Shaun Keaveny’s Not So Simple

We live in the age of the individual. We are supposed to be slim, prosperous, happy, extroverted and popular. This is our culture’s image of the perfect self. We see this person everywhere: in advertising, in the press, all over social media. Where does this ideal come from? Why is it so powerful? Is there any way to break its spell? Will Storr, author of Selfie, pops by to talk it through with Shaun.

In this episode Shaun meets Tasha Eurich, an organisational psychologist and expert in self-awareness, to discuss her new book Insight. Behold the terror of Bald Steve, and the even more horrifying prospect of The Dinner of Truth...

This week we hear from a canary in the Silicon Valley coal mine, in the form of the former tour manager for The Band and producer of Mean Streets, Jonathan Taplin. He breaks down for Shaun why the rise of technological mega-corporations is bad news for artists, musicians and journalists everywhere.

World-renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett joins Shaun Keaveny in the studio to discuss her new book How Emotions Are Made. She argues that the perceived scientific wisdom around how emotions are created by the brain is dramatically, even dangerously out of date: as it turns out, our emotions are like cookies. How? Find out by listening to this highly emotional episode…

This week on Not So Simple, Shaun Keaveny spends a morning with Caroline Webb, the author of How To Have Have A Good Day. Caroline is an economist and executive coach who has spent years teaching her clients how to use the latest insights from behavioral science to improve their happiness and productivity. Will her fifteen years of expertise be enough to turn Shaun's frown upside down? Download and find out!

In our first ever episode, Shaun Keaveny talks to Steven Johnson, one of the world's foremost technology writers, about his new book Wonderland: How Play Made The Modern World. After an exclusive extract from the book, the pair have a wide-ranging conversation that takes in bone flutes, Pythagoras, lazy computers, and Doritos.

Join Shaun Keaveny as he speaks to some of the world’s foremost experts in biology, psychology, economics, journalism, and beyond, in order to ask burning questions such as: what does that mean? What are you on about? And: huh?