The Book Show – Details, episodes & analysis

Richard Osman has followed up his bestselling crime series The Thursday Murder Club with a new series, the first instalment is We Solve Murders. Plus Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar explains how dreams are woven into his novel Martyr! and Dylin Hardcastle on their novel that began with the idea of a kiss.

Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club and its sequels are so popular that a screen adaptation is underway. Not content with this success, Richard has begun a new crime series with a book called We Solve Murders. He explains who he writes for, why he prefers to stay home and watch snooker over jet setting, and why he calls himself a writer first and foremost.

Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American poet whose debut novel Martyr! has been championed by former US President Barack Obama in his 2024 Summer Reading List. The novel follows Cyrus Shams who's in his late 20s and is struggling with addiction and sobriety and channels his existential doubts into a poetry project about martyrdom. Lisa Simpson and Rumi also make cameos in the story.

The Australian writer Dylin Hardcastle's new book is A Language of Limbs. It's set in the 1970s and it's about the parallel lives of two women: one, a young queer woman who embraces her desires and her attraction to women and another who rejects them, in the hope of a more so-called 'conventional' life. Is it a sliding-doors narrative or are they different people?

Celebrated British-Turkish author Elif Shafak follows a single drop of water through history in her novel There are Rivers in the Sky, Kaliane Bradley on her bestseller The Ministry of Time which has attracted Barack Obama's attention and Nicola Moriarty's latest domestic drama Every Last Suspect.

Elif Shafak is a British-Turkish author and activist. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World and for the Women's Prize for her novel, The Island of Missing Trees. Her new novel, There are Rivers in the Sky, is an epic in which three key stories are connected by raindrops, rivers and water. 

The Ministry of Time by British-Cambodian author Kaliane Bradley is listed on former US president Barack Obama annual summer reading list this year. It's a time travel novel in which a handful of (mostly) fictional historical characters who've been transplanted from their time period to a near future England. It's about love, refugees, bureaucracy and the doomed Franklin Arctic expedition.

The Moriarty sisters — Liane, Jaclyn and Nicola — are a powerhouse family in Australian publishing. Each sister is a successful author in their own right, including the youngest Nicola. In her latest family drama, Every Last Suspect, as a woman lies dying she decides to use her final moments to figure out who did it.

American author R.O. Kwon's novel, Exhibit, explores the taboo topic of female desire; Jenny Ackland exacts feminist revenge in Hurdy Gurdy and Jessie Tu's Honeyeater is a story of translation and miscommunication.

Korean-born, American author R.O. Kwon is not afraid of topic topics. She's behind the bestselling 2018 novel The Incendiaries and is co-editor of a story collection called Kink. Her new novel Exhibit is about two women who run deep with desire and find in each other a way to get what they want. Reese explains why this novel was such a challenge to write.

Hurdy Gurdy is the third novel by Melbourne writer Jenny Ackland whose previous novel Little Gods was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Hurdy Gurdy imagines a future Australia ravaged by climate change and poverty and follows an all-female travelling circus while a conservative preacher trails them with his warmings of fire and brimstone. Jenny shows off her writing space to The Book Show where she also records her podcast My Mum's Bad Diaries.

Continuing the theme of female desire, Jessie Tu made a splash with her debut novel A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing which centred a young woman and her various desires. Jessie's new novel The Honeyeater is about a young translator, her complicated relationship with her mum and an even more complicated relationship with a married man. Jessie shares why she was thinking about her mother while writing this book. 

Literary titan, Margaret Atwood on the death of her beloved husband, the influence of George Orwell and the pleasures of ageing. Her latest book is a collection of short stories, Old Babes in the Wood. Also, another Canadian writer Jessica Johns on her debut, Bad Cree.

American writer Sequoia Nagamatsu shares stories from his childhood growing up in Hawaii, his love of Star Trek, how environmentalism fuels his writing and how being Japanese American has shaped him. His debut novel is How High We Go in the Dark and he was a guest of the Perth Festival Writers Weekend.

 Bestselling British author Samantha Shannon celebrates women, love and desire in her latest fantasy novel, A Day of Fallen Night, Cate Kennedy takes a deep dive into the short story and Ronnie Scott on why he persisted with his second novel Shirley.

For Sydney WorldPride, we celebrate queer writers telling queer stories – the funny, the heartbreaking and the spooky. We’ve searched The Book Show archive to bring you highlights from Andrew Sean Greer, Val McDermid, Alan Hollinghurst, Jennifer Mills, S.J Norman, S.L Lim and Holden Sheppard.

A trio of books by women about bodies, ballet, grief and working mothers. Meg Howrey on They're Going to Love You, Inga Simpson on Kath O'Connor's posthumous debut novel Inheritance, and Dinuka McKenzie on the physical pain of being a breastfeeding mother returning to the police force. 

Indian writer Deepti Kapoor takes on corruption, wealth and poverty in India in her novel The Age of Vice, Michelle Johnston takes you deep in to the basement of the Perth hospital where she works and writes and American author Kevin Wilson's "book for prudish teens", Now is Not the Time to Panic.

Two very different crime fiction writers, Australian Indigenous author Julie Janson and Scottish writer Stuart MacBride imagine grisly scenarios in their books Madukka: The River Serpent and The Dead of Winter. Also Briony Stewart's re-imagining of Frente's 90s hit song Accidentally Kelly Street as a children's book.