The Bookshelf
Episodes
Underclass, underground, undone: New Australian fiction from Fiona Kelly McGregor, Shaun Prescott and Yumna Kassab
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Walking the streets and exploring the shadows in 1930s Australia, in Fiona Kelly McGregor's Iris; lost towns and lost souls in Shaun Prescott's Bon a...
Blazing stories: new fiction from Gail Jones, Alex Miller and Luke Carman
11 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Witnessing a great and terrible event in Gail Jones' Salonika Burning; a life up-ended and re-worked in Alex Miller's A Brief Affair; and careful obs...
The Book Club: Reading Kamila Shamsie
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring the novels of Pakistani and English writer Kamala Shamsie with Maryam Azam and Sonia Nair, with a particular focus on Best of Friends a...
New fiction from Cormac McCarthy, Fiona McFarlane and Cole Haddon
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A brother and sister walk uneasy paths, and plumb both literal and hallucinatory depths in Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger; worlds and characters exp...
George Saunders, Barbara Kingsolver, John Irving: an American Bookshelf
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An all-American edition of the bookshelf, with new fiction from George Saunders, Barbara Kingsolver and John Irving. Both Charles Dickens and Herman ...
Sisters at breaking point, a grizzly bear on the run and living with 100 ex-boyfriends
14 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Two wildly different sisters are trying to work out how to live and who to love during a sweaty Sydney summer in Diana Reid's hotly anticipated new n...
A whale gone mad, fierce Irish love and a Māori detective
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
in this episode Jonathan Green joins Cassie McCullagh to talk about three hard hitting new works of fiction from Robbie Arnott, Donal Ryan and Michae...
The Book Club: The ouevre of Ian McEwan
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this edition of RN's monthly Book Club, we look at Ian McEwan's extraordinary body of work, paying particular attention to his new novel Lessons,...
Pod extra: Hilary Mantel, the Booker prize-winning author of the Wolf Hall trilogy has died
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
English writer Hilary Mantel has sadly died, aged 70. The Booker prize winning author spoke to Kate Evans for the Big Weekend of Books in 2020.
Siblings, revelry and fear: Peggy Frew, Kate Atkinson and Adrian McKinty
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Three sisters, locked in their lifelong roles, on a roadtrip, in Peggy Frew's Wildflowers; a London underworld full of betrayal and promise, in Kate ...
Drugs, gangs, racism and reputation: three new works of fiction
16 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Tracey Lien's All That's Left Unsaid, Diane Connell's The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird and Clarissa Goenawan's Watersong – Kate Evans and ...
A Renaissance wedding, a Mediaeval war and the ghosts of Modernism: three new novels
09 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kate and Cassie with three new novels: grappling with modernism and creativity in Sophie Cunningham's This Devastating Fever; a young woman caged by ...
The Book Club: Is crime fiction a literature of resistance? (plus a guide to Korean lit)
02 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
RN's Book Club in a different format to usual: a panel discussion plus a quick reading guide. The big question: Is crime fiction a literature of resi...
Three monks in a boat, the last white man, and wild wild women
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A story of three men trying to create a new world, on a craggy island in seventh-century Ireland, in Emma Donoghue's Haven; anxieties about race and ...
Joan of Arc re-imagined, dystopian coastlines and trees in the Oz literary imagination
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joan of Arc as a capable, scrappy young woman; unmoored on a strange coastline; and trees in both crime fiction and the Australian literary imaginary...
A champion pedestrianist, an island haunted by grief and running into all your exes
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Robert Drewe's Nimblefoot, Eliza Henry-Jones' Salt and Skin and Sloane Crosley's Cult Classic with critic and literary judge Susan Wyndham an...
Big Weekend of Books at the State Library of NSW: writers special
07 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Writers Hayley Scrivenor, Michael Brissenden and Yumna Kassab join Kate and Cassie onstage to talk libraries, stories, trauma, failure, children, Aus...
Reviewing the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner and shortlist
30 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reviewing the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner, Jennifer Down's Bodies of Light, and shortlist with theatre writer Tom Wright and literary c...
An urn full of memories, an everlasting lightbulb and what to read next: Chris Womersley's The Diplomat and Anjali Joseph's Keeping in Touch
23 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Chris Womersley's The Diplomat and Anjali Joseph's Keeping in Touch plus a guide to Sri Lankan fiction from Smriti Daniel and what's coming o...
Paul Daley's Jesustown, A G Slatter's The Path of Thorns, and a guide to books for kids
16 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Contact history and its 'saviour' mythologies turned upside down in Paul Daley's Jesustown; inside-out fairytales and an invented gothic world in A G...
