Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S9 Ep3: Bookshelfie: Roma Agrawal

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Engineer, author and broadcaster Roma Agrawal talks to Vick about reclaiming her body after childbirth, centring the knowledge of non-western cultures and why engineering is more creative than you think. Roma is best known for working on the design of The Shard, Western Europe’s tallest tower, and is a judge for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, sponsored by Findmypast. She has given talks to tens of thousands at universities, schools and organisations around the world, including TEDx, and presented numerous TV, radio and podcast shows for the BBC, Channel 4 and Discovery. Her first book, Built, won multiple awards, and was published for children as How Was That Built? in 2021. Her third book, Nuts & Bolts was shortlisted for the prestigious Royal Society Trivedi  Science Book Prize, and was also adapted for children, as Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World. Her new book, How to Build a Chocolate Bridge: Extraordinary Builds Using Everyday Things, is a hands-on exploration of science and the world around us, featuring seven fun interactive building projects for kids. Roma’s book choices are:** Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen** Uncivilised: Ten Lies that Made the West by Subhadra Das** The Girl and The Goddess by Nikita Gill** The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood** Yellowface by Rebecca KuangYou can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org – every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops. Every week on Bookshelfie, Vick Hope is joined by inspirational women to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world, is run by the Women’s Prize Trust, the charity building a better future by championing women’s writing. Don’t want to miss the rest of season nine? Follow or subscribe now!This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

The Bell Air Direct app includes crash assist, which detects an accident the moment it happens, and even offers you emergency assistance at the tap of a button. Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. Coming up on Book Shelby. People are surprised when I say this, but I think engineering and science are really creative.

Because we're always taking problems. We're trying to solve them in new ways. We're trying to come up with new ideas, fresh ways of doing things. There's obviously a big drive on sustainability now. So that requires a lot of creative thinking. People don't understand, for example, what British Empire really meant. And we talk about, oh, but we built the railroads everywhere. But who were they built for?

Whose labour was used for it? You know, how many people died building that? And what was its purpose? And it was basically extraction. I am a woman of colour and I'm writing books about engineering. There are not a lot of us doing that combination of things. So of course I'm going to bring myself into the books. So in my chapter on pumps in nuts and bolts, I have a whole section on the breast pump.

And you probably wouldn't read many engineering books that talk about the amazing engineering that goes into a breast pump. And I want to know. It's so fascinating. Because I've got one in my bra up most of the time. Hello, I'm Vic Hope and this is Bookshelfy, the podcast from the Women's Prize that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books. by women that have shaped them. Now, before we begin, remember to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode

with thanks to our sponsor, Bayleys. Today, I'm joined by Roma Ogrowal. Roma is an engineer, an author and broadcaster who's best known for working on the design of the shard, Western Europe's tallest tower, and is a judge for the 26 Women's Prize for Nonfiction sponsored by Find My Past. She's given talks to tens of thousands at universities, schools,

and organisations around the world, including TEDx, and presented numerous TV, radio and podcast shows for the BBC, Channel 4 and Discovery. Her first book, Built, won multiple awards and was published for children as How Was That Built in 2021? Her third book, Nuts and Bolts, was shortlisted for the prestigious Royal Society Trevedi Science Book Prize and was also adapted for children as seven small inventions that changed the world. Her new book, How to Build a Chocolate Bridge, Extraordinary builds using everyday things is a hands-on exploration of science and the world around us, featuring seven fun interactive building projects for kids. Romer, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Oh, it's an absolute pleasure. You've judged two awards back to back now. So you did the Royal Society's Travee-D Science Book Prize in 2025. And now, this year's Women's Prize for Nonfiction, how are you finding all the reading? How are you juggling it all with work as well? Can you tell my eyes are falling out slightly? It was amazing. I mean, so the Royal Society Through Reidy Prize asked me to do it. And I was like, yes, you know, this is brilliant. I must do it.

And I really enjoyed that because I love reading science nonfiction books. And what was a total joy about that one was I was reading science, technology, engineering, maths, you know, a full range of them. Because, you know, I studied physics and I'm a structural engineer by training. But this brought me to all kinds of topics in science that I would never normally read about. And so I love doing that. And then the Women's Prize got in touch. How can you say no to the Women's Prize?

And it widens it even further in terms of subject matter. Totally. And I said, no, it's fine. I can do two. Back to back. It's great. I'm watching less TV. Let's put it that way.

That's kind of a good thing. Which is a good thing. Yeah. So the 26th Women's Prize for Nonfiction Shortlist is about to be announced. Yes. I'm very excited. Don't give anything away. Just yet.

Obviously, we'll be in a lot of trouble. but what teases can you give us? Oh, I mean, I guess the long list demonstrates the breadth of topics being covered and the breadth of experience the writers have. There are first-time writers, they're really experienced authors, they're a journalist, it's such a big mix of women writing about such an amazing range of topics and the shortlist really reflects that, I would say. Yeah, I'm very excited.

Well, you've always been such a champion of gender, equality, inclusivity. in science writing, particularly in science in general. So why has it been so important to you to be part of the women's price? Because that's what we're all about. Yes. So I mean the stats kind of speak for themselves, don't they? That women writers in nonfiction are underpaid compared to men. We're less reviewed in the press and so on.

Out of the top sort of 500 books, women make up quite a small proportion, like a shockingly small proportion. So there's still a long way to go to get parity. And I also think that women are perhaps not being encouraged to write about a full breadth of topics. And being a science writer myself, I can see that, like even the number of award entries we get from women. It is going up and it is really positive,

but there's still such a long way to go. The gender gap in engineering is huge. So that's obviously been the thing that I've been passionate about addressing for ages. There's all sorts of other diversity issues as well. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. And I actually ended up setting up a science writing mentorship scheme because I was trying to think, like,

what can I do within my sphere and my expertise that may help some people in some way? And I feel like the publishing industry and science journalism, they can be quite mysterious industries to navigate. So I certainly found, because I was a structural engineer on a construction site in the office for about 10 years before I started writing. And I had no idea how to get a book published.

It's a pretty different world, isn't it? It's a totally different world. It's its own world, very much. It totally is. And I found that really hard to navigate. I was so lucky to get a brilliant agent, early doors. And so now I'm trying to just help others with that very crucial first step. I've got this idea.

How does that actually then turn into a book proposal or a pitch for an article, whatever? So that's what I'm really trying to work on. And is the future looking bright for women in STEM and in STEM writing? Yes, I hope so. I really do. I mean, I left engineering a few years ago now so that I could become a full-time writer. I think unfortunately there's still a retention problem in the engineering and science world for women in their mid-30s, early 40s. You know, we get chartered, we get qualified.

Potentially children are there, potentially not otherwise other caring responsibilities. And so it's a typical kind of age. So retention, I think, really needs to be worked on. I was just looking at your bio, and it's an understatement to say that you're a bit of a polymath, because between engineering some of the tallest buildings in the world, publishing bestselling science books, you're also learning to dance different forms.

You've been doing that since you were six. Yes. Your latest foray has been into the world of stand-up comedy. Where does this drive to learn new skills come from, do you think? I don't know. It's such an odd thing, but it is totally that. It's like I always want to learn stuff. Otherwise, maybe I just get bored very easily. Maybe that's what it is. But I've been like that since I was a child. So I've studied, you know, various forms of dance, including Indian classical, which I did for 20 years, you know, waiting for strictly to call because I can do a bit of ballroom. I'm going to have to do that. Do it. I've started weight lifting in the gym because that's what all the middle-aged women are doing now

so I've decided like that's the thing I knit and crochet I love making steel I don't know I just I think I get bored easily ultimately and I'm just interested in too many things never too much never too many honestly I think I've just had a baby

and watching him learn every day everything he is a sponge for it's incredible. And when we're young, when we're children, we are constantly learning. And we get to a certain point where perhaps that's not as forthcoming. It's not something that happens automatically on a daily basis. But it feels amazing to pick something up new. It does. And I'm sure it's good for our brains and all the connections and whatever's going on in there. I think creativity is so important. I think that's ultimately what it comes down to. And people are surprised when I say this, but I think engineering and science are really creative.

because we're always taking problems. We're trying to solve them in new ways. We're trying to come up with new ideas, fresh ways of doing things. There's obviously a big drive on sustainability now. So that requires a lot of creative thinking in the same way that people who are making music or writing books are creative.

And so for me, like those things really, really come together. And I really believe that we shouldn't be siloed into this, oh, I'm a science person or I'm an arts person. because there's so much crossover in the way your brain works and the way you solve problems and the way you create things that, you know, you can do whatever you like. I hard agree. I studied languages, literature, linguistics on one hand, but also maths on the other. And I thought that maths was a language. It felt like it was so similar in the way that I was kind of firing up synapses, but also making connections. And it felt creative the way that you could harness it and manipulate it. And yeah, I completely agree with you.

And that range, I think, is quite evident in the books that you've chosen today. So let's get into the books that have shaped you, your favourite novels and pieces of nonfiction. Your first book, Shelfy book, is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. When Elizabeth Bennett meets Mr. Darcy, she is repelled by his overbearing pride and prejudice towards her family. But the Bennett girls are in need of financial security in the shape of husbands. So when Darcy's friend, the affable Mr Bingley, forms an attachment to Jane, Darcy becomes increasingly hard to avoid. Now this is your first choice. It's a classic.

It's a book that was formative for you as a teenager. Why do you think this had such a strong impression on you? So I grew up in India. So I spent my early childhood in the US actually up to age six. And then from six to 16 I was in India. But I had a lot of family in the UK. My mum, in fact, was born here. and so we were exposed to a lot of British children's literature.

