This time we are exploring the surprisingly sociological book, The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters. As usual we cover a lot of ground, from poetry, writing style, oral history, to the urban and the rural, the origins of violence/gangs. There even some reflections around masculinity and intimacy in war.

Join me and my co host Saiqa as we explore the wonderful world of language and accents for this fascinating book review 'Your All Talk: why we are what we speak'. We discuss class, identity, inequality, prejudice around accents, history of speech, and share plenty of our personal experiences on the subject.

In the second part of the episode I am also joined by Rob Drummond himself (author) to give us the low down on his book, the challenges of writing, and some great advice around how to write one too.

About the Author:

Rob Drummond is Professor of Sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he researches and teaches about the relationship between how we speak and who we are. He recently completed a large project exploring the accents and dialects of Greater Manchester, touring the region in his Accent Van. He appears regularly on radio and TV talking about language-related issues and spent some time as ‘resident linguist’ on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, as well as appearing on the BBC Breakfast sofa.

More info can be found here:

https://scribepublications.co.uk/books-authors/books/youare-all-talk-9781914484285

You can order his book here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Youre-All-Talk-what-speak/dp/1914484282