Books On The Go

Anna and Annie discuss the cookbook controversy between Nagi Maehashi of RecipeTin Eats and Brooke Bellamy of Bake with Brooki and ask whether it is possible to copyright a recipe. Our book of the week is FUNDAMENTALLY by Nussaibah Younis.   Shortlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction , this debut novel centres on Nadia, a UN worker who travels to Iraq to rescue ISIS brides. A serious topic...

Anna and Annie discuss the 2025 Women's Prize Shortlist . Our book of the week is MEMORIAL DAYS by Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of HORSE . This is a moving and honest memoir of Brooks' time grieving her late husband Tony Horwitz and also a portrait of their marriage.  Partly set on a remote island off the coast of Tasmania, it is our final Australian book for #AussieApril. C...

A special episode! Anna is joined by Emily Hart and Margot Lloyd, founders of Pink Shorts Press . We discuss the exciting launch of this new publisher and the  2025 Stella Prize shortlist . Our book of the week is SEA GREEN by Barbara Hanrahan, re-issued by Pink Shorts Press this year with an introduction by Laura Elizabeth Woollett. This semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of Virginia, a...

Anna and Annie discuss the 2025 Stella Prize longlist and some upcoming book-to-screen adaptations: THE LEOPARD , SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE , FOURTH WING and THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO . Our book of the week is SOMEBODY DOWN THERE LIKES ME by Robert Lukins. A dysfunctional family comes together in Connecticut when the parents announce they have lost everything. This will appeal to SUCCESSION...

Anna and Annie discuss the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Shortlist for fiction, including WOO WOO by Ella Baxter and HIGHWAY 13 by Fiona McFarlane. Our book of the week is THE SEASON by Helen Garner. This is a memoir of a year Garner spent following her grandson's club football team. It explores masculinity, the sense of community at the local club and being a grandmother. As always with Gar...

Geoff and Anna discuss THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD by Fyodor Dostoevsky translated by David McDuff.   This is a fictionalised account of the four years Dostoevsky spent in a Siberian prison camp after he was arrested for taking part in a political conspiracy.  Sold as a novel but with the feel of a documentary, it contains fascinating details and joins a collection of Russian prison memoirs.  Other book...

Anna and Geoff discuss WHITE NIGHTS by Fyodor Dostoevsky translated by Ronald Meyer.  A man meets a woman on the street in St Petersburg and falls in love in this short story. It has become a Tik Tok sensation in recent months and Penguin has commissioned a new audiobook to be read by Bridgerton 's Luke Thompson.   Dostoevsky was in his romantic, millennial era when he wrote this (notably, before...

A special episode: Anna chats with Kate Slotover of the Book Club Review podcast . Our book of the week is  THE UNSELECTED JOURNALS OF EMMA M. LION by Beth Brower. Recommended by our friend Shawn Mooney of Shawn Breathes Books , we enjoyed this novel set in Victorian London about a young woman returning to claim her inheritance. Light and witty, these books have been compared with Jane Austen and...

A special episode: Anna is joined by author and U-Go founder John Wood .  We discuss our reactions to the 2025 Women's Prize Longlist .  Our book of the week is PATRIOT by Alexei Navalny translated by Arch Tait with Stephen Dalziel. This is Navalny's autobiography detailing his rise to be a Russian opposition leader, but is also a prison diary following his arrest in January 2021.   He died in pri...

Anna and Geoff react to the 2025  Booker International Longlist . Our book of the week is  EUROTRASH by Christian Kracht translated by Daniel Bowles. A middle-aged man goes on a dubious road trip through Switzerland with his 80-year old mother, recently discharged from a mental institution. Blackly comic and written as autofiction, this was the Financial Times Best Translated Book of 2024 and a Ti...

A special episode: Anna chats with author Holly Gramazio about her debut novel THE HUSBANDS . When Lauren returns to her flat in London one night, she finds a husband called Michael: the only problem is, she isn't married.   It turns out that her attic is producing an endless supply of husbands.   An instant New York Times best-seller, we loved this genre-bending comedy.   Holly talks about her in...

Anna and Geoff review  OUR EVENINGS  the new novel by Booker Prize-winning author Alan Hollinghurst. Dave Win is a Burmese-British actor reminiscing about his life, growing up as a gay man in the 1960s through to 2019. We loved the exact and beautiful prose but found it slow. The blurb also suggests a tension between Dave and bully Giles whereas the story is more of a (fictional) memoir of Dave an...

A special episode: Anna speaks with author Vaseem Khan about his new crime novel CITY OF DESTRUCTION . This is the fifth in the Malabar House series set in 1950s Bombay after Partition. Persis Wadia is India's first female police detective and is sent to work in Malabar House. In CITY OF DESTRUCTION, a gunman attempts to assassinate the Defence Minister at a political rally and Persis shoots him d...

