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This week, Kate and Cassie are joined by regulars Hannah Kent and Tom Wright to discuss three books that echo one another across themes of art, beauty, family and transformation.

In Barbara Kingsolver's Partita, a young woman longs to escape her small town and difficult mother through music (and there are dogs and an accident); Ayad Akhtar's The Radiance follows a man whose vivid, radiant life is shaped by music and ambition (and there’s a terrible accident); And in Colm Tóibín's The Bridge, a son and father navigate change, possibility and belonging in a new world (accompanied by a whole pack of dogs).

Plus, voting may have closed for The Bookshelf's Top 100 Australian Books, but we're still taking inspiration from readers' recommendations. Actor, writer and trans activist Zoe Terakes joins us to share their three favourite Australian books.

Featured books

• Barbara Kingsolver, Partita, Faber
• Colm Toíbín, The Bridge, Picador
• Ayad Akhtar, The Radiance, Summit

Zoe Terakes' Top 3

• Christos Tsiolkas , Loaded
• Chelsea Watego, Another Day in the Colony
• Timothy Conigrave, Holding the Man 

Other Books mentioned

• Stephanie Alexander, The Cook's Companion
• Alison Lester, Magic Beach
• Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
• Hannah Moloney, The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World
• Christina Stead, Seven Poor Men of Sydney

In American Hagwon, the bestselling author of Pachinko, Min Jin Lee, explores family, education, ambition and the long shadow of economic upheaval, set between Seoul, Sydney and California. Louise Kennedy's Stations offers a tough and deeply felt Irish family story, while Catherine Chidgey's The Starving Bride turns hunger into a strange gothic performance. Kate and Cassie are joined this time by regulars, novelist and academic Professor Tony Birch and critic and literary judge Beejay Silcox. And, as we count down to the Top 100 Australian Books, Frank Moorhouse's biographer Matthew Lamb reveals his top three.

Books featured

• Min Jin Lee, American Hagwon, Fourth Estate
• Louise Kennedy, Stations, Bloomsbury Circus
• Catherine Chidgey, The Starving Bride, Penguin 

Matthew Lamb's Top 100 picks

• Forty-Seventeen (1988) by Frank Moorhouse
• Tourmaline (1963) by Randolph Stow
• Writer Reader Critic (1992) by Dorothy Green 

Other books mentioned

• Janet McCalman, Struggletown
• Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History
• The Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book
• Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs and Djawa Burarrwanga, A Piece of Red Cloth
• Gretchen Shirm, Out of the Woods
• Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

Kate and Cassie take a look at bestselling author Emily St. John Mandel's latest, Exit Party, an epic that follows a doppelgänger and a man who disappears from a Los Angeles party in 2031, leading to a journey across parallel worlds and fractured timelines. Internationally-bestselling crime writer Michael Robotham is in to discuss The Weight of Angels by John Boyne; and Graham Akhurst, novelist, academic and Director of Indigenous Studies at the University of Technology  on Turkish writer Kenan Orhan's Booker Longlisted novel The Renovation; and historian and author Anna Clark is in to share her Top 100 picks.

Books featured

• Emily St John Mandel, Exit Party, Picador
• John Boyne, The Weight of Angels, Doubleday
• Kenan Orhan, The Renovation, Hamish Hamilton

Anna Clark's Top 100 picks

• Raimond Gaita, Romulus, My Father
• Gay'wu Group of Women, Songspirals: Sharing Women’s Wisdom of Country through Songlines
• Billy Griffiths, Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia
• The Macquarie Dictionary, first edition published 1981
• Ken Simpson and Nicolas Day, Field Guide to the Birds of Australia, first edition published in 1984

Other books mentioned

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
• James Joyce, Ulysses
• Alexis Wright, PraiseworthyChina Miéville, The City & the City
• Claire G. Coleman, works
• Curtis Sittenfeld, Rodham
• Peter Carey, Illywhacker
• Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole
• Alexis Wright, Carpentaria
• Kim Scott, Benang: From the Heart

We want to know what you think of Radio National's book podcasts (The Book Show and The Bookshelf). Help us understand what's working, what's not, and how we can make our book programs even more useful, relevant and unmissable. Please take this quick survey.

We step into Irish bestseller Donal Ryan's world in Where Are the Kings, a tender coming of age story about a boy navigating grief. Inside a fracturing mind in Emma Cline’s Booker Longlisted novel Switzy, read with novelist Madeleine Gray. A chronicle of DIY activism, collectives and autonomous living in Sydney's west in Australian writer Max Easton’s Now, Autonomy, read for us by singer-songwriter Tim Rogers, and a newer world emerges in the wake of the American Civil War in Sebastian Barry’s new novel, The Newer World, read by author Hannah Kent.

BOOKS FEATURED

• Donal Ryan, Where Are the Kings, Doubleday
• Emma Cline, Switzy, Chatto & Windus
• Max Easton, Now, Autonomy, Giramondo
• Sebastian Barry, The Newer World, Faber

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through
• Meg Howrey, Body Language
• Colum McCann, Apeirogon
• Melina Marchetta, Looking for Alibrandi
• Abigal Ulman, Hot Little Hands
• Patrick White, The Tree of Man
• Heather Rose, The Museum of Modern Love
• Elizabeth Jolley, The Well

We want to know what you think of Radio National's book podcasts (The Book Show and The Bookshelf). Help us understand what's working, what's not, and how we can make our book programs even more useful, relevant and unmissable. Please take this quick survey.

Kate and Cassie with regular reviewer Tom Wright discuss new releases including Melissa Harrison’s The Given World and Malcolm Knox’s The Second Child. Plus, novelist and memoirist Mandy Sayer on her Top 3 Australian books ahead of Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books Countdown.

Mandy Sayer's Top 3 Australian Books

• Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
• Robin Dalton, Aunts up the Cross (1965)
• David Malouf, Johnno (1975) 

Other books mentioned

• A.B. Facey, A Fortunate Life
• George Johnston, My Brother Jack
• Eric C. Rolls, They All Ran Wild
• Emily St John Mandel, Exit Party
• Colm Toibin, The Bridge
• Barbara Kingsolver, Partita
• John Boyne, The Weight of Angels
• Marlon James, The Disappearers
• Max Porter, works
• Patrick Gale, works
• Sarah Moss, works
• Joseph Furphy, Such is Life
• Peter Carey, Illywhacker
• Gerald Munane, The Plains

Voting in Radio National's Top 100 Books countdown is about to open and this year we're celebrating Australian books. As you think about your own Top 10, Kate and Cassie bring together a trio of award-winning writers (including last year's Top 100 Books winner!) to reveal the Australian books they have loved and been influenced by: Trent Dalton, Claire Thomas and Steve MinOn, with a surprise appearance in the audience from Grimmish and Griefdogg author Michael Winkler.

Books mentioned

• Storm Boy by Colin Thiele
• Hating Alison Ashley by Robin Klein
• Cole's Funny Picture Book by E.W. Cole
• The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
• Johnno; Fly Away Peter by David Malouf
• Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook
• The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson
• Ruth Park, works
• Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
• The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith; Schindler's Ark  by Thomas Keneally
• Possum Magic by Mem Fox
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
• Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
• Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
• Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
• The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
• She Is Me by Tahlia Isaac
• Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
• Zigzag Street by Nick Earls
• The Garden Book by Brian Castro
• The Children's Bach by Helen Garner
• A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey
• My Brilliant Career by Miles Stella Franklin
• A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville
• The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough
• The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazard
• The Vivisector by Patrick White
• A Short History of Longans by Mirandi Riwoe
• The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Credits

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Steve Fieldhouse
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Anjet Daanje's The Song of Stork and Dromedary, translated from the Dutch, explores the intimate work of death and care in the eighteenth century. Liane Moriarty returns to the world of Big Little Lies with Big Little Truths, reuniting readers with the coastal suburb of Pirriwee and her cast a decade on,  just with a little more menopausal rage, teenage angst, and a severed finger. Joining us are regular reviewer Beejay Silcox, along with Cheryl Akle from Better Reading. Plus, critic and publisher Geordie Williamson shares his Top 3 Australian books.

Books

• The Song of Stork and Dromedary by Anjet Daanje, translated from Dutch by David McKay (Scribe)
• Big Little Truths by Liane Moriarty (Macmillan)

Geordie Williamson's Top 3 Australian Books

• Such is Life  by Joseph Furphy
• Translations from the Natural World by Les Murray
• The Eye of the Crocodile by Val Plumwood

Other books mentioned

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
• Mine by Adam Ousten
• Dark Places by Kate Grenville
• John Brown, Rose, and the Midnight Cat by Jenny Rose
• Little Bear series by Maurice Sendak
• Tell Me Something True by Michael Robotham 

We want your feedback! Help us understand what's working, what's not, and how we can make our book programs even more useful, relevant and unmissable. Please take this survey:

• https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/RsSBGWuFEU

Credits

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Micky Grossman
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

We review the latest in fiction for dedicated readers and for those who wish they read more.

Omar Musa joins us after winning the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Plus, Michael Robotham and Madeleine Gray review Djamel White's Booker Prize-longlisted debut All Them Dogs and Téa Obreht's sweeping new novel Sunrise.

From the nightclubs of 1930s Berlin to the heartache and awkwardness of high school, and into the green rooms and backstage spaces of writers' festivals.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead’s latest novel Cool Machine is a vivid portrait of Black New York in the 1980s. The book reunites readers with furniture salesman and part-time fence Ray Carney. Kate Evans and regular reviewer, critic and essayist Beejay Silcox discuss.

Also this week, Isabelle Li’s The Northern Tomb offers an intimate and richly textured portrait of life in Northeast China during the Covid pandemic, while Claire Berest’s Frida brings the passion, colour and complexity of artist Frida Kahlo vividly to the page. 

Plus, Kate speaks with Ashley Hay, novelist and interim editor of Meanjin, about the magazine's rich literary history and how its archive can help guide your vote in the ABC's Top 100 Australian Books countdown. (Ashley also shares her top three Australian picks).

Each week, a specially curated selection of archival material will be released at Meanjin:

• Meanjin – The Finest New Writing in Australia

Books discussed

• Cool Machine - Colson Whitehead (Fleet)
• The Northern Tomb - Isabelle Li (Puncher & Wattmann)
• Frida - Claire Berest, translated from French by Stephanie Smee (Mountain Leopard Press)

Also mentioned

• But Won't I Miss Me - Tiffany Tsao (Harper Via)

Beejay Silcox's recommendations

• Angel Down - Daniel Kraus
• The Children - Melissa Albert
• Their Brilliant Careers - Ryan O'Neill

Ashley Hay's Top 3 Australian picks

• The Commandant - Jessica Anderson
• Edenglassie - Melissa Lucashenko
• The Great Fire - Shirley Hazzard

Credits

• Presenter - Kate Evans
• Producer - Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound - Tim Jenkins and Isabella Tropiano
• Arts editor - Rhiannon Brown

Dave Eggers explores the messy intersection of art, friendship and growing up in Contrapposto, while Daniel Mason's Country People follows an academic family into a Vermont landscape full of stories and believers in worlds beneath the earth. Then Maria Takolander's The End of Romance imagines life after collapse.

Joining Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh are our regular reviewers, novelist Madeleine Gray and musician Tim Rogers. 

Plus, playwright and novelist George Kemp shares three favourite Australian books ahead of the ABC's Top 100 Australian Books countdown.

Books discussed

• Contrapposto - Dave Eggers
• Country People - Daniel Mason
• The End of Romance - Maria Takolander
• Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
• The Sun Walks Down - Fiona McFarlane
• Cold Enough for Snow - Jessica Au

Guest recommendations

• Dream Girls - Hannah Goldstein
• Brother of the More Famous Jack - Barbara Trapido
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
• Riverboy - Jim Ewing
• A Suitable Man - Jock Serong
• Fifty Beating Wonders - Dr Michelle Johnston
• Flights - Olga Tokarczuk 

Credits

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Micky Grossman and Tegan Nicholls
• Arts editor, Sarah L' Estrange

This week on The Bookshelf, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh discuss new novels including Laura McPhee-Browne's Worry Doll, a story of desire, obsession and uncertainty; Leïla Slimani's I'll Take the Fire, the acclaimed French-Moroccan writer's rich, politically charged exploration of family, memory and identity; and Kris Kneen's Rite of Spring, an eerie island novel where strange creatures lurk in the mist.

Joining the program are regular reviewers, bestselling crime writer Michael Robotham and novelist and academic Roanna Gonsalves.

Plus, as ABC Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books Countdown approaches, writer and historian Bruce Pascoe shares three Australian books he loves.

Books discussed

• Worry Doll, Laura McPhee-Browne
• I'll Take the Fire, Leïla Slimani (translated by Sam Taylor)
• Rite of Spring, Kris Kneen
• Benang: From The Heart, Kim Scott
• Every Secret Thing, Marie Munkara
• Mullumbimby, Melissa Lucashenko

Guest recommendations

• Whistler, Ann Patchett
• The Hunter, Tana French
• Tomb of Sand, Geetanjali Shree 

Credits

• Presenter: Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer: Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound: Craig Tilmouth and Micky Grossman
• Arts editor: Sarah L'Estrange

A live recording from the 2025 Melbourne Writers Festival, with guests Hannah Kent and Beejay Silcox.

• Hannah Kent, Always Home, Always Homesick (Picador)
• Eimear McBride, The City Changes Its Face (Faber)
• Susan Choi, Flashlight (Jonathan Cape)
• Edward St Aubyn, Parallel Lines (Jonathan Cape)
• Caryl Phillips, Another Man in the Street (Bloomsbury)

Guests

Hannah Kent is the author of the novels Burial Rites, The Good People and Devotion. Her latest book is the memoir, Always Home, Always Homesick

Beejay Silcox is a critic, writer, festival director and literary interviewer

Other Books Mentioned

• Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
• Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
• Eric Puchner, Dream State
• Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers
• Emily Maguire, Rapture
• Mariana Enríquez, A Sunny Place for Shady People
• Susan Hampton, Anything Can Happen

We review the latest in fiction for dedicated readers and for those who wish they read more.

Cassie McCullagh is joined by Jonathan Green this time, for a wide-ranging hour of new fiction, from Australia and beyond. First, Fiona Mozley’s unsettling Awake Awake, where a young woman begins to suspect her grandfather may have killed Adolf Hitler, Zan Rowe weighs in. Then, Irish writer Niamh Campbell’s Make Strange, a quietly eerie novel about a four-year-old asking impossible questions, including whether she’s lived before...Madeleine Gray gives her verdict. And we begin with a striking new Australian voice in the short story collection I Made This Just For You by Chris Ames.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Elmet; Hot Stew, by Fiona Mozley
• What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan
• The Ruiners, by Ellena Savage
• The Shepherd's Life; A Place of Tides, by James Rebanks
• The Animators; Returns and Exchanges, by Kayla Rae Whitaker
• Fruit Fly, by Josh Silver
• Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang
• A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
• Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green
• Producer, Cassie McCullagh and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Antonia Gauci and Ann Marie Debettencor
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

From a sun-drenched Tuscan reset with a side of style advice (Andrew Sean Greer's Villa Coco via Michael Robotham), to Ilka Tampke’s How To Love the World, a tender take on parenting and the pull of the bush (guided by Roanna Gonsalves), and throw in a windswept lighthouse on the edge of the world with Michael Pedersen’s Muckle Flugga.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Charles Bukowski, works
• Andrew Sean Greer, Less
• Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt
• Patrick Dennis, Auntie Mame
• Steve Toltz, works
• Ilka Tampke, Skin; Songwoman
• Debra Adelaide,When I Am Sixty-Four
• David Sedaris, The Land and Its People; Me Talk Pretty One Day
• Rashida Murphy, Old Ghosts; The Historian's Daughter
• Olga Ravn, The Wax Child; The Employees

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Tegan Nicholls and Harvey O'Sullivan
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh are joined by regulars Hannah Kent and Tom Wright to talk new fiction from three major voices: Maggie O’Farrell’s Land, an expansive novel set in famine-era Ireland that traces memory, myth and the imprint of history on place; Ann Patchett’s Whistler, a sharp story of family, lost fathers and the long shadow of childhood; and Christine Balint’s A Single Witness, which follows a teenage girl confronting her community and the law in 18th-century Italy.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Maggie O'Farrell, works
• Ann Patchett, works
• Christine Balint, works
• George R.Stewart, Names On The Land 
• Sumner Locke Elliott’s Careful, He Might Hear You 
• Tusiata Avia, Big Fat Brown Bitch 
• Dominic Hoey, 1985
• Ingrid Horrocks, All Her Lives: Nine Stories
• Tāme Iti, MANA

~ CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound: Micky Grossman, Isabella Tropiano
• Arts editor: Rhiannon Brown

Kate Evans is joined by Bernadette Brennan and Beejay Silcox to talk three striking new releases: Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s Said the Dead, a haunting, archive-rich exploration of a derelict Irish asylum; Chloe Wilson’s The Thornbacks, a darkly comic debut of morticians, dating apps and unsettling female entanglements; and Deborah Levy’s My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, a playful meditation on literary life in Paris. 

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Amitav Ghosh, Ghost-Eye
• Susan Choi, Flashlight
•  S.A. Cosby, works
• Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat
•  Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
• Angela Carter, Wise Children
• Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides
• Daisy Johnson, Sisters
• Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
• Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister the Serial Killer
• Deborah Levy, works
• Kim Scott, Benang
• Alexis Wright, Carpentaria
• Francesca Wade, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife
• Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas 
• Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain, Bone Horn
• Erin Vincent. Fourteen Ways of Looking
• Claire Thomas, On Not Climbing Mountains
• Gwendoline Riley, The Palm House
• Chloe Wilson, Hold Your Fire
• Robin Robertson, The Long Take
• Joseph Furphy, Such is Life
• Elizabeth Jolley, works

~ CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound: Antonia Gauci
• Arts editor: Rhiannon Brown

The Bookshelf comes to you from a sold out session at Sydney Writers’ Festival, for a conversation that brings together an exceptional line-up: acclaimed novelist and poet Tony Birch, Miles Franklin Award-winning author Siang Lu, and internationally celebrated writer Lily King. Together, with Cassie, Kate and special guest Claire Nichols from The Book Show, they mark the launch of ABC Radio National’s 2026 Top 100 Books countdown, this year turning the spotlight on the very best of Australian writing, fiction and non-fiction, across all time.

~ ABC RADIO NATIONAL TOP 100 AUSTRALIAN BOOKS COUNTDOWN

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY LILY KING

• Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds
• Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus; The Evening of the Holiday
• Kate Grenville, The Idea of Perfection
• Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY TONY BIRCH

• William Dick, A Bunch of Ratbags
• Ruth Park, works
• Colin Johnson, Wild Cat Falling
• Kenneth Cook, Wake in Fright
• Frank Hardy, Power Without Glory
• Peter Carey, American Dreams; Crabs
• Pi O, 24 Hours: Ulysses in Fitzroy

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY SIANG LU

• Nam Le, The Boat
• Michael Winkler, Grimmish
• Peter Carey, The True History of the Kelly Gang
• Helen Garner, Monkey Grip
• Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY CASSIE MCCULLAGH

• Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career
• Peter Temple, Broken Shore
• Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History

~  BOOKS MENTIONED BY KATE EVANS

• Ethel Turner, Seven Little Australians
• Florence James and Dymphna Cusack, Come in Spinner
• Peter Carey, Illywhacker; Oscar and Lucinda

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY CLAIRE NICHOLS

• The Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book
• Mem Fox, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald
• Kim Scott, works
• Tim Winton, works
• Josephine Wilson, Extinctions

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED 

• Tim Winton, Cloudstreet
• Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe
• Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore
• Sally Morgan, My Place
• Archie Roach, Tell Me Why
• Jimmy Barnes, Working Class Boy
• Ruby Langford Ginibi, Don’t Take Your Love to Town
• Thea Astley, works
• Helen Garner, The Children's Bach; The Spare Room
• Melina Marchetta, Looking for Alibrandi
• Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North; Question 7
• Madeleine St John, Ladies in Black
• Shankari Chandran, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens
• Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow
• Andrew McGahan, Praise
• Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
• Robbie Arnott, Limberlost
• Hannah Kent, Burial Rites
• Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding
• A.B. Facey, A Fortunate Life
• David Malouf, Johnno 
• Jane Harper, The Dry

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh, Claire Nichols
• Producer, Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Harvey O'Sullivan
• Arts Editor, Rhiannon Brown

We head by rackety ferry to Scotland in John of John, the latest, quietly devastating novel from Shuggie Bain author Douglas Stuart. Henry Lawson reimagined - brawling poets, strange tunnels, time loops, and a warped tussle between city and bush in Wayne Marshall’s Henry Goes Bush, reviewed by You Am I's Tim Rogers. From there, novelist Madeleine Gray turns her eye to Lena Dunham’s sharp, self‑aware memoir Famesick, before moving to Ellena Savage’s The Ruiners, which shifts between a Melbourne lobster shack and a smoke‑wreathed Greek island.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Norman Lindsay, Bohemians of the Bulletin
• Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow
• Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays
• Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl
• Joan Didion, works
• Eve Babitz, works
• Ellena Savage, Blueberries
• Charles Dickens, works
• Charmian Clift, works
• George Johnston, works
• Michael Winkler, Griefdogg
• Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch
• Colum McCann, Apeirogon
• Steve MinOn, First Name Second Name
• Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
• James Bailey, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark
• Lee Lai, Cannon

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Roi Huberman
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

This week’s Bookshelf features the latest from Elizabeth Strout, creator of Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton, returning with a stand‑alone novel called The Things We Never Say. We’re also reading an ambitious, genre‑bending novel that moves from 1980s gaming culture to far‑future space travel, and Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director, a German novel in translation that explores film, power and propaganda. Joining us to review are Geordie Williamson - critic, publisher and writer; and Robert Forster - singer‑songwriter, founding member of The Go‑Betweens, memoirist and brand new novelist with Songwriters on the Run.

~ REVIEWERS

• Robert Forster and Geordie Williamson

~ BOOKS

• Daniel Kehlmann, The Director (translated from the German by Ross Benjamin), Riverrun
• Elizabeth Strout, The Things We Never Say, Viking Penguin  
• Portia Elan, Homebound, Chatto & Windus
• Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear, Fourth Estate 

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Daniel Kehlmann, works
• Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton
• The Boundless Deep, Richard Holmes
• Johnno, David Malouf
• Keeley Jobe, The Endling
• Ana Paula Maia, On Earth as It Is Beneath

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Craig Tilmouth and Roi Huberman
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

In this episode, superstar reviewer Hannah Kent tackles the rugged terrain of a journey that edges towards the Tibetan border in Deepa Anappara's The Last of Earth, and theatre writer Tom Wright ponders extraterrestrial encounters in Amanda Lohrey's new one, Capture. Plus, Kate and Cassie take a look at two titles on the International Booker Prize shortlist, from France and Bulgaria, one follows a not‑very‑successful witch who weeps tears of blood; and the other is the story of a woman in Albania who switches genders through an ancient ritual.

~ BOOKS 

• Marie NDiaye, The Witch, translated from the French by Jordan Stump, MacLehose Press 
• Rene Karabash, She Who Remains, translated from the Bulgarian by Izidora Angel, Peirene Press 
• Deepa Anappara, The Last of Earth, One World 
• Amanda Lohrey, Capture, Text

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• David Malouf, works
• Chloe Dalton, Raising Hare
• Laura McPhee Brown, Worry Doll 
• Ranginui Walker, Struggle Without End 
• Patricia Walker, Potiki 
• Cameron Sullivan, The Red Winter

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Bella Tropiano and Hamish Camilleri
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown 

This week The Bookshelf leans into the wild as Kate Evans and guests are circled by stories of wolves, wild boar and witches, along with the final year of celebrated poet Sylvia Plath and a sensual story of food and obsession from Japan. Kate is joined by regular guests, the novelist, poet and Professor of Australian literature Tony Birch; and critic Beejay Silcox, who arrives fresh from the U.K. ready to talk literary pilgrimages and bookish souvenirs. Plus, a bonus discussion on this year's Stella Prize shortlist.

~ BOOKS REVIEWED

• Inga Simpson, Once We Were Wildlife: Stories, Hachette
• Sarah Walker, The Water Takes, Summit Books
• Asako Yuzuki, Hooked, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton, Fourth Estate
• Helen Bain, The Daffodil Days, Bloomsbury
• Sally O’Reilly, Hagtale, Scribe

~ 2026 Stella Prize shortlist

• Evelyn Araluen, The Rot, UQP
• Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days, Hachette
• Miranda Darling, Fireweather, Scribe
• Lee Lai, Cannon, Giramondo
• Marika Sosnowski, 58 Facets: On violence and the Law, Melbourne University Press  
• Tasma Walton, I am Nannertgarrook, Simon & Schuster

NOTE: the winner will be announced on 13 May 

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Ian McEwan, What We Can Know
• Cormac McCarthy, The Road
• Kim Scott, Dead Man Dance
• John Higgs, Lynchian: The Spell of David Lynch
• Asako Yuzuki, Butter
• Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs
• Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman; Earthlings
• Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void
• Colum McCann, works
• Fiona McFarlane, Highway 13
• Guillaume Lecasble, Lobster 
• Lucie Rico, Fowl Eulogies
• Robin Robertson, The Long Take
• Jenni Fagan, The Delusions
• James Alistair Henry, Pagans
• Laurie Colwin, Shine On Bright and Dangerous Object
• Tracy Chevalier, Burning Bright 

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Roi Huberman and Tegan Nicholls
• Arts Editor, Rhiannon Brown

In this episode, Kate and Cassie are joined by celebrated novelist Madeleine Gray and rock icon Tim Rogers for a wide-ranging discussion looking at three works of contemporary fiction: Indian writer Amitav Ghosh’s Ghost Eye, a meditation on reincarnation and climate change; Australian writer and musician Edwina Preston’s Sororicidal, a sharp novel of sisterhood and rivalry; and English stylist Gwendoline Riley’s The Palm House, a disquieting portrait of modern life in London.

BOOKS

• Amitav Ghosh, Ghost-Eye (John Murray)
• Edwina Preston, Sororicidal (Picador)
• Gwendoline Riley, The Palm House (Picador)

REVIEWERS

• Madeleine Gray — writer and critic, author of Green Dot and Chosen Family
• Tim Rogers — singer‑songwriter, actor and writer; frontman of You Am I and the Hard‑Ons, currently on a solo tour

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Britney Spears memoir
• Sinéad O'Connor, memoir
• Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
• Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
• Edwina Preston, Not Just a Suburban Boy; Bad Art Mother
• Simon Mason, DI Wilkins Mysteries
• Clive James, Unreliable Memoirs
• Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore
• Wayne Marshall, Henry Goes Bush
• Larry McMurtry, works
• Joe Boyd, And The Roots of Rhythm Remain

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Antonia Gauci and Micky Grossman
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Memory, lost conversations and almost-fathers-and sons in Ben Lerner's Transcription; children divided by the throw of a dice, and that's just the start of it, in Steve Toltz's A Rising of the Lights; no such thing as unskilled labour, in Siân Hughes' No Such Thing as Monday, where a woman works as a drycleaner, trying desperately to rid herself of the stains of her childhood; new crime releases, and an Australian in Hollywood is reconsidered. Kate and Cassie with reviewers Michael Robotham and Geordie Williamson.

BOOKS

Ben Lerner, Transcription, Granta

Steve Toltz, A Rising of the Lights, Penguin

Siân Hughes, No Such Thing as Monday, Penguin

Tana French, The Keeper, Viking Penguin

Candice Fox, Redbelly Crossing, Penguin

Patricia A. O'Brien, Errol Flynn: The true story of Australia's Hollywood Icon, Allen & Unwin

[Keep scrolling for other books and writers mentioned in the discussion]

GUESTS

Michael Robotham is an internationally-acclaimed crime writer whose books include the Joseph O'Loughlan and Evie Cormac series. His latest novel is The White Crow — and his next one, Tell Me Something True, will be his first to be set in Australia

Geordie Wiliamson is a literary critic, writer and publisher at Picador, whose books include a critical study of Alexis Wright in the Black Inc Writers on Writers series; and The Burning Library — on neglected Australian writers

Other books mentioned in the discussion

Karl Ove Knausgård, works

Rachel Cusk, works

W G Sebald, works

Alexander Kluge, works

David Foster Wallace, works

Jonathan Franzen, works

Wallace Stevens, works

Les Murray, works

Saul Bellow, works

Philip Roth, works

P D James, works

Agatha Christie, works

Sam Twyford-Moore, Cast Mates: Australian Actors in Hollywood and at Home

CREDITS

• Presenters: Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producers: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett, Tracey Trompf
• Sound Engineers: Craig Tilmouth, Roi Huberman
• A/ Arts Editor: Sarah Corbett

What does it mean to write using an 'ethical imagination'? Colum McCann onstage with Kate Evans at the 2025 Melbourne Writers Festival, on his novels Twist, Apeirogon, TransAtlantic, Let the Great World Spin and many more; and his work with the social justice storytelling movement, Narrative Four.

