Travelling in Woody Guthrie's footsteps inspired a new history of hitchhiking written by Jonathan Purkis. He joins Matthew Sweet for a conversation which ranges across hitchhiking in the UK and in Eastern Europe, where Poland operated a kind of voucher system. We look at the influence of film depictions from the Nevada desert depicted in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the hippie vibe of Easy Rider to the horror of The Hitcher and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the female focus of Je Tu Il Elle by Chantal Akerman. Has the idea of hitchhiking now had its day? Joining Matthew to assess the idea of risk and our perception of thumbing a lift is Timandra Harkness, film critic Adam Scovell, plus Sally J Morgan, winner of the Portico prize for her book Toto Among the Murderers, based on her experience of being offered a lift by Fred and Rosemary West

Jonathan Purkis's book Driving with Strangers is published in February and you can find more here https://www.jonathanpurkis.co.uk/
Sally J Morgan's book Toto Among the Murderers is out now.
Timandra Harkness is the author of Big Data: does size matter? has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a show called Take a Risk and contributes to and presents programmes on BBC Radio 4.
Adam Scovell writes about film for Sight and Sound magazine and is a published novelist. His latest book was called How Pale The Winter Has Made Us and his new book Nettles is out in April 2022.

Producer: Jessica Treen

We've a whole playlist of discussions exploring The Way We Live Now with topics ranging from Breakfast, to Gloves, Toys to Punk, Rationality and Tradition. Find them on the Free Thinking programme website and available to download as Arts and Ideas podcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072637b