Dystopias, ship's monsters and trees: Claire G Coleman, Jokha Alharthi, Jess Kidd and Jane Rawson
09 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Australian dystopias, historical shipwrecks and women's lives in Oman: reading Claire G Coleman's Enclave, Jokha Alharthi's Bitter Orange Tree and Je...
The Book Club: Celebrating Australian literature for the ABC's 90th
02 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Alexis Wright's Carpentaria and Patrick White's The Vivisector with critic Geordie Williamson - and with words from the writers themselves, a...
Frank Moorhouse from the ABC Archives: podcast special
27 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Vale Frank Moorhouse, journalist, essayist, shortstory writer and novelist. Remembering the writer with his friend, Angelo Loukakis, and with archiva...
A Métis family tree and a Sydney Leprosarium: Katherena Vermette's The Strangers and Eleanor Limprecht's The Coast
25 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A tough and poetic family story of the Métis (Michif) people of Canada in Katherena Vermette's The Strangers; and exclusion and compassion in Austra...
Abomination, modernism and crime: new fiction from Ashley Goldberg, Michelle Cahill and Matthew Spencer
18 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Three books by Australian authors: crime in Sydney in Matthew Spencer's Black River; rewriting a sidelined character from a classic of modernism, in ...
Racecourses, race, sex work and exile: new fiction from Geraldine Brooks, Leila Mottley and Zaheda Ghani
11 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Geraldine Brooks' Horse, Leila Mottley's Nightcrawling and Zaheda Ghani's Pomegranate and Fig with journalist, music writer and memoirist Maw...
The Book Club: Horses and their Riders
04 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Gillian Mears' 2011 novel Foal’s Bread and Craig Sherborne's recent release The Grass Hotel with critic and biographer Bernadette Brennan a...
Ireland, Italy, England and Oz: four bold new works of fiction
28 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Brendan Colley's The Signal Line, Louise Kennedy's Trespasses, Lauren John Joseph's At Certain Points We Touch and Jonathan Bazzi's Fever wit...
From the Sydney Writers Festival: The Joy of Re-reading
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we read and reread? And how does rereading read us? From the Sydney Writers Festival, Kate was onstage with bibliomemoirist Ruth Wilson and sc...
From the Sydney Writers Festival: with Jackie Huggins, Damon Galgut and George Haddad
21 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In front of an audience, and with plenty of book recommendations, Kate and Cassie are onstage with historian and biographer Jackie Huggins and noveli...
Making umbrellas in the afterlife: New books from Steve Toltz, Emiliano Monge and Domonique Wilson
14 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Steve Toltz's Here Goes Nothing, Emiliano Monge's What Goes Unsaid and Dominique Wilson's Orphan Rock with Lauren Chater (The Winter Dress) a...
Soap, silences and happy stories (maybe): new fiction from Paddy O'Reilly, Patrick Gale and Norman Erikson Pasaribu
07 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Paddy O’Reilly's Other Houses, Patrick Gale's Mother’s Boy and Norman Erikson Pasaribu's Happy Stories, Mostly with writers Ennis Ćehić...
The Book Club: Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad & The Candy House
30 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Jennifer Egan's 2010 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad and her newly-released The Candy House, with rock'n'roll reader Tim Rogers and novelis...
A moon colony, T S Eliot, Shakespeare and pain: new fiction from Emily St John Mandel, Steven Carroll and Mona Awad
23 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Cassie is away this week, so Kate is joined by the ABC's Tiger Webb: reading Emily St John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility, Steven Carroll's Goodnight, V...
A Glasgow teenager, a Roman emperor and a sneaky revolutionary: new books by Douglas Stuart, Julian Barnes and Charmian Clift
16 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo, Julian Barnes' Elizabeth Finch and Charmian Clift's Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected Essays with writers Nad...
A snowy Tokyo, a haunted house and a cracked swimming pool: books by Jessica Au, John Darnielle and Julie Otsuka
09 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Jessica Au's Cold Enough for Snow, John Darnielle's Devil House and Julie Otsuka's The Swimmers with novelists Anna Downes and Diana Reid.
The Book Club: reading New Zealand through Keri Hulmes' The Bone People + Lloyd Jones' The Fish
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Children, violence, landscape, and powerful and strange writing: we're talking fiction from New Zealand with the director of Wellington's Verb Writer...
Mexico, dystopian exile, and Oz suburbia: new fiction from Fernanda Melchor, Toni Jordan and Tom Watson
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor's Paradais, Australian Toni Jordan's Dinner with the Schnabels and English debut novelist Tom Watson's Metron...
Iceland, Nebraska and the Sunshine Coast: new fiction from Robert Lukins, Kári Gíslason and Harlan Coben
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Robert Lukins' Loveland, Kári Gíslason's The Sorrow Stone and Harlan Coben's The Match with crime writer Loraine Peck (The Second Son) and ...
New fiction from Ireland and New Zealand
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Irish novel The Colony by Audrey Magee, and two New Zealand novels, Becky Manawatu's Auē and Sue Orr's Loop Tracks, with guests publisher Je...
The Book Club: Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Love Marriage
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Monica Ali's 2003 debut novel, Brick Lane and latest release, Love Marriage with guests writer Roanna Gonsalves and RN's Richard Aedy. Love, ...
New fiction from Omar Sakr, Karen Joy Fowler and Aoife Clifford
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Western Sydney, coastal Victoria and nineteenth-century America: reading Omar Sakr's Son of Sin, Karen Joy Fowler's Booth and Aoife Clifford's When W...
Reading Korean history, fierce Italian parents and a theme park of funerary futures
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go in the Dark, Juhea Kim's Beasts of a Little Land and Claudia Durastanti, Strangers I Know with guests Meli...
Reading our way to islands, monsters, balloons, snowscapes, heroes and more
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Emily Brugman's The Islands, Vanessa Len's Only a Monster and Hélène Gaudy's A World With No Shore (translated by Stephanie Smee) with writ...
The Book Club: Rebecca and Rebecca
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel, Rebecca, and Graeme Macrae Burnet's Case Study (which includes a character in the mid 1960s who takes on a Re...
Reading Hanya Yanagihara, Gary Shteyngart and Nikki May
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Hanya Yanigahara's To Paradise, Gary Shteyngart's Our Country Friends and Nikki May's Wahala with novelist and critic Jessie Tu and poet and ...
Pip Williams and The Dictionary of Lost Words
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A special edition of The Bookshelf, with writer Pip Williams speaking to Kate about her career, research, year in Italy, and interest in the history ...
Summer Reads: Hannah Kent, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Sunjeev Sahota and Aravind Adiga
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kate and Cassie read Hannah Kent's Devotion; RN's Daniel Browning reads Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water; novelist Rashida Murphy reads Sunjeev Sahot...
The Bookshelf that Made Me: Siri Hustvedt & Jennifer Mills
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reading, writers, family, art and mentors in Siri Hustvedt's essay collection, Mothers, Fathers and Others; and dissipating ghosts, cities and storie...
Summer Reads: Patricia Lockwood, Ann Patchett, Simon Winchester, Suyi Davies Okungbowa and Jay Kristoff
14 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kate and Cassie read Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This; Eugen Bacon on Suyi Davies Okungbowa's Son of the Storm; a story from Ann Patc...
The Bookshelf that Made Me: Tilly Lawless & Jon McGregor
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tilly Lawless on her debut novel Nothing but My Body, and her reading inspiration; and Jon McGregor on aphasia and Antarctica, in his Lean Fall Stand...
Summer Reads: James Ellroy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Guillermo Martinez and Charlotte McConaghy
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kate and Cassie on James Ellroy's Widespread Panic; Debra Oswald on Jhumpa Lahiri's Whereabouts; Robert Gott on Guillermo Martinez' The Oxford Brothe...
The Bookshelf that Made Me: R W R Mcdonald & Jacqueline Bublitz
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Crime writers R W R McDonald (The Nancys, Nancy Business) and Jacqueline Bublitz (Before you Knew My Name) on the books that they are writing against...
Summer Reading: a wild party, Beowulf, and Gillian Mears
31 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Biographer Bernadette Brennan on why we should read and know Australian writer Gillian Mears; music writer Mark Mordue on Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Mal...
The Bookshelf that Made Me: Colm Tóibín and Emily Gale
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A fictional biography of German Nobel Prize winning writer Thomas Manne (and his extraordinary family) by Irish writer Colm Tóibín, with The Magici...
Summer Reading: Jane Austen, Joan Silber, Kevin Barry and Elizabeth Strout
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A new interview with Elizabeth Strout about Oh, William! and the Bookshelf that Made Her; and favourite review discussions from the year about Jane A...
The Bookshelf That Made Me: Sarah Winman and Nick Earls
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writers and their bookshelves. Sarah Winman's Still Life moves between England and Florence, while Nick Earls' Empires travels from Brisbane to Alask...
