Are we hard-wired to feel other people’s pain? And if so, is it necessarily a good thing? Andrew Scull has reviewed three new books on empathy and joins us to tell us more; Charles Dickens's love of all things theatrical – in life as in art – is no secret. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst considers fifty years' worth of Dickens adaptations for the stage (and film)
Books
The Empathy Instinct by Peter Bazalgette
Against Empathy: The case for rational compassion by Paul Bloom
The Invention of Humanity: Equality and cultural difference in world history by Siep Stuurman
Dickensian Dramas: Plays from Charles Dickens (Volume One, edited by Jacky Bratton; Volume Two, edited by Jim Davis
Writers at the Gates of Dawn
Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!
Clarity, Honesty, Fluff
Carnival of Darkness
Give Me Your Heart
A Constant State of Foreignness
Best of 2021
Best of 2021
BONUS: Sarah Hall and Sarah Moss – an interview
This Is Magic
On not letting it be
George Orwell and his Roses and a History of Self-Improvement
Books of the Year 2021
The Mythic Town of Concord and the Magic of the Lighted Window
The Booker-winner and the Beatle
Wild Lives
Doom, Faith and Sabotage
Radical Turns
The Autumn Livres
E.M. Forster's Happy Solution
Create your
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It is Free
Just Dumb Enough Podcast
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL