A Book - A Place: Geneva

Ep. 5 Angels and Demons and CERN

A scientist at CERN, the research centre that straddles the French and Swiss border, is murdered in grisly and mysterious circumstances, launching a race against the clock to prevent a much bigger crime. As in The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown constructs a pacy thriller that touches on history, theology and God. The book is Angels and Demons.As Dan Brown publishes the next installment of the adventures of 'symbologist' Robert Langdon in The Secret of Secrets, this podcast goes back to where the story began - Geneva. The place is CERN.In the podcast we meet a young scientist inspired to work at CERN when she read the novel, and discover a book of short stories based on the real science that searches for the secrets of the universe.Episode page: https://bit.ly/4n1ByfXabookaplace.comPart book club, part travel guide, part history podcast, A Book - A Place: Geneva takes you to the places behind the stories that made the city.

Ep. 4 Conrad, Lenin and revolutionary Geneva

Best know for Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad set his spy thriller Under Western Eyes in Geneva, not only because it was a city in which he had lived, but because at that time, in the early 20th century, it was a hotbed of revolutionary Russian emigrés plotting the downfall of the monarchy and the imposition of communism. This episode takes you to the Geneva library where Vladimir Lenin studied and wrote, leaving his own annotations in books - including a biography of Jesus, a historical figure that the father of the Russian revolution saw as a social radical.For all books and places mentioned in the podcast, visit abookaplace.comPart book club, part travel guide, part history podcast, A Book - A Place: Geneva takes you to the places behind the stories that made the city.

Ep. 3 Voltaire's Candide: the best of all possible satires

Voltaire is literally in the pantheon of France's greatest literary heroes. But in his lifetime, the unconventional writer-philosopher was shunned by his home country and lived much of his life in exile - the last two decades in - and importantly - just outside Geneva.And it is here that he wrote his most enduring work: Candide, the story of an ingenue who travels the world and suffers the worst cruelties of humanity and nature, clinging to the cod philosophy that "all is for the best in this the best of all possible worlds".This episode takes you to the house in Geneva where he wrote the novel, and to the chateau just over the border in France in a village that now bears his name, Ferney-Voltaire.More details on the episode, and the sources cited in it, are available on the episode page http://bit.ly/46JI9Xc at www.abookaplace.com.Watch a version of this episode with pictures at https://www.youtube.com/@abookaplacePart book club, part travel guide, part history podcast, A Book - A Place: Geneva takes you to the places behind the stories that made the city.

Ep. 2 The Birth of the Comic Book

Comic books, or graphic novels, are often associated with the Belgium of Tintin, the America of the superheros, or the Japan of manga and animé.But the art form was actually invented in Geneva, almost 200 years ago.In this episode we explore the life and legacy of Rodolph Toeppfer, whose work was championed by Goethe and is now acknowledged as the origin of la bande dessinée.abookaplace.comPart book club, part travel guide, part history podcast, A Book - A Place: Geneva takes you to the places behind the stories that made the city.

Trailer: The Birth of Comic Books

Part history podcast, part travel guide, ‘A Book – A Place: Geneva’ brings you the surprising places and stories that changed Geneva and the world.In this episode: the surprising history of comic books - not invented in New York, Brussels or Tokyo, but in Geneva - 200 years ago.Visit: abookaplace.com (https://abookaplace.com)Part book club, part travel guide, part history podcast, A Book - A Place: Geneva takes you to the places behind the stories that made the city.