The Bookshelf That Made Me: Ken Follett, Rose Tremain, Amie Kaufman & Jaclyn Moriarty
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What are the books that have shaped these writers and (in particular) their latest works? Ken Follett, Rose Tremaine, Amie Kaufman & Jaclyn Mori...
Best Reads 2021 Part 2: General Adult Fiction
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading recommendations from writer and critic Beejay Silcox, crime writer Christian White and memoirist Lech Blaine. What are the books they have es...
Claudia Karvan and the Books that Made Us: Pod Extra
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Actor Claudia Karvan speaks to Kate Evans about her reading life and the Books That Made Us
The Book Club: John Hughes' The Dogs + Kate Grenville's The Secret River
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading John Hughes' The Dogs and Kate Grenville's The Secret River with historian David Hunt and writer and philosopher Michael McGirr
Classic Australian Novels - Alexis Wright's Carpentaria
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Classic Australian Novels. A collection of interviews from the ABC Archives with Australian authors about their most significant work. In...
Classic Australian Novels - Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Classic Australian Novels. A collection of interviews from the ABC Archives with Australian authors about their most significant work. In...
Classic Australian Novels - Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Classic Australian Novels. A collection of interviews from the ABC Archives with Australian authors about their most significant work. Wi...
Classic Australian Novels - Michelle de Kretser's Questions of Travel
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Classic Australian Novels. A collection of interviews from the ABC Archives with Australian authors about their most significant work. Th...
Classic Australian Novels - Helen Garner's Monkey Grip
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Classic Australian Novels. A collection of interviews from the ABC Archives with Australian authors about their most significant work. Mo...
Classic Australian Novels - Kim Scott's That Deadman Dance
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Classic Australian Novels. A collection of interviews from the ABC Archives with Australian authors about their most significant work. Th...
Classic Australian Novels - Kate Grenville's The Secret River
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Classic Australian Novels. A collection of interviews from the ABC Archives with Australian authors about their most significant work. Ka...
Best Reads 2021 Part 1: Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading recommendations from writers Emily Gale and Tristan Bancks (both of whom write for both teens and younger readers); and the Books That Made U...
On Christos Tsiolkas' 7 ½, Vietnamese smoky ghosts & a helluva book
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On Christos Tsiolkas' 7 ½: A Novel, Violet Kupersmith's Build your House Around my Body and Jason Mott's Hell of a Book with comedian and writer Mat...
Behemoths, Novellas and Essays: reading recommendations
12 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Polish Nobel Prize winning author Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacob and Marisa Fazio's novella Piazza Garibaldi with writers Amanda Lohrey ...
The Book Club: Amor Towles' The Lincoln Highway + Cormac McCarthy's The Road
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Join us for a road trip book club, with actor and director Jeremy Sims and novelist and academic Intan Paramaditha. Travel on foot, in a car, on a tr...
Adam Liaw and Hannah Kent: Star Reviewers #4
29 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Michelle de Kretser's Scary Monsters, Richard Powers' Bewilderment and Jay Kristoff's Empire of the Vampire with guest reader reviewers food ...
Geraldine Hakewill and Graeme Simsion: Star Reviewers #3
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Hannah Kent's much-anticipated new novel, Devotion, Katie Kitamura's Intimacies and Mary Lawson's A Town Called Solace, with guest reader rev...
Tim Rogers and Pip Williams: Star Reviewers #2
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Emily Bitto's Wild Abandon, Karl Ove Knausgaard's The Morning Star and Elizabeth Strout's Oh William! with musician Tim Rogers and novelist P...
Marta Dusseldorp and John Safran: Star Reviewers #1
08 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Jonathan Franzen's novel Crossroads and Ruth Ozeki's The Book of Form and Emptiness, with actor Marta Dusseldorp and writer and provocateur J...
The Book Club: George Eliot's Middlemarch + Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Smalltown England in the 1830s and a city within a city in the early 1960s: stories of lives and loves, dramas and small moments well told. Reading C...
Did you hear the one about the obscenity trial?
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the significance of English writer D H Lawrence and Alison MacLeod's novel, Tenderness; and reading Australian novels Bodies of Light by Jennifer ...
'Uneasy, Ambiguous and Strange': Why rewrite Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann?
17 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On Colm Tóibín's The Magician (a fictionalised life of Nobel Prize winning author, Thomas Mann), Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Velvet Was the Night and Sa...
Yes, we are reviewing Sally Rooney's new novel
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Novelist J P Pomare and memoirist Ianto Ware join Kate and Cassie, and the books discussed today are Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You, P...
The Book Club: On Memory
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why is memory such a potent theme in fiction? On Jessica Anderson's Tirra Lirra by the River and Hugh Breakey's The Beautiful Fall, with guests - nov...
How to read like an Australian writer
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to read like an Australian writer? Insights from writers Belinda Castles, Debra Adelaide and Nicholas Jose. Also, crime writer Will...
Why you should read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (and meet his feistiest character)
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Boastful, funny, clever, skilled and much maligned: meet Geoffrey Chaucer's Wife of Bath, both his fourteenth-century invention and a fresh remaking ...
Wolves, ghosts and a great flood: scary things in books
13 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Broadcaster and journalist Melanie Tait joins Kate to talk wild empathy, in Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves. There are also reviews of J...
Outraged tweeters, miniature soldiers and the flooded canals of Venice
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kate and Cassie join guests Larissa Behrendt and Tiger Webb as Irish writer John Boyne takes on the Twittersphere; Nick Earls spins a tale that takes...
The Book Club: Amanda Lohrey's The Labyrinth & the Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Books writer Nicole Abadee and theatre writer Tom Wright join Kate and Cassie to read Amanda Lohrey's The Labyrinth, winner of the 2021 Miles Frankli...
Three novels of seclusion: by Mark Brandi, Sunjeev Sahota, Patrick McGrath
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writers Rashida Murphy (The Historian's Daughter) and Michael Winkler (Grimmish) join Kate and Cassie as they read and review Mark Brandi's The Other...
The deliberately depraved and dissolute worlds of James Ellroy and Lisa Taddeo
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writers Kathryn Heyman and Aoife Clifford join Cassie and Kate as they discuss the tawdry and damaged in James Ellroy's Widespread Panic and Lisa Tad...
Podcast Extra: More Musical Mayhem with Taylor Jenkins Reid and Dawnie Walton
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Extended interviews by Kate Evans with writers Taylor Jenkins Reid (Malibu Rising and Daisy Jones and the Six) and Dawnie Walton (The Final Revival o...
The Book Club: Turn up the Music!
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Double J's Zan Rowe and music journalist and novelist Barry Divola join Kate and Cassie as they talk music in books, focusing on Dawnie Walton's The ...
Can't Travel? Here's a collection of books that will transport you
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Travel to places both real and imagined with writers Heather Rose, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Richard Fidler and Tegan Bennett Daylight, in conversation w...
A party to end all parties, a stranded whale, musical words and a train: what to read this week
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kate and Cassie are joined this week by poet and music writer Mark Mordue, singer-songwriter Darren Hanlon and Music Show colleague Andrew Ford; and ...
A shrinking lake, a circus of wonders, and a baby: novels to make you feel and think
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Novelist Meg Mason (Sorrow and Bliss) and journalist Michael Dulaney join Cassie and Kate as they discuss Briohny Doyle's Echolalia and Angelike Schr...
Reading Jane Austen from the 1940s until now (and other adventures in reading and reviewing)
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kate and Cassie are joined by reviewer Dr Ruth Wilson, whose PhD on Jane Austen and education was awarded last year, when she was 88 years old. Toget...
The Book Club: Patricia Highsmith
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Crime writer Michel Robotham and playwright Joanna Murray Smith join Kate and Cassie to discuss the work of Patricia Highsmith, high priestess of dar...
Podcast Extra: Patricia Highsmith's biographer answers your questions
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ahead of this week's RN Book Club on Patricia Highsmith, her biographer Richard Bradford answers questions from readers and members of the ABC Book C...
Reading Western Sydney, a hot country town & fantasy Africa remade
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kate and Cassie read Michael Mohammed Ahmad's The Other Half of You, Cassandra Austin's Like Mother and Suyi Davies Okungbowa's Son of the Storm with...
Ern Malley Rides Again! Writes, we meant writes
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ern Malley was the poet at the centre of Australia's most famous literary hoaxes: an invented poet, supposedly discovered by his sister, Ethel. Well,...
Podcast Extra: Reading the world in Spinoza's Overcoat
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writer and translator Subhash Jaireth tracks his life through both countries and bookshelves, from India to the (then) Soviet Union and onto Australi...
Earwax, kidnappings and an octopus god
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Krissy Kneen and podcaster Mike Williams join Cassie and Kate as they discuss Rahul Raina's How to Kidnap the Rich, Jamie Marina Lau's Gunk Ba...