Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead

At the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead Lionel Shriver discusses her new collection of short stories Property with Kirsty Wark. While Lionel Shriver explores our relationship with objects and places, and asks what the increasing accumulation of things may be doing to the soul, the sociologist Bev Skeggs explores how we are being bought and sold in the digital sphere. She also counts the cost of the monetisation of human relations and highlights communities in the North of England who are bucking this trend. The economist Linda Yueh looks back to the thinkers of the past from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, to show the importance of understanding the ideas that underpin the world of finance. And the poet Sean O'Brien armed with 'paper and a clock' explores the history of Europe in his latest collection and argues that Great Britain's future will be shaped by what we remember and what we forget of our shared past. Producer: Katy Hickman.