Scala Radio Book Club: The Importance of Being Interested by Robin Ince
Scala Radio is supporting the Indie Book Awards this year
Last updated 15th Jun 2023
Penny Smith welcomed comedian and podcast host Robin Ince into the Scala Radio Book Club to discuss his witty novel The Importance of Being Interested which has been nominated for the Non-Fiction category in this year's Indie Book Awards.
Comedian Robin Ince quickly abandoned science at school, bored by a fog of dull lessons and intimidated by the barrage of equations. But, twenty years later, he fell in love, and he now presents one of the world's most popular science podcasts. Every year he meets hundreds of the world's greatest thinkers.
In this erudite and witty book, Robin reveals why scientific wonder isn't just for professionals. Filled with interviews featuring astronauts, comedians, teachers, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and more - as well as charting Robin's own journey with science - The Importance of Being Interested explores why many wrongly think of the discipline as distant and difficult. From the glorious appeal of the stars above to why scientific curiosity can encourage much-needed intellectual humility, this optimistic and profound book will leave you filled with a thirst for intellectual adventure.
Penny Smith asked Robin Ince what made him want to write about scientific curiosity:
‘I wanted to create a book because I very often meet people who are scared of science or believe they don't have a scientific mind. And of course, everyone has a scientific mind. Everyone is curious. Sometimes we just have it knocked out of us. So, I wanted to make a book, which meant you didn't have to be scared about thinking about the size of the universe or our connection to all the other living things that are on the planet Earth. Or indeed, people who are religious sometimes feel that if they have a belief in God, they feel that they can't engage in science. And I think as long as you are not overly dogmatic, then you can do anything. So, I spoke to quite a few scientists who have both religion and also incredible scientific curiosity.’
Penny Smith followed this with: ‘I love everything to do with space, but I don't understand anything about it. I remember when they were talking about how a black hole was properly made. I was thinking so it falls in on itself. How does that work?’
‘It’s exciting that you say that because the last gig that I did before lockdown, I ended up doing a live show with Ed Miliband, former leader of the Labour Party, and I mentioned the fact that there'd been a recent image of a black hole, and he looked utterly stunned and shocked. And as I tried to explain to him, and this is from my very non-scientific perspective, if you take lots of matter and you keep squashing and squashing and squashing and squashing, and squashing, and squashing, the gravity gets stronger and stronger and stronger. So if, for instance, the Earth had the same amount of stuff in it, but it was only one-fifth of the size, then gravity would be stronger. So, if you take an enormous amount of stuff and you keep squeezing it till it's just a pinhead. Then the gravity's so great that eventually, you reach a point if you keep squeezing where light can't escape from it. It's all about squeezing stuff together.’
With Independent Bookshop Week starting on Saturday the 17th of June, Penny Smith asked Robin Ince about the importance of independent bookshops: ‘Now you're such a big fan of independent bookshops. You wrote a book called Bibliomaniac, which was a romp around various bookshops up and down the country, and indie bookshops in particular, why are independent bookshops important?’
‘They are so important. One of the things that I love, because I went to about 104 bookshops in two months by public transport, is that everyone you go into, you will find something you do not see anywhere else. I was in Crosby, in a lovely bookshop called Pritchard’s, and I found a book that was just about the Littlewoods Pools Girls in Liverpool, which was one of the main employers for women in Liverpool, and it was just fascinating. It was by Joan Boyce who it turned out is Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s mum. It has all of these connections. I was in a wonderful bookshop called Juno in Sheffield, and they had a tiny little book called 12 Reasons Why Jordan Peterson is Wrong. And it turned out that when you open it, it's just loads of pictures of angry monkeys and apes. You find things like that in the independent bookshops and they're just a delight. I'm in independent bookshop week. I'm going to be going to even more bookshops than I normally go to, trying to tell people that when you go into other people's stories, it reinvigorates you, it changes the way you see the world.’
Scala Radio is supporting the Indie Book Awards this year; the winners of the awards will be announced by Penny Smith on Scala Radio on the 23rd of June.
Find out about more Scala Radio Book Club guests here >>
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