5x15 Stories | Jonathan Freedland, Leila Motley, Alexandre Antonelli, Jackie Morris, Geoff Dyer | 5x15 @5x15stories3 | Uploaded June 2022 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
Jonathan Freedland is an award-winning Guardian columnist, presenter of BBC Radio Four’s The Long View, and a multi-million selling thriller author under the name Sam Bourne. His new book, THE ESCAPE ARTIST, marks a return to non-fiction, telling the story of Rudolf Vrba, ‘the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world’. Vrba’s testimony would reach Roosevelt, Churchill and the pope, and eventually save over 200,000 lives, but the escape from Auschwitz was not his last. After the war, he kept running - from his past, from his home country, from his adopted country, even from his own name. ‘A work of the highest quality about an astonishing man. It is gripping from start to finish, searingly, shocking, revelatory and deeply moving.’ – Jonathan Dimbleby
Leila Mottley has been hailed as ‘the voice of a generation’. An acclaimed youth poet, her first novel, NIGHTCRAWLING, was bought in a thirteen-way auction in the States, a nine-way auction in the UK and has already sold into eight languages. Inspired by a true scandal underpinning the police department in Oakland, California, Mottley’s home town, it is an unforgettable novel about young people navigating the darkest corners of an adult world, told with a humanity that is at once agonising and utterly mesmerising.
Professor Alexandre Antonelli is the Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His passion is nature, and his mission is to stop biodiversity loss. To tackle this major challenge, he studies the distribution and evolution of species and develops methods to speed up scientific discovery. His new book is: THE HIDDEN UNIVERSE which takes readers on an unforgettable tour of the natural world, showing how biodiversity - the rich variety of life in the world and in our own backyards - provides both the source and the salvation of our existence. He reveals the wonders of biodiversity at a genetic, species and ecosystem level - what it is, how it works, and why it's the most important tool in our battle against climate change.
Jackie Morris is an author and illustrator. The Lost Words, which she wrote with Robert Macfarlane, won the 2019 Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration, and she was nominated for the same award in 2021 for The Unwinding, her ‘book for dreamers’. FEATHER, LEAF, BARK & STONE is a pillow book of more than 100 short poems and meditations, typed onto gold leaf, leaves, bark and feathers. Written in the wake of Morris’s father’s death, it grew out of her grief, and was guided by her deep intimacy with the natural world. The result is an exquisite book full of the light and wind of the Pembrokeshire coast where it was crafted: poetry re-imagined by a visual artist.
Geoff Dyer is a ‘national treasure’ (Zadie Smith): the award-winning author of ten non-fiction books and four novels, including Out of Sheer Rage and Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It, which have been translated into 24 languages worldwide. He is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California. In THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER FEDERER, he turns his attention to last things - the last days and last achievements of writers, painters, athletes and musicians from J.W Turner to Bob Dylan to Roger Federer himself. Could it be that our deepest desire is for it all to be over?
With thanks for your support for 5x15.
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.
Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
Twitter: twitter.com/5x15stories
Facebook: facebook.com/5x15stories
Instagram: instagram.com/5x15stories
Jonathan Freedland is an award-winning Guardian columnist, presenter of BBC Radio Four’s The Long View, and a multi-million selling thriller author under the name Sam Bourne. His new book, THE ESCAPE ARTIST, marks a return to non-fiction, telling the story of Rudolf Vrba, ‘the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world’. Vrba’s testimony would reach Roosevelt, Churchill and the pope, and eventually save over 200,000 lives, but the escape from Auschwitz was not his last. After the war, he kept running - from his past, from his home country, from his adopted country, even from his own name. ‘A work of the highest quality about an astonishing man. It is gripping from start to finish, searingly, shocking, revelatory and deeply moving.’ – Jonathan Dimbleby
Leila Mottley has been hailed as ‘the voice of a generation’. An acclaimed youth poet, her first novel, NIGHTCRAWLING, was bought in a thirteen-way auction in the States, a nine-way auction in the UK and has already sold into eight languages. Inspired by a true scandal underpinning the police department in Oakland, California, Mottley’s home town, it is an unforgettable novel about young people navigating the darkest corners of an adult world, told with a humanity that is at once agonising and utterly mesmerising.
Professor Alexandre Antonelli is the Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His passion is nature, and his mission is to stop biodiversity loss. To tackle this major challenge, he studies the distribution and evolution of species and develops methods to speed up scientific discovery. His new book is: THE HIDDEN UNIVERSE which takes readers on an unforgettable tour of the natural world, showing how biodiversity - the rich variety of life in the world and in our own backyards - provides both the source and the salvation of our existence. He reveals the wonders of biodiversity at a genetic, species and ecosystem level - what it is, how it works, and why it's the most important tool in our battle against climate change.
Jackie Morris is an author and illustrator. The Lost Words, which she wrote with Robert Macfarlane, won the 2019 Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration, and she was nominated for the same award in 2021 for The Unwinding, her ‘book for dreamers’. FEATHER, LEAF, BARK & STONE is a pillow book of more than 100 short poems and meditations, typed onto gold leaf, leaves, bark and feathers. Written in the wake of Morris’s father’s death, it grew out of her grief, and was guided by her deep intimacy with the natural world. The result is an exquisite book full of the light and wind of the Pembrokeshire coast where it was crafted: poetry re-imagined by a visual artist.
Geoff Dyer is a ‘national treasure’ (Zadie Smith): the award-winning author of ten non-fiction books and four novels, including Out of Sheer Rage and Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It, which have been translated into 24 languages worldwide. He is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California. In THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER FEDERER, he turns his attention to last things - the last days and last achievements of writers, painters, athletes and musicians from J.W Turner to Bob Dylan to Roger Federer himself. Could it be that our deepest desire is for it all to be over?
With thanks for your support for 5x15.
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.
Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
Twitter: twitter.com/5x15stories
Facebook: facebook.com/5x15stories
Instagram: instagram.com/5x15stories