So I read all of the Enid Blyton, for example. I love the five find outers, better than the famous five, controversial, but never mind. And I also read books like The Secret Garden and Little Women, like all of the classics. And I feel like Pride and Prejudice really just stood out for me among all of these other really English books, like the English countryside and the dancing. And there's something very magical about. I guess the way it's portrayed, obviously it's only a small slice of society. We keep that in mind.

It's quite specific. A very specific, tiny little slice of society. But there's something very romantic about it, I guess. And then obviously we all fancied Mr Darcy, so that that was there. And I moved to the UK when I was 60 and having read Pride and Prejudice countless times. And that also almost became a point of comfort for me, because I clearly remember joining this new school in the UK. My parents were still in India.

I was barely 16 at this point. And, I mean, young people are going to be like, what is she on about? But they had a television in my school library, like a little one, with a built-in video cassette player. I remember them. Yeah. Was it on wheels? Did they wheel it out for any chance?

These ones were little and in our library, and we could just put headphones on and watch videos during our free periods. Sounds fantastic. It was amazing. We did not have that. And they had the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the six episode mini-series. Right.

The Colin Firth one. The Colin Firth. I mean, there is no other version. In your book, yeah. No, that's it. It's it. There's no films, nothing. I'm in denial about all of them.

It's only about Colin Firth. That's the one. That's the one. And I would sit there watching this, you know, with the words of Jane Austen, like in my head whenever I was feeling homesick. Because it weirdly reminded me of home, but also was kind of very English for when I moved here.

So, yeah. Had you visited England before you came? So you knew that this wasn't the reality for a lot of people. Oh, 100%. Yeah, yeah. No, I'd been to the UK a number of times to visit various family members. And so I had memories of London. I mean, I'd visited London Zoo, for example.

That was very clear in my mind and seen Buckingham Palace from the outside. And all the kind of quintessential touristy stuff had been done. But now this was more like starting a life in the UK. And it was, you know, I was going to a school in northwest London, super diverse, people from all over the world, people speaking different languages. And so I loved that. You know, I loved the whole diversity of London. I told me about that move to the UK, having lived in America, in India, what was 16-year-old Roma like? How did you take the move? Oh, total nerd. I mean, that's number one.

And I think it was very much, my parents thought, oh, this is, you know, typical immigrant parents, right? Take the best educational opportunities available to you, 100%. So they said, right, if we send her off at 16, then she won't have to do a foundation year before going to university. Because in their heads, my dad had studied in the US and thought, oh, I'd love for the girls, me and my sister, to go to the US to study their undergraduate degrees, potentially. And they said, oh, you know, London might be a good stepping stone because we had family here. it was a familiar place to us and so on. And so I ended up doing my A levels here. And I, when I look, it was just a blur, to be honest. You know, the decision was kind of like, oh, we're doing this. And I'm like, okay, this is happening. You went with it. I didn't really think about it that much.

Came here. I did find the academics quite difficult because I had learned a lot more of certain things. It was different here. But I caught up and I did really enjoy it. And I mean, obviously there was a level of independence that I got. But yeah, I was still a total nerd about it all for a number of years. And did you have an interest then in science, in technology? Yes. In architecture. Yeah, so I actually wanted to be an architect when I was quite young and I ended up doing A levels in like further maths, physics and design and technology. And I loved making stuff in the D&T classes. I loved just, you know, playing with whether it was wood or plastic or metal or whatever it was. I love. I love it. I love it. loved the hands-on thing. And then I ended up studying physics at university. Interesting one,

because nobody at my school suggested I might consider engineering as a degree. And I'm sure if I was a boy studying further maths, physics and design and technology, it would have been an option. Absolutely, yeah. Right? So this is where those kind of inherent biases come in. So anyway, I studied physics at uni, loved it and then thought, like, how can I apply this physics? and go back to that kind of concept of making stuff and decided to get into structural engineering from there. Squaring that with your love of these romantic novels of the English countryside. One thing I always pick up on with Austin's novels are her heroines,

are her protagonists, these women who are more often than not that they're underdogs, they're outside as they face significant obstacles, but they're strong and they're incredible. did you, when you were reading this at 16, getting into science, getting into technology, getting into architecture, something you were interested in, did you read these women and see any of yourself in them? That is such a good question. I'm not sure I really could at the time.

I could 100% see that Elizabeth Bennett was going to take no nonsense from anyone, even a supremely rich, very attractive man. if she wasn't comfortable with it and I admired that tenacity I don't think I saw myself as being that person I think I see it much more now in retrospect but at the time I think 16 is so young when you think about it looking back I'm very glad that they were around me though

these brilliant women in these books it's funny how they stay with you and it's often later in life I mean at 16 you think you've got it all down you think you know but looking back now. I see so many characters that really influenced me, but I wouldn't have really known it at the time. I agree. We move on now to your second bookshelfy book, Rimmer, which is Uncivilised. A science historian

explores 10 founding ideas of Western Civilization and a nurse their flaws. That's the title. By Subudra Das. Now, Western Civilization is a powerful brand. It's full of accepted wisdoms like knowledge is power, time is money, and justice is blind, that we rarely question. Many of these were born from Greek philosophy and honed in the Enlightenment and our notions about humanity that we still live by today. But when we take a closer look at these ideas, it seems they're not all they're cracked up to be. In fact, some of them are outright lies. So who really benefits from them is the question? And is the West as civilized as it likes to think it is?

This book puts the commonly accepted wisdoms of Western civilization under the microscope. Why have you chosen it today? I think you've sort of explained it right in the synopsis of this book. We live in obviously quite difficult times and that would be the understatement of the century perhaps. And I think it's really important that especially because I feel in the West in historical education, for example, I'm sure this is true all over the world, but we're talking about the West here, that's where we are. people don't understand, for example, what British Empire really meant. And we talk about, oh, but we built the railroads everywhere. But who were they built for?

Whose labour was used for it? You know, how many people died building that? And what was its purpose? And it was basically extraction. But people don't understand that, I think, as much here as I think we should. And I think that has a big impact on the kind of rhetorics we see nowadays, the news headlines we see nowadays. And so this book really tries to break down some of these myths or lies. And what I really enjoyed about the book, it's funny. Okay, so there are funny bits in this. It's beautifully written,

really, really witty. And so as a great writer. And she breaks down one topic at a time and looks at things like science, art, time, death. And then she challenges us to look at these and understand them from a global perspective. To understand, for example, with time that indigenous communities in Canada, in the Americas, you know, in New Zealand and Australia, they think about seven generations going back and going forward and their actions are what is the right thing to do for seven generations going forward, for example. Or the way we do language and we think of the civilized societies as writing with a pen and paper

and alphabets and language that way. But actually because of that arrogance, we lost a lot of incredible knowledge of the Inca who didn't write in the way that we understand in the West, but they had the Kippu, which is an incredibly complex system of strings, of different colours, thicknesses, which are then knotted in a very specific way to convey information. And the Spanish just thought, oh, don't really know what the way.

This is, and a lot of that was destroyed. And so it's concerning how much wealth of culture and history that we are losing because we have a very specific idea of what good or civilized looks like. And that's what this book addresses. Did it make you interrogate any aspects of your own work or even beliefs that you held? Totally. So I know Subadra and we have a lot of conversations about, this as well. And what I realized, and I can see this evolution happen in the work that I'm

producing. So going from my first book belt to going to nuts and bolts, I started looking a lot more critically at the impact that engineering, that construction, that infrastructure has on society, whether good or bad. And I started to look at power structures that affect this. So one example in nuts and bolts is I have a chapter on magnetism and magnets. And I look at the story of the telegraph system. And the telegraph system in India, which was actually used to not that long ago, like a couple of decades ago, was all built by the British. And then I said, well, why was it built? And it was built to squash rebellion because now the British could communicate with each other faster than the Indians could, you know, get messages across about, oh, this is where we're going to attack or this is what we're going to do and so on.

And that was the purpose of the telegraph system. And we talk about connectivity and how good it is for everyone. And I was like, well, it wasn't very good for the Indians who were being suppressed by this piece of technology. So I certainly think that I've been really interrogating that a lot more. And the book I'm currently writing, which is about tools, my central premise almost is how the tools have actually have an effect on society. And so I'm really grateful to this book for enriching my perspective. on the things that we use and make and are producing. You mentioned the wit and the satire of this piece of work

as someone who is writing and trying to communicate about engineering, about concepts that many of us, you know, we're not as familiar with. And especially when you're writing for children, how do you make your information as accessible as possible? That's a great question. And I think that's something that engineers have historically been scared, of and maybe not been very good at as a general concept. Obviously, I'm generalising a little bit. And the way I found my skills with that was to present to five-year-olds. There is no more

challenging audience than a five-year-old. Because whatever you tell them, they take quite literally. So you've got to get it right. The word of economy, you've got to be spot on. Analogies work great. Demonstrations work great. So I remember just using a a carrot to explain how the forces in a beam work, and that was so effective. I said, you know what, if the kids get it, then adults are going to get it too. And, you know, sort of vice versa. So I've used that carrot analogy in my adult book inbuilt and then, you know, brought it forward to how is that built as well.

I think it's a really important skill that people in the science and engineering world should have because we are doing such complex things, whether it's trying to address climate policy or putting up big pieces of infrastructure or looking at genetically modified plant goods or whatever it might be, we need to be able to communicate the honest truth of the stuff. What's the positives? What are the negatives? What are the impacts that these things can have to policymakers, to the general public? And we can't be using jargon while doing that. you've spoken about the fact that the British education system is, should we say a little selective,

in how it communicates the truth, the history of empire, and Western civilization, I think, in general, everything it just says that it rings so true. There is like this hierarchy that is just instilled in us as fact and it's not. How can we change or how should we be changing the education system so that histories and stories from the point of view of, say, India or Nigeria or, you know, Congo, for example, are included and more widely known. And the multiplicity of voices is, you know, is really diffused.

I mean, for the state education system, it comes down to government, right? and so lobbying government, people speaking up about these deficiencies and so on, sometimes we might feel a bit helpless and disempowered in order to do that. So what we can do, whether we're parents or we have young people in our lives or even for ourselves, it's books, right? This is what we're here for us talking about books. But even if people find books hard to consume, there are so many great Instagram accounts out there or TikTok accounts.

out there. There's information on YouTube. There are podcasts as well. There is so much information out there that we can absorb and challenge our thinking. But ultimately it comes down to us having that mindset of saying, I don't know everything. I think I know this stuff, but I would love to hear it from somebody else's perspective. So I think that would be my biggest takeaway for today was can you go away and read a book or consume media by somebody that is different than you and maybe on a topic that you might not have otherwise normally engaged with? You mentioned social media there and the next author whose work we're going to look at is actually someone I found through Instagram because she puts little excerpts of her poetry

and her work on there and it's so brilliant. I love consuming it in that way. It gives me little drops of goodness and beauty for the day to take away with me. and the book-shelby book that you've chosen is The Girl and the Goddess by Nicobah Gill. This book is One Girl's Wild Journey of Strength, Beauty and Growth as she discovers who she really is. Paro is a girl with a strong will, a full heart and much to learn. Born into a family reeling from the ruptures of partition, the novel follows her as she crosses the precarious lines between childhood,

teenage discovery and realising her adult self. this deeply intimate coming-of-age story blends lyrical wonder, spiritual revelation and epic mythical landscapes in a novel that teaches us all, no matter how small we feel, to become the masters of our own destiny. Now, you actually described this third book as prompting you to take a new path. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I mean, the literal new path that it set me down was my obsession with tattoos. Right. Excellent. Which might seem slightly disconnected. So I had my little girl back in 2019 and she was about six, seven months when the first pandemic hit.

And as those of us who have been through, so I had IVF, I had a really challenging pregnancy. I had really challenging breastfeeding experience. And so my body just didn't feel my own at all. And I came to this book while I was in that sort of state of mind. I also had really bad postpartum depression. So my whole kind of pre and postnatal experience was really, really tough. And that's when I read this book. And I think what you said about those little drips of hope and beauty really touched me about this book.

I found the main character quite relatable in many ways because I had also spent quite formative years growing up in India, a different part of the country, a lot more stability than she faced in Kashmir and in Delhi, for example. But there was something about this fire that she felt she had inside of. her that wasn't really realized and she keeps kind of looking for it in different ways and she sees these seven goddesses come to her as these visions and what I really loved about this was that the stories of the goddesses were told from quite a feminist point of view which I hadn't really seen before so I knew the goddesses and I knew their stories but Nikita gives them their own voices to tell their own stories and that was really special to me so I think it's a

the last goddess that she meets, which is Kali Ma, who is the Hindu goddess of destruction. And she destroys evil. But she does it with full on rage. She's chopping people's heads off. She's like got blood dripping out of her mouth. So she's like an embodiment of feminine anger and resilience and taking action. And I really needed that at the time. And so the first tattoo I ever got was an image of Skalima on my arm and I did send Nikita a little I can show it I don't know if I can maybe I can yeah here we go so that's that's Kalima beautiful she is beautiful and you know she's got she wears a necklace of skulls she has the skin of a tiger as her clothing and she's she's shown sticking her tongue out

like that's the way she's shown this kind of ugly feminine rage and it meant a lot to me at a very difficult time. Did it give you a strength, the power, getting that, feeling that, when you had been feeling the way that you just described? It did because I felt like I was starting to take a bit of my bodily autonomy back. I feel like my body had been in service of something else, someone else, for so long, probably about two years, if you count all the different things that I went through, that this felt like step one of, oh no, this is me, this is my body.

I feel a lot of anger, I feel a lot of rage, but it's okay. I've got Kalima with me, so I really love that. And to be able to express that in such a visceral way, and to have that mark with you always as well, it's a very beautiful tattoo. It's quite intricate. It would have taken surely a little bit of time. Just under an hour. Okay, not so bad.

