The Bookshelf – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Bookshelf

ABC Australia

Arts

Frequency: 1 episode/6d. Total Eps: 532

What are you reading, loving or being challenged by? We review the latest in fiction for dedicated readers and for those who wish they read more.

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Data updated on 04/10/2026

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https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books
10 shares
https://tim-rogers.com.au/
5 shares
https://madeleine-gray.com/
5 shares

https://www.beejaysilcox.com/bio
2 shares
https://events.humanitix.com/addi-road-writers-festival-2025
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https://www.beejaysilcox.com/
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wright_
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Birch
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Score global : 38%

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New fiction from Barbara Kingsolver, Colm Tóibín and Ayad Akhtar

Friday, October 2, 2026 • Duration 01:01:38

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

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Ambition, Rage, Gothic Hunger: New Novels from Min Jin Lee, Louise Kennedy and Catherine Chidgey

Friday, September 25, 2026 • Duration 01:00:01

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

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Emily St. John Mandel and John Boyne alongside a Booker-longlisted debut

Friday, September 18, 2026 • Duration 01:01:23

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.

New Fiction: Donal Ryan, Emma Cline, Max Easton and Sebastian Barry

Friday, September 11, 2026 • Duration 54:37

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

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New Fiction from Melissa Harrison and Malcolm Knox + Mandy Sayer's Top 3

Friday, September 4, 2026 • Duration 54:37

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

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Top 100 Australian Books from Byron Writers Festival

Friday, August 28, 2026 • Duration 54:36

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

Anjet Daanje's extraordinary The Stork and the Dromedary + Liane Moriarty returns with Big Little Truths

Friday, August 21, 2026 • Duration 01:05:00

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

The Haunting Wild, a Trip to Mars and Dreaming of Escape in 1980's France

Friday, August 14, 2026 • Duration 54:36

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

Miles Franklin winner Omar Musa + Booker-longlisted All Them Dogs and Téa Obreht's Sunrise

Friday, August 7, 2026 • Duration 01:05:09

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.

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Meg Mason's new novel + reviews from Hannah Kent, Andy Griffiths, Tom Wright (BONUS: Anna Funder's Top 3)

Friday, July 31, 2026 • Duration 01:03:09

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.

The Bookshelf – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Bookshelf – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other96

X3

Wikipedia2

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other96

X3

Wikipedia2