In the decades before Ruth Shaw became a bookseller in New Zealand's Fiordland, she lived the incredible stories of adventure, love and tragedy that now line the shelves in her shops

The velveteen rabbit at the end of the world

Spend an hour in someone else's life. Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met.

Society & Culture

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Jake Adelstein's dogged reporting on Japan's organised crime earned him a nemesis in Tadamasa Goto, one of the most powerful Yakuza bosses in the country. When Jake's life was on the line, he found protection in surprising places

Japanese gangsters: the secrets of the Yakuza

When Bonnie Garmus tried to sell her first novel, it was rejected 98 times. Then at 66, she wrote a novel called Lessons in Chemistry, which sold four million copies around the world

Bonnie Garmus on becoming a global phenomenon in her 60s

Archaeologist David Wengrow has discovered an entirely new way to think about the history of humanity, from the origins of farming, cities, democracy and slavery to civilisation itself

David Wengrow: everything we know about the human story is wrong

Matt Hall made his first solo flight at 15 years old and has been addicted to life in the air ever since. He became a top gun fighter pilot and after serving for more than 20 years, he still hasn't come down to earth (R)

Matt Hall's life at supersonic speed

Archaeologist Julien Cooper digs up the remote deserts of Sudan and Egypt, finding forgotten artefacts, which tell the uninterrupted, thousands-year-old story of the nomadic peoples of Northeast Africa

The velveteen rabbit at the end of the world

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