And I always tell people, they're like, oh my God, that must be so painful. I'm like, it's less painful than period pain. Yeah, absolutely. You get quite addicted to them. So you said it was the beginning. of a new path. How many have you got now? Oh, I think about four. So I've been restricting myself to one a year. Yeah. And I've been restricting myself to one side of my body as well. Same. I've done the same. All of mine are on the right. Oh, yeah, I've done for the

left for whatever reason. How many do you get a year? I'm... Or are you? One, two. I only have I only have four, five. Okay. And that's it. I think that's it now. You're good for now. But they all came at times that I, exactly like you. I felt, I needed to express something physically or to feel something physically and I wanted to remember physically. And I completely understand that that's a decision that you made. Yeah. And as you say, it's addictive. So I've had to say, like, I'm only allowed one tattoo a year because otherwise I think I'd quickly cover myself. But yeah, every tattoo I've got means a lot to me has a particular story behind it that all my different artists that I have found and

thought about for, you know, at least a year before I get the next one. And so that, yeah, so I guess the path then more, more, it sounds very simplistic in a way that, oh, I started getting tattoos, but actually what it was was claiming bodily autonomy. Yeah. So, yeah, let's let's call it that. The way that Nicatha blends poetry and ancestral folklore and these sort of feminist retellings of these goddesses, and she does that in quite a few pieces of her work. Are you often drawn to lyrical and experimental works and pieces of writing such as these? I love retellings of ancient stories. So I loved Circe, for example, the Madeline Minute, you know, again, a classic book

that did so incredibly well. And I think I had a proof copy back in the day. I can't remember how I got hold of that, but I did. So I'd read it really orly doors, and I just thought it was so brilliant. And there are more Indian women now writing about these goddesses as well from their perspectives, because often the stories are told from such a male-centric point of view and the point of view of war and so on. So I really love that. I'm not religious myself, but I deeply appreciate what the stories are telling us. And so from that perspective, I really do enjoy learning about the gods and goddesses of different cultures. We're going to take a short break now to hear from our friends at Find My Past.

Sponsors of the 26 Women's Prize for Nonfiction about their exciting new podcast. Well, it's been a lovely child for me to remember her and to understand her a bit more. And to, I think, write a quite ordinary person back into history. A Family History of is the brand new podcast that takes you inside the lives of everyday people at pivotal moments in Britain and Ireland's past. In the first three-part series, renowned historian Lucy Worsley uncovers how two world wars shaped her grandmother's life. Listen to A Family History of wherever you get your podcast. This episode of Bookshelfy is sponsored by Bayleys. Bailey's is proudly supporting the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction,

helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treats, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Check out baillies.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. We go now to a completely different world altogether. fourth book, Shelby book, is The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. Originally published as a series of four connected e-books between 2012 and 2013,

The Heart Goes Last is a near future dystopian novel. Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of economic and social collapse. So the Positron Project, a social experiment where no one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in, seems to be the answer to all their prayers. even if it's only for six months of the year. Darkly comic and horribly plausible at this point from the multi-women's prize nominated author of The Handmaid's Tale. Now you've described this and let's face it, Margaret's entire back catalogue

as a work of genius. What is it about the dystopian worlds that she creates that compels you? I think that you've described it as horribly plausible. It is. That's totally what it is for me. They all are at this point. They really are. So I picked this particular book because I just because I thought a lot of other guests may have picked things like Handmaid's Tale, for example, or Alias Grace. I've read so many of her books. I love the Orix and Crake series, which was also a kind of post-apocalyptic look at how the world was. And I think she said that she collected all these different stories for the Handmaid's Tale of, you know, women being oppressed. and fertility being placed as this really important function for us.

And so nothing is untrue, like everything in that book has happened, but she's just smushed it all together and created this book that feels really terrifying. And I feel like The Heart Goes Last is very topical today. You know, as you said, it's a time of social and economic collapse. They're living out of their car. This opportunity comes up. So they basically spend six months in a home that's given to them, and six months in a prison.

And they work while they're in the prison. And the argument is that it reduces the amount of housing and stuff that needs to be built. And then while they're in prison, they're like creating stuff. But then when you really think about the economics of it doesn't really work. And there's all these absolutely horrific things going on in the background. And I won't give too many spoilers away because it's really, really good. And I think to myself, you know, maybe in five, ten years time we'll start seeing this stuff if we're not careful. And I think that's what really strikes me about Margaret Atwood's books or the power,

which is also, I think that's a winner from previously. You know, these things could happen. And what would that look like? And, you know, what happens when society breaks down in some certain way? And I just think that the imagination used in creating those situations is just fascinating. And, you know, I think Kazuwa Ishiguru as well, I'm mentioning a moment. man on the podcast. It's okay. They do exist. Kazu Ishaeguuuu's books, similarly I enjoy for the similar reason that, yeah, just

scary, scary. Yeah. I mean, you actually, you wrote in your notes, you picked this novel specifically because it shows a shiny model of living slowly unraveling to reveal its darker side. Do you think that dystopia and other speculative fiction impacts us in, in different ways as we sort of navigate questions around AI, large tech data mining in our everyday lives. We're all becoming more and more aware, but never fully aware of what's going on. No, I think we keep getting new horror stories about what's propping up AI. And the latest one I

read was women in India basically having to go through tens of thousands of horrific images to tell AI, this is bad. This is bad. This one's bad as well. and the impact that this is having on the mental health of these women. So these women are just sitting in on computers, yeah, almost like a sweatshop, right? They're not making clothes, but they're just sitting there looking at horrific images, kind of, I guess, rating them. It reminds me of severance a little bit, if anyone's seen that show on Apple TV where they don't really know what they're doing, but they're just sitting there kind of categorizing things. But they're having to do this categorization and they're looking at horrific images.

and this happens in Africa. It happens in Southeast Asia as well, South Asia. So basically women from minoritized backgrounds are being made to do this work. And so we keep hearing these kind of stories coming up. I also think AI has incredible potential in places like the healthcare industry and so on. But I think as with any piece of technology or any tool, you can do incredible things with it and you can do absolutely terrible things with it. And it's us humans, like how are we going to use it? What ethics are we going to be thinking about? What's our morality around this? And so what I think dystopian writers can do and are doing is to push these two absurd limits, right, and see what that takes them. And I think it is really important for us to

read them and go, no, we shouldn't just treat this as some wild out there fiction because these things could happen. And what would that mean for us? I think it does make us think critically about what's happening in the world today, but more specifically what our future might hold. I mean, sometimes our reality seems stranger and crazier than any fiction could ever be. Yes, I agree. When you are future planning, because that is, you know, that's your job. You've designed iconic buildings in your career, and you've discussed future city planning, looking at buildings of the future and having these ideas for what they could look like, what they could be.

What do you take inspiration from? How do you future urban plan? So urban planning is such an interesting, huge topic and certainly not my expertise, but in fact my sister works in urban planning. From my perspective, I'm thinking a lot about materials usually. So what materials are we using in our cities, in our towns, in our infrastructure? and generally it's steel and concrete. We use a lot of brick as well to build housing in the UK, for example. But steel and concrete are both very carbon-intensive industries. So while there's a lot of research and science going on to try and make those materials more sustainable,

which is great, we also need to be looking at how to replace those materials with better things. And that might mean that we only use concrete in very specific situations. where you really, really, really need to use it, but then in places where you don't, you could be using stone, you could be using timber. So in some ways, we're going back to more natural materials. And actually, if we kind of circle back to Subadra's book, uncivilized,

we're actually looking back to the global south again and the techniques that are used by indigenous tribes in northern Africa, for example, using mud mixed with hay, you know, creating Adobe, for example. So these much more kind of earthy materials that are more sustainable, that have much smaller carbon footprints. And then timber again is the big one

that a lot of architects and engineers are really trying to push to see how far we can take it. Roma, it's time to go to your fifth and final book, shelvee, which is Yellowface by Rebecca Kwong. When failed writer June Hayward, witnesses her rival Athena Liu, die in a freak accident, she sees her opportunity and she takes it. Even though it involves stealing her final manuscript and borrowing her identity,

described as a satire of racial diversity and a meta-fiction about social media, Yellowface is a multi-award-winning number one global bestseller. Tell us why you've chosen this. So I picked this one because in some ways it marks my transition from being an engineer to a writer and an author. and I mentioned that I found that change quite opaque. I didn't really understand how it worked, especially coming from engineering. I had no idea. It's a completely different world to me.

And then I come in, I get my book deals, I've written a book, and then I'm starting to learn more and more about how the industry works. I'm starting to read a lot about the lack of diversity in publishing as well. So obviously we talk about women a lot of course, which is so important, but also people of colour. and the total lack of diversity that we see in that space. So, you know, the percentage of books that are written by writers of color is very, very disproportionately low compared to how many of us are there in the general population.

Main characters in books are generally white as well, especially in children's books. And so I was kind of trying to just absorb these different types of diversity issues. You know, I came from engineering. I've come to publishing and I thought, oh, this is. must be a much more welcoming, inclusive place. And it's got its own different problems. And in some ways, Yellowface kind of brought all of that together for me in terms of the race question, I think, in a super interesting way.

It is a sort of satire. It's funny. I actually picked it up again just before I came onto this podcast. I couldn't put it down. I just read it in a day and a half. It's so well written and it just picks up all these topics. And it also reminded me of the film American fiction, which I saw recently. And that talks about the publishing industry from the view of a black American writer.

And I just find it really fascinating and kind of meta, I guess, that books are being published about books being published and how books get published. How do you feel the gender equality in. engineering compared to the gender equality in publishing, from your perspective, how it felt? I feel like the gender inequality in construction and engineering is obvious. I think it's less obvious in publishing. Okay. Because so many of the people that work in publishing are women. But then when you look at who is being published, particularly in nonfiction, then you go, hmm, this is, this is surprising. And while I'm not really surprised by the stats from construction, was surprised by the stats coming out of publishing.

And I think I'm also noticing that within fiction as well, where a lot of women might be writing books, like are we being channeled to writing particular types of books? And that's where I love the women's prize for highlighting books that may go a bit against the grain of what we expect or think women should be or are writing about. And when you say that this book, Yellowface, helped you, how did it change the way you started navigating this new world?

So there was the practicalities of things, I think, in some ways, just understanding how publishing houses work, the fact that there are marketing teams, the fact that marketing teams almost have as much power, if not more than editors might have. So just trying to literally piece the industry together a little bit. So this book gives you a lot of information just about that. in some ways I was surprised it did so incredibly well

because it is about this quite specific industry so for me it makes perfect sense I want to read it but I love that people from outside the industry have obviously read it as well. Fascinating. So fascinating. And then it also made me more aware of these conversations I guess that are happening in the zeitgeist at the moment

should we be censoring or editing historic books when language was different and so on. again I guess it just comes back to that topic of broadening your mind challenging what you assumed you might have thought getting different people's perspectives on these things and trying to understand the nuances of all of it the way I try and write is I am a woman of colour

and I'm writing books by engineering there are not a lot of us doing that combination of things so of course I'm going to bring myself into the books and of course when you read my books I don't want you to feel like a white man has written it I wanted to feel like somebody with a different perspective has written it

so in my chapter on pumps in nuts and bolts I have a whole section on the breast pump and you probably wouldn't read many engineering books that talk about the amazing engineering that goes into a breast pump and I want to know it's so fascinating

because I've got one in my bra most of the time yeah and in fact the one that goes in your bra was one of the first that I could find that was actually designed by a woman. Oh, there we go. The rest of them were all designed by men.

And so you want to get that perspective, but I don't feel pushed or stereotyped into having to write about these issues. So I feel in control of it, and I think that's really important. So Yellowface kind of reinforced to me, I will write about these topics, but I will remain in control of it.

And do you feel like having now spent the time that you have as part of this industry, you have enough experiences to also write some satire about it? I'm going to have to have got, I've never written any fiction, I find it absolutely terrifying. I'm totally convinced that writing fiction is much harder than nonfiction. But so I really admire Rebecca for what she's done with Yellowface. Yeah, I probably could write a bit of sat on there about it. Well, your upcoming children's book, How to Build a Chocolate Bridge, is released next month,

which answers questions such as, can you make a skyscraper out of pasta? Yes. I was going to say, can you? Oh, can you? Well, it depends how you define skyscraper. But yes, you can recreate them. So this is a book really about materials. And my last children's books, I guess, were knowledge heavy.

They had a little bit of demonstrations in it. And I said I wanted to do one which was all about demonstrations. So it's super fun. You get to play with children. chocolate and gummy laces and jelly babies and all sorts of stuff. Slime. We love slime. Everyone loves slime. But within all of that is actually some serious material science and engineering. And that's what I love about this book. And the illustrations by Robert are just brilliant as well. And the chocolate bridge example is, you know, if you try and load up chocolate, it's quite brittle, it snaps.

And that's what concrete would do. Concrete's a really brittle material. But then if you take gummy laces and pour, chocolate on it. So you've reinforced that chocolate with these kind of stretchy, squishy stuff and then you load it up. The chocolate will still crack, but the gummy laces hold it together. And that's why we put steel bars into concrete. So

I'm trying to take these, you know, the fun demonstrations that I may have done in talks in the past and put it into a book. I slightly do apologise to the carers of the children who are going to get involved in putting these... There's going to be a little bit of tidying up. There's going to be a little bit of tidying up.

and cleaning up to do, but it'll be brilliant. And I'm pretty sure that the grown-ups will learn stuff as well. Absolutely. I've just learned something. And when you said earlier, you know, explain it like you're explaining it to five-year-old, I think that applies regardless of the age of your audience. I think it does. I think it does. And I think if you can get past a five-year-old, then I think you've made it. I think that's a lesson for life. Well, my final question, Tiroma, is if you had to choose one book, your list as a favorite, which would it be and why? I know you do this at the end of every episode and I'm going to have to say the same thing

that every single guest says, which is really difficult. Like even getting into five was super difficult. I think I'm going to pick uncivilised because I think it's really topical for the world we live in today. So what I would say is if you wanted to understand the contemporary history of almost how we've gotten to where we have today. then this is a great book to read. Well, thank you so much.

I wish you the best of luck with all the reading that you've got going on, all the books that you've got coming out, all the dancing that you're doing, everything. Thank you. And thank you for making time for us because I know you're so busy. No, it's been a total joy. I've loved speaking to you. Thank you.

I'm Vic Hope, and that was Bookshelfy from the Women's Prize, supported by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thanks for joining me. me for this episode, you'll find all the books that we discussed in our show notes. There's also a link to our bookshop.org shelf where every purchase supports independent bookshops and the work of the Women's Prize Trust, a charity helping build a better future by championing women's writing. Now remember to hit the follow or subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you like this one, then leave us a rating or review to help other readers discover

even more brilliant books by women. I'll see you next time. You know,