The Bookshelf

Maria Dahvana Headley knows how to write - and read - monsters. And in doing both she remakes them, as she explains to Kate Evans

Fame, fate, a fair bit of love lost and serial killers in this week's edition of The Bookshelf.

Novelist Steven Carroll speaks with Kate Evans about both the books and publishing history imbedded in his novel O

Language specialist Tiger Webb joins Kate while Cassie is away this week, to discuss Blair James' Bernard and Pat, Patricia Engel's Infinite Country and Haruki Murakami's short story collection First Person Singular - with novelist Ronnie Scott and scholar Dominique Hecq

Fiona Mozley's latest novel, Hot Stew, buzzes and rumbles with history, change, gangsters and sex workers. She speaks to Kate Evans about the books that have shaped her

Reading Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Committed and Nam Le's The Boat with Dai Le and Nathalie Nguyen

English writer Francis Spufford speaks to Kate Evans about his latest novel, Light Perpetual, and the books that shaped it and him

Archaeologist Estelle Lazer and writer Patrick Carey join Kate and Cassie to read books layered with history and story. Trevor Shearston's Australian novel, The Dig and English writer Fiona Mozley's Hot Stew. Also, the bookshelf and reading recommendations of Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of Open Water

Robert Jones Jr's novel The Prophets is the story of a defiant love story enacted on a slave plantation in the American south. The author speaks to Kate Evans about the books that have shaped it and him, and those works that his writing acts to resist.

Kate and Cassie are joined by journalist Brooke Boney and academic Nicole Moore as they read Edward St Aubyn's Double Blind, Lisa Harding's Bright Burning Things and Steven Carroll's O

Daisy Buchanan is an English columnist, books podcaster and novelist. She speaks to Kate Evans about her latest novel, about reading sexy books, about writing greed and desire, and about the books that have shaped her.

Novelist Susan Johnson and journalist Avani Dias join Cassie and Kate as they read Ella Baxter's New Animal and Francis Spufford's Light Perpetual; and Artistic Director of the Sydney Writers' Festival, Michael Williams, explains Debutante Balls and the program of the (forthcoming) Sydney Writers' Festival

Max Porter answers readers' questions about his latest book, The Death of Francis Bacon (this is the full version of his conversation with Kate Evans, which you may have seen as an online video/ Zoom interview)

Cassie and Kate are joined by artist Paul Ryan and art-historian and novelist Katherine Kovacic as they discuss art in fiction, with a focus on Max Porter's The Death of Francis Bacon and Dominic Smith's The Last Painting of Sara de Vos.

Writer Simon Winchester (The Surgeon of Crowthorne, The Map that Changed the World, Land etc) read a book at the age of almost-22 that changed everything about his life. He speaks to Kate Evans about the books that have shaped him

Kate and Cassie are joined by novelist Robert Gott as they discuss new fiction by John Kinsella and Guillermo Martínez; and the book/s that made writers Simon Winchester and Sarah J Maas

'It's a classic novel about a Black girl in Mississippi, and I was a Black girl in Mississippi, and it was the first time I ever read a book about someone I could see myself in.'

RN presenter Daniel Browning and novelist Kavita Bedford join Kate and Cassie as they discuss Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water, Melissa Broder's Milk Fed and Sònia Hernández's Prosopagnosia

Andrew Pippos' novel Lucky's travels in and out of Greek Australian cafes in Sydney and elsewhere - but what are the literary and other influences that sit on those formica tables?

Kate and Cassie are joined by Prof of Mediaeval Literature Louise D'Arcens and novelist Petronella McGovern as they discuss Maria Dahvana Headley's new translation of Beowulf, Una Mannion's The Crooked Tree and Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets

Following on from last week's Book Club on work, which featured Madeleine St John's The Women in Black, an extended interview with St John's biographer Helen Trinca

On Madeleine St John's The Women in Black and Kikuko Tsumura's There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job with doctor and memoirist Yumiko Kadota and RN presenter Richard Aedy (and featuring St John's biographer Helen Trinca)

Rewriting westerns in the 1890s, sex and desire in the present, and romance in Ireland. Three new works of fiction with Kate and Cassie and guests Michael McGirr and Emma Kate Lewis

Australian fiction from 1901, 1980 and 2014. Miles Franklin, Shirley Hazzard, Joan London

Three novels and an illustrator who uses his pencil like a sword