• Presenter/ Producer: Kate Evans
• Sound Engineers: Simon Branthwaite, Antonia Gauci
• Acting Arts Editor: Sarah L'Estrange

This week The Bookshelf revisits the Trojan War from the ground up in Yann Martel’s Son of Nobody, moves through friendship and loss in Debra Adelaide’s When I Am Sixty‑Four, and dives into queer Sydney in the 1940s with Fiona Kelly McGregor’s The Trap. 

BOOKS

• Fiona Kelly McGregor, The Trap, Picador
• Debra Adelaide, When I Am Sixty-Four, UQP
• Yann Martel, Son of Nobody, Text

GUESTS

• Tom Wright, theatre writer and adaptor; Artistic Associate, Belvoir Theatre
• Hannah Kent, novelist, scriptwriter and memoirist, whose books include Burial Rites, Devotion and Always Home Always Homesick

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet
• Delia Falconer, works
• Peter Cornell, The Ways of Paradise 
• Ingrid Horrocks, All Her Lives: Nine Stories

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Craig Tilmouth and Hamish Camilleri
• Arts editor, Sarah L'Estrange

A rich mix of voices and stories in short fiction from acclaimed Native American writer Louise Erdrich; essays and memories from two‑time Miles Franklin Award winner Alex Miller; bleakly funny childhood tales by English author Mark Haddon; and, from Michael Winkler, a surreal and darkly comic story about a man who decides he’d rather be the family dog.

BOOKS 

• Michael Winkler, Griefdogg, Text 
• Louise Erdrich, Python’s Kiss: Stories, Corsair 
• Alex Miller, Journey to the End of Time, Allen & Unwin 
• Mark Haddon, Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour, Chatto & Windus 

GUESTS 

• Shannon Burns, writer and critic from Adelaide, whose first book Childhood: a memoir, was published in 2022 
• Tony Birch, poet, writer, and Professor of Australian Literature at Melbourne University. His latest book is the short story collection Pictures of You 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Grimmish, Michael Winkler
• Act of the Damned; Fado Alexandrino, António Lobo Antunes
• What We Can Know, Ian McEwan
• The Transformations, Andrew Pippos 
• Brawler, Lauren Groff

CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett, Ce Benedict
• Sound: Craig Tilmouth, Antonia Gauci
• Arts editor: Sarah L' Estrange

What if the most talked‑about streaming show of the moment was a mirror reflecting your most private fears and failures? That unnerving question sits at the heart of John Lanchester’s Look What You Made Me Do, a sharp novel about resentment, revenge, money, class and generational unease. Plus: the art of the short story, as Hannah Kent reads and reflects on Lauren Groff’s new collection Brawler; and a woman’s inner life rendered with quiet and devastating precision in Mary Costello’s A Beautiful Loan.

BOOKS

• John Lanchester, Look What You Made Me Do, Faber
• Lauren Groff, Brawler, Hutchinson Heinemann
• Mary Costello, A Beautiful Loan, Text

GUESTS

• Hannah Kent, novelist behind the phenomenon Burial Rites + The Good People, Devotion and Always Home, Always Homesick
• Tim Rogers, author of Detours; frontman of You Am I, The Hard-Ons and various musical escapades. His solo tour Le Charme Defensif kicks off this week

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Andrew O'Hagan, Caledonian Road
• Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 
• Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
• Michelle de Krester, Theory and Practice
• Jacqueline Maley, Lonely Mouth
• Erin Somers, The Ten Year Affair 
• James Joyce, The Dubliners; The Dead 
• Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
• Colm Tóibín, The Magician
• Steve Hanley, The Big Midweek: Life Inside the Fall

CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound: Craig Tilmouth, Antonia Gauci
• Arts editor; Sarah L'Estrange

A Bookshelf festival special featuring Kate Evans onstage with writers Jock Serong and Emily Maguire on historical fiction, from the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival.

GUESTS

• Emily Maguire is a novelist and essayist whose books include An Isolated Incident and Love Objects, and her latest, Rapture
• Jock Serong is a novelist and lawyer, whose books include The Rules of Backyard Cricket, On the Java Ridge, the Preservation series, The Settlement, and his latest, Cherrywood

CREDITS

• Presenter/producer, Kate Evans
• Sound engineer, Roi Huberman
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Statues come alive and London is re-imagined in Francis Spufford's Nonesuch, and surprising parallels in two Australian novels of secrets, shame, land and time in M L Stedman's A Far-Flung Life and Eva Hornung's The Minstrels. Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh, Michael Robotham and Roanna Gonsalves - to help you decide what to read next.

BOOKS

Francis Spufford, Nonesuch, Faber

Eva Hornung, The Minstrels, Text

M L Stedman, A Far-Flung Life, Penguin

GUESTS

Michael Robotham, internationally acclaimed crime writer – whose books include the Joe O’Loughlin series, the Cyrus Haven/ Evie Cormac series, and his latest – featuring Philomena MCcCarthy, The White Crow. His first Australian-based novel is out later this year

Roanna Gonsalves, writer whose collection of short stories is The Permanent Resident, and whose first novel (The Servants) will be published later this year. She is also one of the hosts of a monthly book club at the State Library of NSW

Other books mentioned:

Phillippa McGuiness and Richard Neville (eds) The Library that Made Me (you can write your own stories about libraries that have shaped you right here)

Anita Heiss, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams 

Emily St John Mandel, Station Eleven

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Rashida Murphy’s Old Ghosts  and Karleah Olson’s Bloodwood (forthcoming)

Michelle de Kretser, The Hamilton Case

Natasha Brown, Assembly, Universality

Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore

Don Winslow, The Power of the Dog, The Death and Life of Bobby Z,  The Final Score [stories]

• Presenters: Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer: Kate Evans
• Sound engineers: Timothy Jenkins
• Arts Editor: Rhiannon Brown

In this episode, we travel from the Swiss Alps to the quiet strangeness of Danish suburbia and the fierce edges of American literary drama. We begin with the visceral intensity of Gabriel Tallent’s latest novel, Crux, where characters cling to passion and survival with bloodied fingertips. Claire Thomas reflects on art, ambition, and the lure of towering peaks in On Not Climbing Mountains, and Helle Helle's They, a delicately surreal portrait of mothers, daughters, and the lives lived between silences. 

BOOKS 

• Gabriel Tallent, Crux, Fig Tree 
• Claire Thomas, On Not Climbing Mountains, Hachette 
• Helle Helle, They, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, Giramondo 

GUESTS

• Hannah Kent, novelist, scriptwriter, and memoirist, whose books include Burial Rites, The Good People, Devotion, and Always Home Always Homesick 
• Tom Wright, theatre writer and adaptor; Artistic Associate at Belvoir Theatre in Sydney 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Olga Tocarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
• Rachel Cusk, works
• W.G. Sebald, works
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
• Henry James, works
• Rainer Maria Rilke, works
• James Baldwin, works
• Katherine Mansfield, works
• Leo Tolstoy, works
• Teju Cole, works
• Muriel Sparks, works
• Johanna Spyri, Heidi
• Blaise Cendrars, works
• Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow
• Harry Matthews, Sleuth
• John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent 
• Harry Mathews, Tlooth 
• Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume
• Catherine Lacey, The Möbius Book

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Micky Grossman and Roi Huberman
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Emerald Fennell's film adaptation of Wuthering Heights has been marketed as "the greatest love story ever told", which is not typically the description given to the original novel. What does this adaptation achieve, and what does it sacrifice in the process?

The Bookshelf's Kate Evans and Radio National's Arts Hour's Sky Kirkham discuss what they felt did and didn't work in this film and, in an expanded podcast extra edition, they also discussed the film adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet

Kate and Cassie read Kin, the latest novel from Tayari Jones — the acclaimed American novelist behind An American Marriage, a book that resonated with both critics and readers alike. Her work sits alongside a bold mix of stories in this episode, from a vampiric love story to speed‑dating slasher fiction, and South African writer Nadia Davids adds her own unsettling brilliance, taking us into the life of a furious yet outwardly obedient domestic servant in a mysterious house on a hill in Cape Fever.

BOOKS

• Tayari Jones, Kin, Penguin
• Nadia Davids, Cape Fever, Scribner
• Shailee Thompson, How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates, Atria Books
• Pip Knight, Aubrey Wants to Die, Harper Collins  

GUESTS

• Tony Birch, poet and novelist; Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at Melbourne University
• Beejay Silcox, writer and critic

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• David Peace, The Red Riding Quartet; Twilight series
• Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
• Dan Jennings, Dancing Through the Fire
• Rebecca Perry, May We Feed the King
• Maylis de Kerangal, Painting Time

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Harvey O'Sullivan and Simon Branthwaite
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Join Kate and Cassie as they explore new fiction alongside guests: musician Tim Rogers (You Am I) and novelist Madeleine Gray (Green Dot, Chosen Family). Three American novels, each tackling big ideas in very different ways - from the political absurdity and humour of Jess Walter’s So Far Gone, to the mockumentary-style tensions of Patmeena Sabit’s Good People, to the darkly comic moral maze of Jonathan Miles’ Eradication.

BOOKS

• Jess Walter, So Far Gone, Harper
• Jonathan Miles, Eradication, Riverrun
• Patmeena Sabit, Good People, Virago

GUESTS

• Tim Rogers, singer-songwriter and actor. Frontman of You Am I.
• Madeleine Gray, novelist whose books are Green Dot and Chosen Family

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Larry McMurtry, works
• Bertie Blackman, Bohemian Negligence
• Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts
• Nussaibah Younis, Fundamentally
• Niamh Campbell, Make Strange
• Ellena Savage, The Ruiners; Blueberries
• Alexandra Vasti, Ladies in Hating
• Katherine Mansfield, works
• Ian Penman, Three Piece Suite
• Zadie Smith, The Fraud
• Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Antonia Gauci and Harvey O'Sullivan
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown 

Madeline Cash’s buzzy debut Lost Lambs pairs an off‑kilter storytelling sensibility with a sharp exploration of displacement and identity. George Saunders returns with Vigil, offering his moral curiosity in a novel that probes what it means to pay attention to the world. George Kemp’s Soft Serve delivers a charming and quietly affecting debut about growing up in a small town; and Steven Carroll’s The Afterlife of Harry Playford continues his investigations of history and memory.

BOOKS

Madeline Cash, Lost Lambs, Doubleday

George Saunders, Vigil, Bloomsbury

George Kemp, Soft Serve, UQP

Steven Carroll, The Afterlife of Harry Playford, Fourth Estate

GUESTS

• Michael Robotham is an international crime writer and former journalist whose books include The Secrets She Keeps, Good Girl Bad Girl, and his latest, White Crow. His next novel — his first to be set in Australia — will be published in October.
• Roanna Gonsalves is a writer and teacher of creative writing whose short‑story collection The Permanent Resident won wide acclaim. Her novel The Servants will be published later this year.

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Kurt Vonnegut, works
• Joseph Heller, works
• Thomas Pynchon, works
• Jonathan Franzen, works
• Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
• DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
• Shaun Prescott, The Town
• Stephen King, works
• Liz Nugent, The Truth About Ruby Cooper
• Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
• Deborah Adelaide, When I Am Sixty-Four
• Tim Ayliffe, Dark Desert Road
• Katie Kitamura, Audition

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Roi Huberman
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Kate and Cassie read award-winning Australian author Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s bold new novel Bugger, while reviewers Hannah Kent and Tom Wright take on Jennette McCurdy’s provocative new book Half His Age — from the former child actor whose memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died shook readers worldwide — and Nina McConigley’s How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder...does it live up to the name?

BOOKS 

• Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Bugger, Hachette 
• Jennette McCurdy, Half His Age, Fourth Estate 
• Nina McConigley, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder, Fleet 

GUESTS 

• Hannah Kent, novelist, screenwriter, and memoirist, whose books include Burial Rites, The Good People, Devotion, and Always Home, Always Homesick 
• Tom Wright, Artistic Associate at Belvoir St.Theatre 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Jim Butcher, Twelve Months: The Dresden Files 
• Sita Walker, In a Common Hour 
• Jonas Jonasson, The Distinctly Competent District Councillor  
• Catherine Newman, Wreck 
• India-Rose Bower, We Call Them Witches 
• Amie Kaufman, Red Star Rebels 
• Yxavel Magno Diňo, The Firefly Crown 
• Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
• Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
• Olga Ravn, The Wax Child 
• Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
• Travis Baldree, Brigands and Breadknives 
• Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Micky Grossman and Ann Marie Debettencor
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Kate and Cassie are back for a big year of books, beginning with Booker-Prize winner Julian Barnes' Departures, a novel about looking back, facing the future, and coming to the end of life. Plus, regular reviewers Tony Birch and Beejay Silcox join us for discussions on This, My Second Life by British novelist Patrick Charnley, and Iluka, by Australian author Cassie Stroud.

BOOKS

• Julian Barnes, Departure(s), Jonathan Cape
• Cassie Stroud, Iluka, HQ Books
• Patrick Charnley, This, My Second Life, Hutchinson Heinemann

GUESTS

• Tony Birch, poet, novelist and short story writer whose books include Dark as Last Night, Shadow Boxing, Women and Children and The White Girl. His latest is Pictures of You. He is also a Professor of Australian literature at the University of Melbourne
• Beejay Silcox, critic, writer and regular interviewer at writers festivals.

