5x15

When it comes to playing games, asking the right questions is everything. Where should you move first in Connect 4? What is the best property in Monopoly? And how can pi help you win rock paper scissors? In his new book Around the World in 80 Games, the award-winning mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explores the maths behind the games we love to play, and why we love to play them. Spanning millennia, countries and cultures, he discovers how maths and games have been integral to human psychology and culture. For 5x15, Marcus is in conversation with Alex Bellos a grandmaster of the puzzling world, brilliant on all things cryptic. His bestselling, award-winning books include Alex’s Adventures in Numberland, Alex Through the Looking-Glass and Can You Solve My Problems? For as long as there have been people, there have been games, and for nearly as long, we have been exploring and discovering mathematics. Join us for a playful and adventurous discussion about our human passion for both. Speakers Marcus du Saut

What is the meaning of home? As the nights begin to draw in and we head into the autumn, 5x15 is delighted to welcome the wonderful authors Kate Humble and Helen Rebanks for a special conversation about the time we spend at home. Kate Humble has inspired many readers with her positive and purposeful approach to life, whether it's reconnecting with nature or changing our lifestyles. Now, in her new book Where the Hearth Is, she turns her attention to life indoors. In the move away from office buildings and traditional workplaces, how do we create spaces that feel happy and healthy, and make the most of our time spent with loved ones? In her debut book The Farmer's Wife, Helen Rebanks offers a gorgeous and unvarnished glimpse at the labour and glory of keeping a home and raising a family. Populated with chickens, sheepdogs, ponies and cattle, and joined by her husband James and their four children, Helen's story on the farm offers a chance to think about where our food comes from, and who puts it on the table

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Mark O’Connell is the author of A Thread of Violence, Notes from an Apocalypse, and To Be a Machine, which was awarded the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, the 2019 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and The Guardian. He lives in Dublin with his family. In his new book A Thread of Violence, about a shocking double murder in Ireland in the 1980s, O'Connell is pushed into a confrontation with his own narrative: what does it mean to write about a murderer? Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Sarah Ogilvie teaches at the University of Oxford, and specializes in language, dictionaries, and technology. As a lexicographer she has been an editor at the Oxford English Dictionary and was Chief Editor of Oxford Dictionaries in Australia. As a technologist she has worked in Silicon Valley at Lab 126, Amazon's innovation lab, where she was part of the team that developed the Kindle. She originally studied computer science and mathematics before taking her doctorate in Linguistics at the University of Oxford, and then taught at Cambridge and Stanford. Her new book The Dictionary People dives deep into previously untapped archives to tell a people's history of the Oxford English Dictionary, and traces the lives of thousands of contributors who defined the English language. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Justine Picardie is the author of six books, including her bestselling memoir If the Spirit Moves You; Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture; and the international bestseller, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, which will be reissued in a new, revised edition in August 2023 to coincide with the forthcoming Chanel exhibition at the V&A. She has also contributed essays to several anthologies and museum exhibitions on art, fashion and photography. She is a contributing editor to Harper’s Bazaar, having previously been its editor-in-chief. She was formerly an investigative journalist for the Sunday Times, a columnist for the Telegraph, editor of the Observer Magazine, editor of Town & Country and features director of Vogue. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15storie

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Octavia Bright is a writer and broadcaster. She co-hosts Literary Friction, the literary podcast and NTS Radio show, with Carrie Plitt. Recommended by the New York Times, Guardian, BBC Culture, Electric Literature, Sunday Times and others, it has run for ten years and has listeners worldwide. She has also presented programmes for BBC R4 including Open Book, and hosts literary events for bookshops, publishers, and festivals – such as Cheltenham Literature Festival and events for The Southbank Centre. Her writing has been published in a number of magazines including the White Review, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Wasafiri, Somesuch Stories, and the Sunday Times, amongst others. She has a PhD from UCL where she wrote about hysteria and desire in Spanish cinema. Her first book, This Ragged Grace: A Memoir of Recovery and Renewal, was published by Canongate

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Ed Yong's first book, I Contain Multitudes, about the amazing partnerships between microbes and animals, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the Wellcome Book Prize. It was a New York Times bestseller. He is a science writer on the staff of The Atlantic, where he won the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Polk Award for science reporting, among other honours. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times, Scientific American, and more. He lives in Washington, D.C. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, welcoming us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5

5x15 welcomes Colm Tóibín, novelist, critic, essayist and one of the most highly acclaimed writers of our time. In his new essay collection A Guest at the Feast, Tóibín traverses life in all its complexity, capturing moments that are both melancholy and amusing, rich and strange. Travelling between the streets of Buenos Aires and a deserted Venice, and the works of writers such as John McGahern and Marilynne Robinson, these essays uncover the places where life and fiction overlap. Don't miss the chance to hear this most erudite and important storyteller, live in conversation with award-winning poet and author Seán Hewitt. Praise for Colm Tóibín and A Guest at the Feast 'The clarity of the novelist's descriptive ability shines through essays on topics ranging from his treatment for cancer to the joys of an empty Venice . . . On every subject, Tóibín's writing is what people these days inevitably describe as nuanced, a word that has become a kind of shorthand for expressing a person's rare ability to under

The Six Ideas to Change the World series, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, continues in July with Gaia Vince on Migration. Migration is one of the most underreported consequences of the climate crisis, but it is also one of the most seismic. Put simply, the changing temperatures on our planet will force us to change where - and how - we live. What will the ongoing climate upheaval mean practically? How can we prepare for mass migration, and who will be the most affected by these changes? To address these urgent and complex questions, we are thrilled to welcome award-winning journalist and author Gaia Vince back to 5x15's virtual stage. Gaia's latest book, Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval, is a groundbreaking investigation into this species emergency. It provides a rousing call to arms, showing us that migration is not the problem, but the solution. She will be in conversation with Henry Mance, Chief Features Writer at the Financial Times and author of How to

In July, 5x15 is thrilled to welcome the highly acclaimed and best-selling authors Polly Morland and Rachel Clarke, for a vital conversation about medicine, the NHS and the fascinating story behind Morland's new book A FORTUNATE WOMAN: A Country Doctor's Story, a Sunday Times bestseller that was shortlisted for the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. Polly Morland was clearing her late mother’s house when she found a battered paperback fallen behind the family bookshelf. Opening it, she was astonished to see reproduced in it an old photograph of the remote, wooded valley in which she lives. The book was A Fortunate Man, John Berger’s classic 1967 account of a country doctor working in the same valley more than half a century earlier. This chance discovery led Morland to the remarkable doctor who serves that valley community today, a woman whose own medical vocation was inspired by reading the very same book as a teenager. A Fortunate Woman tells her compelling story, and how the tale of the old doct

If you were going to do just one thing to transform your health, what would it be? With the sheer amount of information we consume daily about diet, fitness and wellbeing, this can be an increasingly difficult question to answer. But Dr Michael Mosley, No.1 international best-selling author of the 5:2 diet books, is here to help. We are delighted to welcome him to 5x15's virtual stage for an energizing conversation about small changes that make all the difference, with cook, writer and presenter Thomasina Miers. Based on the popular BBC podcast, Just One Thing, Dr Mosley’s new book unearths a range of impactul, intriguing and surprising transformations. Having reversed his own Type 2 diabetes in 2021 with the 5:2 fast diet, Dr Mosley now brings us groundbreaking research about everyday methods for improving our health. From the benefits of eating chocolate for heart health, to the natural 'high' of singing and the effects of house plants on mood and productivity, he has chatted to experts and road tested ti

The Six Ideas to Change the World series, in partnership with Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, continues in June with Tim Smedley and Alok Jha on Water. Water scarcity is an urgent problem. While some of the world's water crisis can be attributed to changes wrought by climate change, like droughts and floods, there is also a long history of human mismanagement. What can we learn from past mistakes, and how will those lessons inform the future? In his new book The Last Drop: Solving the World's Water Crisis, the award-winning environmental journalist Tim Smedley offers a timely and ultimately optimistic account of the global situation. In this "smart, sobering and scholarly" book, Smedley argues that there are many solutions, from regenerative agriculture and desalination, to water-footprint labelling for consumers. Join us to hear an inspiring and in-depth discussion of the actions we must take to better use and manage the world's water supply. Tim Smedley will be in conversation with Alok Jha, s

5x15 is delighted to welcome two best-selling and award-winning authors back to our virtual stage. This time, Lucy Jones and Amy Liptrot will be in conversation about Jones's highly anticipated new book MATRESCENCE: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Motherhood. Other than adolescence, there is no other time in a human's life course that entails such dramatic change than pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood. So why has this transformation been so neglected by science, medicine and philosophy, and gone largely unrepresented across literature and the arts? Lucy Jones's new book is a groundbreaking, deeply personal investigation into the emerging concept of 'matrescence', and an urgent examination of the modern institution of motherhood. Join us for an inspiring conversation between Lucy Jones and Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun and The Instant. They will be discussing important questions around motherhood and femininity; interdependence and individual identity; as well as our rel

Dr Janina Ramirez is an Oxford lecturer, BBC broadcaster, researcher and author. She has presented and written over 30 hours of BBC history documentaries and series on TV and radio, and written five books for children and adults. Her new book Femina offers a ground-breaking reappraisal of medieval history. It reveals why women were struck from our historical narrative, restoring them to their rightful positions as the power-players who shaped the world we live in today.

Jeffrey Boakye is an author, broadcaster, educator and journalist with a particular interest in issues surrounding race, masculinity, education and popular culture. Originally from Brixton in London, Jeffrey has taught secondary English for fifteen years. He is the author of several books: Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials and the Meaning of Grime; Black, Listed: Black British Culture Explored; What is Masculinity? Why Does it Matter? And Other Big Questions; Musical Truth: A Musical Journey Through Modern Black Britain; and I Heard What You Said. He is also the co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Add to Playlist. He now lives in Yorkshire with his wife and two sons.

Mark Vanhoenacker is a commercial airline pilot for British Airways and the author of the international bestseller Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot and How to Land a Plane. A columnist for the Financial Times and a regular contributor to The New York Times, he has also written for The Times, The Atlantic, Wired and the Los Angeles Times. Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Mark trained as a historian and worked as a management consultant before starting his flight training in Britain in 2001. He now flies the Boeing 787 Dreamliner from London to cities around the world. In his new book, Imagine A City, he explores cities across the globe and chronicles his personal, often complex, search for the meaning of home.

Jennifer Robinson is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London. She has acted in key human rights and media freedom cases in domestic and international courts. Jennifer has advised survivors, journalists, media organisations, advocacy and frontline services organisations on free speech and media law issues. Jennifer serves on the boards of the Bonavero Human Rights Institute, the Bureau for Investigative Journalism and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. Dr Keina Yoshida is a human rights barrister at the Center for Reproductive Rights, an associate tenant of Doughty Street Chambers and a visiting fellow at the Center for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics. Keina has represented and advised victims and survivors of abuse, and has acted in important women´s rights and LGBT rights cases. Keina’s publications include Feminist Conversations on Peace (Bristol University Press, 2022) as well as academic journal articles in the European Human Rights Law Review, Hu

Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiology researcher and professor at the University of Westminster, and also an Honorary Research Associate at University College London (UCL). He is the author of the bestselling books The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch and Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History, which has been translated into 26 languages. He writes for the Guardian, The Times and New Scientist. Copies of The Knowledge exist on the surface of the Moon, and in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. His new book, Being Human, is a unique reframing of human history as shaped by our physical abilities and limitations.

Andrew Motion was UK Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009, is co-founder of the online Poetry Archive, and has written acclaimed biographies of Philip Larkin and John Keats among others. His memoir of childhood, In the Blood, was published in 2006, and its sequel, Sleeping on Islands: A Life in Poetry, appeared alongside Selected Poems: 1977 – 2022 in 2023. He is Homewood Professor in the Arts at Johns Hopkins University, and lives in Baltimore. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online! Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Angela Saini is an award-winning journalist and author. She presents radio, podcasts, and television programmes, and her writing has appeared across the world, including in The Financial Times, Wired, and National Geographic. Angela's 2019 book Superior: The Return of Race Science was published to enormous critical acclaim, and became a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the Hughes Prize, and the Foyles Book of the Year. Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong was published in 2017, and has been translated into fourteen languages. In her bold and radical fourth book, The Patriarchs, she goes in search of the true roots of gendered oppression, uncovering a complex history of how it first became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online! Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories