All Podcasts
Lynn Barber, A Curious Career
Lynn Barber, A Curious Career Lynn Barber, A Curious Career or How to become a legendary ‘celebrity’ interviewer by Lynn Barber: poke your nose into everyone’s business – the seamier the better, be seduced by a conman (as chronicled in the film An Education), sleep your way through Oxford, write about every sexual fetish…
JANE GREEN Author of the WEEK
Author of the Week: Jane Green’s Saving Grace First off: hats off to Jane Green for giving in and owning her curly hair – we salute you! Jane Green, along with Helen Fielding, is credited with giving birth to chick lit, however, both Jane and her work now have more depth. Donna surprised her with…
Penny Hancock A Trick of The Mind
Author of the Week: Penny Hancock, A Trick of the Mind What would you do if you came to think you caused someone a disfiguring accident? That is the starting point for Penny Hancock’s latest “domestic noir” novel. She and Donna cover other topics like the menopausal mother and the agoraphobic father figure as architypes….
The Housekeepers Tale – The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House by Tessa Boase/ Author of the Week
Author of the Week: Tessa Boase: The Housekeeper’s Tale Subtitled, The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House, journalist and author Tessa Boase discovered that, in fact, the butler didn’t do it. She plowed through bundles of letters, diaries and household accounts to reveal a full picture of these grand houses and the…
How to Academy London & Myths about the Menopause on Gorgeous Gossip with Donna & Josephine
HOW TO ACADEMY LONDON It’s back to school time and while we’re self-confessed know it alls, we don’t actually know how to do everything. The How To Academy, on the other hand, does! Whatever you’re interested in, they have an expert to tell you how it’s done, whether it’s understanding art, investing or…
Julie Cohen Author of the Week with Donna Freed on Literary Lusts
Julie Cohen Author Julie Cohen originally came to these shores seeking fairies. She and Donna discuss Arthur Conan Doyle and other fairie facts as well as her suspenseful and romantic latest novel, Where Love Lies. The young woman at the center of her tale is a wife and by choice, not a mother….
The MIND MAKEOVER Sharron Lowe: Become the BEST YOU Yet!
Sharron Lowe The Mind Makeover Sharron gives us 3 tips on how to live our lives to the full and stop the fear and procrastination. Sharron advises blue chip corporates workers how to make changes to the way we they think her book applies her methods to help normal women like us. Sharron believes that…
EMMA BRIDGEWATER Toast & Marmalade & Other Stories – An Interview with Josephine Pembroke on GORGEOUS LIVES
Emma Bridgwater From the simple idea of wanting to create the perfect bowl and mug for her mum’s dresser, Emma Bridgewater built the pottery empire she always dreamed of. The colourful, cheerful and practical ceramics have the same design she drew 30 years ago in her Brixton squat. She’s come a long way since then…
FREAK OUT My Life with Frank Zappa by Pauline Butcher – Author of the Week with Donna Freed
Freak Out! is exactly what Pauline Butcher did not do when she arrived to take dictation at Frank Zappa’s London hotel room in her Biba outfit and straightened hair in 1967. This chance meeting resulted in her becoming Frank Zappa’s live in secretary in California. She tells the tale of her time at The Ranch…
On the Far Side There’s a Boy Paula Coston – Author of the Week on Literary Lusts with Donna Freed
Paula Coston returns to Radio Gorgeous with her own novel (she covered the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre for us) which is a fictional version of her real life circumstance of becoming a childless woman via circumstance. As it is a growing statistic that 1 in 5 women are childless and…
HER by Harriet Lane A Novel about a TOXIC friendship
HER by Harriet Lane A Novel about a TOXIC friendship “A seductive thriller” Donna Freed Radio Gorgeous HER is a story about the how in the vulnerability of early motherhood we may misinterpret friendships and this particular friendship is highly toxic indeed. Harriet Lane speaks openly of the fears that led her to…
SHIRLEY CONRAN on GORGEOUS LIVES – Money Stuff, Superwoman, Lace & MORE….
SHIRLEY CONRAN Her early divorce, along with her innate and pragmatic design sense and a gift for teaching has driven Shirley Conran to do many things: free women from housework (Superwoman), teach girls about sex (Lace), demand a work/life balance and she has now turned to money and maths. Women don’t have enough money and…
EAT MY HEART OUT by Zoe Pilger – Author of the Week on Literary Lusts with Donna Freed
Eat My Heart Out by Zoe Pilger Zoe Pilger has been deliciously described as “a foul-mouthed Nancy Mitford for the Gawker generation.” What’s not to love? Her first novel Eat My Heart Out is both hilarious and horrifying in turns as her heroine Ann-Marie tears through London and beyond on a helter skelter ride. Zoe…
Melissa Cole BEER EXPERT has a pint with Josephine – and tells us what to drink CHEERS!
Melissa Cole BEER EXPERT Meet Melissa Cole – Beer expert and a woman. The beer industry is male dominated and the consensus seems to be that if we ladies will dain to drink beer, we want it sweet. Thank goodness she is there to set them straight. She and Josephine met for lunch and a…
Ellen Feldman The Unwitting A NOVEL – Author of the Week on LITERARY LUSTS with Donna Freed
Ellen Feldman Author of the Week The Unwitting Guggenheim Fellow Ellen Feldman excels in putting her fictional characters into an historical landscape. In her fifth novel, she tells the story of Charlie and Nell Benjamin at the height of the Cold War. He is the publisher of a left wing magazine and she…
Best of Radio Gorgeous with JO WOOD, NAOMI WOLF & HARRIET SERGEANT
Best of Radio Gorgeous You are in for a treat we have created an easy to digest ‘Best of Radio Gorgeous’ for you to enjoy. Firstly you will hear perky Jo Wood talking about hanging out with the Rolling Stones and then the happiness that came from getting of their cloud. Then meet Harriet Sergeant…
BE SAFE I LOVE YOU by Cara Hoffman
Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman As the saying goes: you can never go home again. It’s especially hard to go home if you’ve been in a combat zone. Be Safe I Love You tells the story of Lauren Clay, a woman soldier returned from Iraq, to find her role as the caretaker of the family…
From MTV to MECCA by Kristiane Backer on Gorgeous Lives with Josephine Pembroke
MTV to Mecca Kristiane Backer From MTV to Mecca – or from babe to burka as Bob Geldof put it – is the fascinating story of how high flying MTV Europe hostess with the mostest found Islam. She tells Josephine how dating Imran Khan introduced her to Islam and began her journey – spiritual, political…
Rachel Howzell Hall Land of Shadows
Rachel Howzell Hall Land of Shadows Rachel Howzell Hall has turned to crime fiction and created detective Lou Norton, an indelible female detective working the very LA Jungle where she (and Rachel Howzell Hall) grew up – a perfect mix of LA grit and glam. She also shares with Donna her battle with breast…
Mona Simpson Casebook
Mona Simpson Casebook If you don’t know her, Mona Simpson may sound familiar because Homer Simpson’s mother was named after her or more impressively she is on her sixth novel. Her first novel, Anywhere But Here won the Whiting Prize and was turned into a film. At 25 she found – and recently lost –…