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Lily King, Heart the Lover
• Anne Enright, Attention
• Melissa Lucashenko, Not Quite White in the Head
• Bryan Washington, Palaver; Family Meal
• Souvankham Thammavongsa, Pick the Colour
• Charlotte Wood, The Weekend
• Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
• Jonathan Tropper, And Then We Came To the End
• Maggie Shipstead, Seating Arrangements
• Emily O'Grady, Feast
• Hayle Felicity, Our Brother Nick and the Tolling Bell
• Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton
• Joe Hill, King Sorrow
• Haldor Laxness, Independent People
• Dani Netherclift The Shape of Absent Bodies
• George Eliot, Middlemarch
• Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
• Eric Puchner, Dream State

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Roi Hubermann and Ann Marie Debettencor
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown 

Novelist and memoirist Maggie O'Farrell in conversation with Kate Evans at the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival. Her nine novels include After You'd Gone, the Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, This Must be the Place, Hamnet and the Marriage Portrait . . . and her extraordinary memoir is I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death.

Kate and Cassie on stage at the 2025 Brisbane Writers Festival with authors Eric Puchner, Toni Jordan, Patrick Holland, and Zeynab Gamieldien, discussing their most recent novels and the books and writers who inspire them. This discussion was recorded in front of a live audience, just ahead of our Top 100 Books of the Century.

It was first broadcast on Friday 17 October 2025

GUESTS

Eric Puchner, novelist, academic, and short story writer, whose books include the collections Last Day on Earth and Music Through the Floor, and the novels Model Home and (his latest) Dream State

Toni Jordan, a writer whose novels include Nine Days, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts, Prettier If She Smiles More, Dinner with the Schnabels . . . and her latest, Tenderfoot

Patrick Holland is a writer and academic, and author of eight books, including the novel The Mary Smokes Boys and — his latest — Oblivion. He lives between Hong Kong and Brisbane

Zeynab Gamieldien is a writer whose first novel, The Scope of Permissibility, won the inaugural WestWords/Ultimo Prize (for emerging writers from Western Sydney); and her second novel, Learned Behaviours, has just been published

BOOKS MENTIONED BY ERIC PUCHNER

•    James Salter, Light Years

•    Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

•    Joy Williams, works

•    Willa Cather, My Ántonia

•    Jhumpa Lahiri, A Temporary Matter

•    Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

•    Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

•    César Aira, An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

BOOKS MENTIONED BY TONI JORDAN

•    Craig Silvey, Jasper Jones

•    Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe

•    Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

•    Zadie Smith, White Teeth

•    Alexis Wright, Carpentaria

•    Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet

•    Richard Ford, Canada

BOOKS MENTIONED BY PATRICK HOLLAND

•    Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

•    Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

•    Ernest Hemingway, 88 Poems

•    Leah Swann, Bearings

•    Felix Calvino, works

•    Brian Castro, works

•    Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse

•    Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian; All the Pretty Horses

•    Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji

BOOKS MENTIONED BY ZEYNAB GAMIELDIEN

•    Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

•    Tara June Winch, The Yield

•    Hisham Matar, The Return; My Friends

•    Anne Enright, The Gathering

•    Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn; Long Island

•    Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

•    Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

OTHER BOOKS AND WRITERS MENTIONED

•    J.G. Ballard, works

•    Graham Greene, The Quiet American

•    David Malouf, works

•    Patrick White, works

•    Curtis Sittenfeld, Show Don't Tell

•    David Mitchell, works

CREDITS

•    Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh

•    Producer, Kate Evans + Sarah Corbett

•    Sound engineer, Steve Fieldhouse + Harvey O'Sullivan

•    Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

The Bookshelf's Kate Evans and the Book Show's Claire Nichols joined forces onstage at the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival — with a panel of international writers — to talk favourite and influential books from the 21st century, in the lead up to the inaugural Top 100 Books countdown of the twenty-first century. This live broadcast happened in May 2025 — with Emirati poet Afra Atiq, English chronicler of gay lives, Alan Hollinghurst, Argentinian purveyor of all things dark and surprising, Mariana Enriquez, and New Zealand novelist with a dystopian edge, Catherine Chidgey.

This discussion was first broadcast live on Friday 23 May 2025

BOOKS MENTIONED in this program

ALAN HOLLINGHURST

Alice Munro, Runaway

David Szalay, All That Man Is

Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang

Bryan Washington, Lot

Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These; Foster

MARIANA ENRIQUEZ

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Dennis Cooper, The Sluts

Jorge Luis Borges, works

Horacio Castellanos Moya, Senselessness

CATHERINE CHIDGEY

Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

John D'Agata and Jim Fingal, The Lifespan of a Fact

Melissa Lucashenko, Edenglassie

Anna Smaill, The Chime

OTHERS

Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

Kate Grenville, The Secret River

Sarah Winman, Still Life

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Melissa Lucashenko, Too Much Lip

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

Trent Dalton, Lola in the Mirror

Robbie Arnott, Limberlost

Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonder

Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

CREDITS

•    Presenter: Kate Evans, Claire Nichols

•    Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett

•    Sound engineer: Emrys Cronin, Hamish Camilleri, Harvey O'Sullivan

•    Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Why aren't you reading more poetry? Perhaps you don't know where to begin — in which case, listen here, for a guide.

Join Kate Evans, as she is joined by acclaimed author and poet Maxine Beneba Clarke, Stella Prize-winning poet and academic Sarah Holland-Batt, much-loved broadcaster and author Daniel Browning, and best-selling author and journalist Julia Baird to discuss and read some of the poems that have shone brightest for each of them this century, as well as how the art-form has evolved.

This event was presented at the State Library of NSW in partnership with Red Room Poetry.

This event was first broadcast on 3 October 2025

POETS AND POETRY MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

•    Warsan Shire, Home

•    Adam Zagajewski, Try to Praise the Mutilated World

•    Graeme Dixon, Six Feet of Land Rights

•    Gwen Harwood, In the Park

•    Anonymous Rose, Broken World

•    Zora Howard and Joshya Bennett, Still Life with Police Sirens

•    Ali Cobby Eckermann, works

•    Simon Armitage, The Shout

•    Evelyn Araluen, decolonial poetics (avant gubba)

•    Candy Royale, works

•    Max Porter, works

CREDITS

Presenter, Kate Evans

Producer, Kate Evans, Lisa Needham

Sound engineer, Ann Marie Debettencor + Harvey O'Sullivan

Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Colm Tóibín onstage at the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival with The Bookshelf's Kate Evans — on fiction, fridges, rain, hinges, melodrama, reading, and why he can't write American dialogue so every character he writes has to be Irish (except, of course, when they're Thomas Mann and family). This is a conversation that begins in his hometown of Enniscorthy, site of his novels Nora Webster, The Blackwater Lightship, Brooklyn and Long Island — and the site of his memories and overheard conversations — and moves on to his bookshelves, writing, and the story of a tongue. Really.

In the year of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, this lively and thought-provoking discussion explores her life, legacy, and literary brilliance — her novels are charming, sure, but also radical, political, witty, and entertaining.

Presented in partnership with the State Library of NSW, this event brings together Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh from The Bookshelf, with Scott Stephens from Radio National's The Minefield, and Sophie Gee, English Professor at Princeton, Vice-Chancellor's Fellow in the humanities at the University of Sydney, and co-host of the Secret Life of Books podcast, for a conversation that delves into Austen’s sharp observations on friendship, ambition, money, love, power, and equality.

This program was first broadcast on 12 September 2025

CREDITS

• Panellists: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh, Scott Stephens, Sophie Gee
• Producer: Kate Evans, Amanda Roberts
• Sound engineer: John Jacobs
• Editors: Muditha Dias, Rhiannon Brown

It's Christmas, 1962, and a baby is born . . . and left behind, in Ireland. This all takes place in the fictional town of Faha, a place created by write Niall Williams in his novels History of the Rain, This is Happiness and (his latest, and the one featuring said baby) Time of the Child.

Niall Williams spoke to The Bookshelf's Kate Evans onstage at the 2025 Adelaide Writers Week.

(A longer version of this discussion was broadcast on Friday 18 April 2025. You can listen to it here:

The Bookshelf Easter Special: Irish writer Niall Williams — ABC listen

Presenter/ Producer: Kate Evans

Sound engineer: Harvey O'Sullivan

Arts Editor: Rhiannon Brown

Whodunnit, whydunit, and where in time was all of it done — in an historical crime fiction special for our Summer Bookshelf. Kate Evans, onstage at the 2025 BAD Sydney Crime Festival, with novelists Nilima Rao (the story of an Indian police officer in Fiji in the 1910s), Michael Burge (religious communities and Jenolan caves in the 1850s), and Lainie Anderson (women policing Adelaide in the 1910s).

This discussion was recorded at the site of one of Australia's oldest lending libraries — the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts.

BOOKS

Nilima Rao, A Shipwreck in Fiji, Echo Publishing

Michael Burge, The Watchnight, Histria

Lainie Anderson, Murder on North Terrace, Hachette

GUESTS

Nilima Rao, creator of the Akal Singh series set in Fiji — whose latest, and second in the series, is A Shipwreck in Fiji

Michael Burge, journalist and novelist whose books include Tank Water and Dirt Trap — and his latest, The Watchnight

Lainie Anderson, also a journalist and novelist, and creator of the Kate Cocks series of novels set in Adelaide — the second of which is Murder on North Terrace. She has also written a PhD on the real historical figure of Kate Cocks

Presenter/ Producer: Kate Evans

Sound engineers: Timothy Jenkins, Harvey O'Sullivan

Arts Editor: Rhiannon Brown

Trent Dalton (Gravity Let Me Go, Boy Swallows Universe), Heather Rose (A Great Act of Love, Bruny) and Garry Disher (the Peninsula Crimes and Hirsch series) name some of their favourite books, and the titles may delight and surprise you. Hosted by Kate and Cassie as part of this year's Canberra Writers' Festival.

TRENT DALTON'S PICKS

• Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders
• Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole
• John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath

HEATHER ROSE'S PICKS

• Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker
• Virginia Woolf, Orlando
• Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History; Illywhacker
• Haruki Murakami, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
• William Faulkner, Light in August
• John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
• Toni Morrison, Beloved
• David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
• George Eliot, Middlemarch

GARRY DISHER'S PICKS

• Russell Braddon, The Naked Island
• Nicolas Monsarrat, The Cruel Sea
• Raymond Carver, works
• Richard Ford, works
• Evan Connell, Mrs Bridge
• Colm Toibin, Brooklyn
• Alice Munro, works
• Ron Rash, works
• Cormac McCarthy, Child of God
• Helen Garner, The Children's Bach
• Kingsley Amis, works
• Claire Keegan, works
• John Sandford, works
• Michael Connelly, works
• Ian Rankin, works

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Stephen King, The Life of Chuck
• Hannah Kent, Devotion
• James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Dorothy Dunnett, Lymond Chronicles
• Richard Stark, Parker series
• Donald E. Westlake, Dortmunder series
• Lloyd Jones, Mr Pip

The best books of 2025 as selected by Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests - Jason Steger, Jon Page and Robert Goodman. Keep scrolling for a full list...

GUESTS 

• Jason Steger, arts journalist. Former book editor of the Age & SMH, and panellist on ABC TV’s Book Club 
• Jon Page, long time bookseller with Pages and Pages bookshop, former General Manager of Dymocks Sydney – and now, book-buyer for W.H. Smith 
• Robert Goodman, reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction; regularly reviews for the Newtown Review of Books. His website is pilebythebed.com 

Jason Steger's Picks

On-air:

• Flesh by David Szalay
• You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
• Long Island by Colm Tóibín
• My Father Bryce by Adam Courtenay
• Runt and the Diabolical Dognapping by Craig Silvey

Extras:

• My Sister and Other Lovers by Esther Freud

Jon Page's Picks

On-air:

• Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
• Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• I Want Everything by Dominic Amarena
• One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Extras:

• A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan
• The Body Next Door by Zane Lovitt
• The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
• The Rose Field [Book of Dust, Vol. 3] by Philip Pullman
• The Names by Florence Knapp

Robert Goodman's Picks

On-air:

• Salvage by Jennifer Mills
• Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow
• We Do Not Part by Han Kang
• Eden by Mark Brandi
• King Sorrow by Joe Hill
• Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Extras:

• The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia
• Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
• Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
• Lion Hearts by Dan Jones
• Rapture by Emily Maguire
• Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
• The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer
• The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd Robinson
• Hotel Ukraine by Martin Cruz Smith
• The Hollow Girl by Lynn Yeowart
• The White Crow by Michael Robotham
• Stillwater by Tanya Scott
• The Reunion by Bronwyn Rivers
• The Peak by Sam Guthrie
• The Seventh Floor by David McClosky
• Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma

Cassie McCullagh's Picks

On-air:

• Dream State by Eric Puchner
• Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• The Transformations by Andrew Pippos
• Arborescence by Rhett Davis
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
• On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle

Extras:

• The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
• Dancing in the Lift by Mandy Sayer

Kate Evans' Picks

On-air:

• Mother Mary Come to Me by Arundhati Roy
• Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent
• Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
• The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
• The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje
• Twist by Colum McCann
• Landfall by James Bradley
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• Fierceland by Omar Musa
• Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray

Extras:

• On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle
• We Do Not Part by Han Kang
• The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
• Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• I Want Everything by Dominic Amarena

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Tegan Nicholls
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Superstars of the literary and musical world this week: Margaret Atwood’s new memoir; Hannah Kent’s critical readings; Stuart Coupe’s musical knowledge; Bob Dylan . . . OK, well he’s not exactly on the show, but he’s the subject of MUCH literary speculation in a buzzy new release by New Yorker Sam Sussman. Also – the voice of the wind howls, laughs and taunts its subjects, in an inventive piece of writing from Sarah Hall.

BOOKS 

• Sam Sussman, Boy from the North Country, Grove Press 
• Sarah Hall, Helm, Faber 
• Margaret Atwood, Books of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, Chatto & Windus 

GUESTS 

• Hannah Kent, novelist and memoirist whose books include Burial Rites, The Good People, Devotion and – most recently - Always Home, Always Homesick: A Love Letter to Iceland

• Stuart Coupe, music writer and promoter whose books include Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock’n’ Roll; Shake Some Action: My Life In Music, (and Other Stuff); and – most recently – Saffron Incorporated: The First King Of King Of The Cross And Fifty Years Of Sex, Murder, Music And Mayhem 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman, Niko Stratis
• Harley Loco, Rayya Elias
• Happy Doll series, Jonathan Ames
• All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert
• The History of Sound, Ben Shattuck
• Linea Maja Ernst, Waist Deep (translated by Sherilyn Hellberg)
• Deborah Levy, Hot Milk
• Heart the Lover, Lily King
• Bread of Angels, Patti Smith

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Roi Hubermann and Harvey O'Sullivan
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown