Today’s guest is interior designer Andrew Torrey. Andrew recently published a book with Rizzoli celebrating his life and journey in design. I joined him in his design studio in Manhattan to talk about what it was like to put the book together, his influences in art and design, before moving on to imagine his dream library space.

If you want to learn more about his work, you can find him on Instagram @torreyllc, or buy a copy of his book - Torrey: Private Spaces: Great American Design.

Today’s guest is Heide Hendricks - one half of the architecture and design studio Hendricks Churchill. I joined Heide in her beautiful renovated farmhouse which is the subject of a book published by Rizzoli in 2023 called ‘Our Way Home - Reimagining an American Farmhouse’. We talked about what goes into the Hendricks Churchill aesthetic, Rafe’s habit of turning sketches and renderings into works of art, before moving on to her own dream studio.

If you want to learn more about the work of Hendricks Churchill, you can find them on Instagram @hendrickschurchill, or on their website at www.hendrickschurchill.com

Today’s guest is author Lucy Steeds. Lucy won the 2025 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize for her novel ’The Artist’. It’s a subtle and really atmospheric book that takes readers into the household of a great reclusive master - Tartuffe. The story unfolds through the eyes of Joseph - a young English journalist who has the unique opportunity to write about Tartuffe so long as he sits for him as a model, and through Ettie - Tartuffe’s shy, elusive niece - whose own character and brilliance slowly begin to reveal the true heart of the story. As well as a brilliant character portrait, it goes to the heart of the ‘great master’ myth, erasure, and the ways that creative genius finds a way to show itself under tyrranical suppression.

Lucy and I jump straight into discussing the novel, and move on in the second half to discussing her own dream library hideaway. 

I hope you enjoy it. 

In this episode, I was joined by Abigail Horace, who runs her own Design Studio - Casa Marcelo. I joined her in her studio in lovely Salisbury, Connecticut, to talk about her early childhood influences - walking round New York City's great buildings with her father, and her young dream of becoming a librarian.

If you want to find out more about Abigail’s work in design, you can follow her on Instagram @casamarcelo.co or look on her website: www.casamarcelo.co

This week I was lucky enough to visit the studio of Adémidé Udoma – who is the creative director of Artisanal One – where he and his team produce wonderful clothing and objects – as well as working collaboratively with others on styling, art and creative direction.

He’s creative in the truest sense of the word – thoughtful about his influences and staying true to himself and his vision with whatever he creates. 

In this episode we cover what he has learned from his life in the arts so far, the vast range of creative influences that he channels when producing work, and his approach to creating with authenticity and consideration.

To find out more about his work, search for him @adeudo or his studio @artisanalone

Alternatively, find his website here:

https://www.artisanalone.com/

I hope you enjoy it!

This week I’m joined by musician and artist Susan O’Neill. We had a wonderfully in-depth conversation about the creative process, and particularly the environments that have inspired her to compose music. We also dive deep into what it means to collect and gather objects around us, and how those objects – particularly the books that we pick up for ourselves or have gifted to us - come to tell a story about our lives.

Susan recently released an album called Now In A Minute, which I’d thoroughly recommend finding on youtube, spotify, or on her website susanoneill.ie

This week I talked to Bettina Farack who has spent the last few years telling the story of the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin. The Higher Institute was a centre for learning and a really important cultural hub for the Jewish community in Berlin before it was looted by the Nazis during the holocaust, and its books confiscated and distributed. Remarkably, in the last few years thousands of those original books have been collected from around the world, with each one not only telling the story of its origins, but also tracing a fascinating line to the present of books lost travelling around the world to private collections, libraries and flea markets.

This is a fascinating conversation with someone who is wholly engrossed in the lives of lost books.

This week I caught up with Meg Rees – who’s known as one of the most creative and expressive tattoo artists in London, and puts an element of the personal into everything that she does. People also may recognise her from her sex and relationships podcast – You’ve Gotta Be Joking – which dives deep into the trials of dating, and will be really relatable to a lot of young Londoners.

Find her on Instagram @bunnystattoos to see more of her tattoo work, painting, and fits from her ever-expanding wardrobe.

This week I was so lucky to be joined by author, artist and academic Amy Jeffs. Amy’s work centres around the medieval world of the British Isles, and looks to capture and give in her own words the sense of wonder that she finds in the foundations of our own mythologies.

Amy's writing takes you deep into the landscape - both physical and psychological - of Medieval Britain. Re-telling myths and legends from the 7th to the 14th Centuries, Amy makes these foundational stories accessible to a modern audience, and accompanies this with her own artwork and music.

Her latest work - Saints - takes us through the calendar year of Saints days and feasts - re-telling the stories that inspired followers in Medieval Britain and across the world.

In this episode, Amy tells me about some of the books, places and memories that have inspired her and that bring her closer to the world that she creates for her readers – as well as some of her favourite stories and characters that she came to know while writing Saints. In the second half, she builds her perfect garden writing shed, and talks about the objects and the books she would fill it with.

You can pre-order Saints here: https://geni.us/saints

This week, I was joined by author and Art Historian Ferren Gipson who’s written some amazing books including ‘Women’s Work – From Feminine Art to Feminist Art’ and The Ultimate Art Museum – where she curates 4,000 years of Art History into a dream museum that tells its story – correcting some of the wrongs of the past and highlighting overlooked pioneers.

We start off going into her journey into Art History and the objects, artists and books that have inspired her throughout her life. We then go on in Part 2 to discuss a little bit about what our book collections can mean to us, before building up a dream library-cum-gallery-cum-studio-loft that has all of the things she would need to keep on exploring her interests and exploring new types of creative projects.

If you enjoy this episode and want to find out more about the work that I do as a Library Curator, do visit my website - AROYO