Welcome to our first podcast of 2018. We’ve read our holiday treats, taken down our decorations and are gearing up for whatever a new year of books will bring. One of the last events we hosted in 2017 was an evening with the neuroscientist Adrian Owen, whose research over the past decades has been dedicated to patients diagnosed as Permanent Vegetative State. His hugely moving and informative memoir Into the Grey Zone  invites us to ask the most crucial questions about what it means to be conscious, but it also inspired us to think about how other authors have tackled ideas about – consciousness, from the realm of artificial intelligence to a seven-year old child’s eerie reality.

Hosted by Jessica Johannesson.  Music: ‘Declaration’  by The Bookshop Band.

Now take a look at our What it’s Like to Be reading list

Check out previous episodes of the podcast

Image: ‘Eye Selfshot’ by Endo, under Creative Commons license