Anna and Annie discuss the success of Rebecca Yarros's new book ONYX STORM , the third in the Emperyean series.   Annie gives her views about why they have been huge best-sellers and the popularity of romantasy. Our book of the week is DISAPPOINT ME by Nicola Dinan. This buzzy new novel by the author of BELLIES centres around Max, a 30 year-old trans woman who starts dating Vincent but is unsure w...

A special episode! Anna chats with USA Today best-selling author Kemper Donovan about his new novel LOOSE LIPS , the second in the Ghostwriter series after the best-selling THE BUSY BODY (see ep 265). Kemper hosts the All About Agatha podcast and his crime novels bring the Golden Age of murder mysteries into a contemporary setting. LOOSE LIPS finds our ghost-writer on a literary cruise hosted by p...

A special episode : Anna chats with author Anthony Nocera.  We discuss Anthony's brilliant essay WEDNESDAY BANG in the current issue of SPLINTER and his upcoming plays: Log Boy, My Hair is Thinning and Someone Like You.  Anthony's book recommendations: NOSTALGIA HAS RUINED MY LIFE by Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle THE GUEST by Emma Cline  AN EXCITING AND VIVID INNER LIFE by Paul Dalla Rosa Follow us! In...

Anna, Annie and Amanda reveal our favourite reads of 2024! Books discussed: MAGIC PILL by Johann Hari ALL THE BEAUTY IN THE WORLD by Patrick Bringley THE ALTERNATIVES by Caoilinn Hughes THIS STRANGE AND EVENTFUL HISTORY by Claire Messud RAPTURE by Emily Maguire WOO WOO by Ella Baxter THE GENTLEMAN FROM PERU by André Aciman JUICE by Tim Winton (Annie recommends the audiobook) INTERMEZZO by Sally Ro...

A special episode: w e chat with Farrin Foster about new literary journal SPLINTER and emerging Australian authors. We talk about authors who are also musicians, autofiction and taking a book of poetry in your bag for waiting times. Farrin recommends the work of: Seamus Lonergan –  KT Major Olivia De Zilva  ROCK FLIGHT by Hasib Hourani  Dom Guerrera Rapture by Emily Maguire Coming up: Our Best Boo...

Anna and Annie discuss the   2024 Booker Prize winner ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey. Our comfort reading recommendations are: ARGYLLE by Elly Conway WE SOLVE MURDERS by Richard Osman LOOSE LIPS by Kemper Donovan THE SPY COAST by Tess Gerritsen THE ROM COMMERS by Katherine Center THE WEDDING FORECAST by Nina Kenwood WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY by Michiko Aoyama translated by Alison Watt...

Anna and Annie discuss the 2024 Goldsmiths Prize winner , Parade by Rachel Cusk, and ghostwriters in crime writing. Our book of the week is JAMES by Percival Everett.  This re-telling of Huckleberry Finn has been an instant New York Times best-seller, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and National Book award and described as 'genius' ( The Atlantic ).  Coming up: our comfort reading recommendations...

Anna and Annie discuss AI in publishing . Our book of the week is ALL FOURS by award-winning author and artist Miranda July. Described as July's 'peri-menopause novel', ALL FOURS tells the story of a woman who escapes married life and creates a space for herself.  A finalist for the 2024 National Book Award and instant New York Times bestseller, it's funny, frank and causing a stir amongst book cl...

Anna and Annie discuss the 2024 Booker Prize Shortlist . Our book of the week is INTERMEZZO by award-winning author Sally Rooney. Intermezzo is a novel about two brothers who deal with grief, family and relationships. Intimate and poignant, it's been an instant New York Times bestseller, shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Book of the Year and one of Publishers Weekly 's Best Books of th...

A special episode! Anna chats with author Chris Hammer about his new crime novel THE VALLEY , the fourth in the Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic series. Chris' award-winning debut SCRUBLANDS was an instant bestseller and is now a TV series .  THE VALLEY is his seventh novel and follows detectives Nell and Ivan as they investigate a murder in rural Australia and the victim's connections with logging, p...

A special episode!  Kate Slotover from the Book Club Review Podcast joins Anna to discuss what makes a good book club book and our top recommendations.  We tried to keep it to three each, and failed.  Our best book club books are: STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL by Charlotte Wood ALL FOURS by Miranda July JAMES by Percival Everett WIFEDOM by Anna Funder FRUIT OF THE DEAD by Rachel Lyon HOW I WON A NOBEL PRI...

Anna and Annie discuss the 2024 Booker Prize Longlist . Our book of the week is  WOO WOO by Ella Baxter. The latest novel from the award-winning author of New Animal, this tells the story of Sabine, an artist about to open her exhibition.  She faces the pressure of the show and the terror of being stalked.  Both disturbing and funny, Baxter's writing is strong, visceral and on point. We loved this...