The Avid Reader Show

Can the way we build help heal the planet? Will Arnold, author of Future Build: How Construction Can Heal Our Planet, joins Sam Hankin to explore sustainable construction, reused materials, and the hidden choices behind the buildings around us.The conversation starts with familiar materials—concrete, steel, glass, aluminum, and bricks—and asks what could change. Arnold describes concrete made using captured CO₂, explains calcined clay, and considers why keeping useful materials in service can matter as much as finding new ones.Along the way: homes made with old brewery brickwork in Copenhagen, a Cape Town grain silo transformed into an art museum, and a thought experiment about reusing the Gherkin’s steel. Sam and Will also explore apartments with no utility bills, what AI can and cannot change about a building brief, and why long-term owners may make different choices from developers planning a quick sale.This is The Avid Reader Show, a podcast from Wellington Square Bookshop. Subscribe for thoughtful conversations with authors about books and the ideas that stay with us.Subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@wellingtonsquarebookshopFollow The Avid Reader Show on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/avidreadershow/Browse the podcast archive on Podomatic:https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/avidreaderWellington Square Bookshop:https://wellingtonsquarebooks.comGuest: Will ArnoldBook: Future Build: How Construction Can Heal Our PlanetHost: Sam Hankin#WillArnold #SustainableConstruction #TheAvidReaderShow

Who shapes the information you trust, and whose interests does it serve?Investigative journalist and Drilled podcast host Amy Westervelt joins Sam Hankin on The Avid Reader to discuss Brought to You By: How Corporations Warped the Truth, Conned the Public, and Broke Democracy.Westervelt explains what she calls “information pollution”: the ways corporate interests influence news, academic research, think tanks, and public debate. Tracing the history of public relations through figures such as Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, she argues that today’s struggles over misinformation and artificial intelligence have roots stretching back more than a century.Their conversation examines corporate influence on universities, campaigns that disguise themselves as grassroots movements, and the lasting divisions that propaganda can leave in communities. They also discuss media literacy, regulation, and the practical questions readers can ask about any source: Who created this? Who funded it? What are they trying to persuade me to believe?Get Brought to You By from Wellington Square Bookshop:https://wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9781639736324

Does “seize the day” really mean what we think it does? And was Robert Frost’s “road less traveled” actually less traveled at all?Eli Burnstein joins Sam Hankin on The Avid Reader to discuss Phrased & Confused: The Curious Meanings of Timeless Quotations and the context we lose when familiar words become slogans.They explore Burnstein’s reading of carpe diem, the irony behind Shakespeare’s “to thine own self be true,” and why “let them eat cake” became attached to Marie Antoinette. The conversation also ventures into Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” the philosophical origins of “the ghost in the machine,” and the enduring question of why there is something rather than nothing.Along the way, Burnstein discusses how humor and Liana Finck’s illustrations help make difficult ideas accessible without stripping away their depth. A conversation for anyone who has repeated a famous quotation and then wondered what it actually means.Get Phrased & Confused from Wellington Square Bookshop:https://wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9781419785528

After a bilateral mastectomy, Lisa Crites found herself showering in a plastic trash bag. Her frustration became the starting point for an invention.The former television medical reporter joins Sam Hankin on The Avid Reader to discuss Beautifully Unbroken and the experiences that led her to create The Shower Shirt, a garment designed to protect surgical sites and drains while showering.Lisa shares how she sought guidance, challenged doubts, and brought her idea to market. She also speaks candidly about her mother’s sudden death, her own breast cancer diagnosis, and the Christian faith she leaned on through grief and uncertainty.Their conversation explores the emotional cost of revisiting those experiences for her memoir and the purpose connecting her work as an inventor and author: helping others feel less alone and find a way forward.Get Beautifully Unbroken from Wellington Square Bookshop:https://wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9781997040293

Who gets an obituary in The New York Times, and who gets overlooked?Obituary writer Sam Roberts joins Sam Hankin on The Avid Reader to discuss Are They Dead Yet? The Art of the Obit and the difficult, revealing, often funny work of capturing a life on the page.Starting with an AI-written obituary of Roberts himself, their conversation explores what facts alone can’t tell us about a person. Roberts describes his search for the “Rosebud moment” that changed someone’s life, the challenge of weighing achievements against misdeeds, and the delicate business of interviewing people for their own advance obituaries.They also discuss overlooked lives, questionable famous last words, and how the internet has transformed newsroom research and deadlines. Along the way, the two Sams share their love of New York and independent bookstores, including a story about giving a young reader a copy of War and Peace that says more than a résumé ever could.Get Are They Dead Yet? The Art of the Obit from Wellington Square Bookshop:https://wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9781639733651