McElvoy and guests look at how language changes attitudes.

• 44 mins

Dogs

Labradors Olive and Mabel became a Covid internet hit - can we know what a dog thinks?

• 44 mins

Being Human 2021

Reseach into covid comics, codes in Dickens, projecting books onto hospital ceilings.

• 44 mins

Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex

One of the key French existentialists in the 50s, how does Simone de Beauvoir read today?

• 44 mins

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss what inspired Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On?

• 44 mins

Faking It and Trompe-l'oeil

From fake flowers carved by Grinling Gibbons to modern craft and internet images.

• 44 mins

Romanian History and Literature

Novelists Mircea Cărtărescu and Georgina Harding and historian Philippe Sands on Romania.

• 44 mins

Christopher Logue's War Music

Shahidha Bari and guests read Logue's version of Homer's Iliad and look at its language.

• 44 mins

Toys

How toys are shaped by politics and why they have a spooky side.

• 44 mins

Dürer, Rhinos and Whales

Writer Philip Hoare, curator Robert Wenley, historian Helen Cowie talk celebrity animals.

• 44 mins

Caribbean Art

As a Tate Britain show opens, Shahidha Bari looks at Caribbean post-war writing and art

• 44 mins

The Day of the Triffids

Matthew Sweet and guests re-read John Wyndham's post-apocalyptic novel from 1951.

• 44 mins

The TV Debate

Gore Vidal v William F Buckley Jr, Germaine Greer v Norman Mailer. Have debates changed?

• 44 mins

Witchcraft and Margaret Murray

Matthew Sweet and guests look at 1921's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe and witches now.

• 44 mins

Early Buddhism, Sheila Rowbotham

Two Buddhism scholars and British socialist feminist Sheila Rowbotham join Rana Mitter.

• 44 mins

Colm Tóibín, David Cohen winner, Dullness

Is it a good thing to stand out? Anne McElvoy and guests explore the virtue of being dull.

• 44 mins

Jean-Paul Belmondo and the French New Wave

The French film star who burst onto the scene in 1960 in Godard's Breathless.

• 44 mins