What If, said the writer, What If?
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What books are discussed in this episode?
Hi, welcome to The Bookshelf on Radio National. I'm Kate Evans, still speaking to you from my lounge room.
And I'm Cassie McCullough, joining you from the ABC Studios with a new Fiction Week. And once a month, we're asking you to join us for a book club discussion too.
Yes.
And in the first week of June, we're getting ready to talk Australian fiction. But Cassie, some people are finding it a bit hard to get hold of Shirley Hazard's book, The Transit of Venus.
Yeah, we thought it would be easier. I got mine at a second-hand bookshop. By that, I mean I had to ask one before I found a copy. And Kate, you borrowed yours from a friend. But with so many libraries still closed, it's been hard for people to get a copy of Shirley Hazard's Transit of Venus.
But if you do have a copy, keep reading it. But what we're going to do is we're going to make another suggestion for a book that we know is much easier to find. And that's Joan London's The Golden Age.
Which is actually a brilliant choice. It's set in Western Australia in the 1950s during a polio epidemic. The Golden Age was the name of a real institution for children with polio in Western Australia, but Joan London has made a fictional story from it with children and refugees and a changing Australia.
I read it when it was first released about six years ago and look forward to reading it again. Poetic and beautiful and with the sound of a beachside industry of some kind in Perth, if I've remembered it correctly.
So Joan London's The Golden Age. Read it for the first week of June and we'll also still be talking about Shirley Hazard's Transit of Venus 2. But now on with the show.
Three new pieces of fiction here on the bookshelf, Cassie.
That's right, Curtis Sittenfeld's Rodham, an American political story, Anne Tyler's Redhead by the Side of the Road, and Irish writer Nisha Dolan's Exciting Times.
MUSIC PLAYS
We're keen to get straight into today's first novel, so we're going to bring our guests right onto the page with us, Kate.
Bookshelf regular Nicole Abadie joins us. She's a writer for The Good Weekend, a facilitator at writers' festivals whenever those events return, and she hosts the new podcast Books, Books, Books. Nicole, hello. Hello, Kate and Cassie.
Thank you so much for having me. Hi, Nicole.
Now, Books, Books, Books. What's that a reference to? Thanks so much for asking, Cassie. It's a podcast in which I interview excellent Australian and international writers about their new books. And the idea came about as the darkness descended on us and as, like all of us, I received all the emails cancelling all my speaking engagements and it occurred to me that it was a very tough time for writers who had a new book coming out and they were missing out on a lot of promotional opportunities and the idea was to give them a new platform in which to promote their books. So I've had four episodes so far and I'm really enjoying it. I hope they are as well.
Fantastic stuff.
And Simon and MacDonald is with us too. It's his first time with us here on the bookshelf. He's a bookseller and a bookstagrammer, I think. He writes regular online book reviews. Hi, Simon.
Hi, Kate. Hi, Cassie. How are you?
We're delighted to have you along. What's it like selling books right now?
Same old, same old, really, besides the fact that we're now allowing limited people into the shop. So it's six people at a time. But the one thing that's changed is that people want more books than ever before. People are leaving the bookshop with upwards of five to six, ten books at a time now because they have more time to read and spend in these fictional worlds.
So does that all even out? So you're kind of more or less where you were before, if that's the case. Fewer people in the shops, but buying more, stocking up.
Absolutely, yes, yes.
How is Joan London's The Golden Age relevant to Australian fiction?
I think it wouldn't be correct to say business is booming, but business is doing okay, is doing well.
And Simon, do people know what they want or do they ask you for advice?
I think for the most part, during these current circumstances, people are coming to the bookshop knowing precisely what they want.
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