Booksmart

Welcome to our first book club episode, where we delve into the wonderful and traumatic world of Yulin Kuang and How to End a Love Story. Kuang is an author, director, and screenwriter, known for the adaptation of People We Meet on Vacation. Today’s episode sees hosts Sunny Adcock and Allie Daisy King discuss all things trauma bonds, pretty privilege, and if this book is actually a love story.

What do book-to-screen adaptations owe their readers? And further, what makes a good adaptation? Should the goal of any adaptation be to appease existing fandoms or attract new ones? These are the central questions that Sunny Adcock and Allie Daisy King set out to answer in today’s episode of Booksmart, using Emily Henry’s 'People We Meet on Vacation', recently released on Netflix, as thei...

In the final episode of Booksmart for the year, Soaliha Iqbal sits down with acclaimed writer Zeynab Gamieldien to unpack her powerful new novel, Learned Behaviours .  A gripping literary mystery set between western Sydney and the sharply stratified world of the legal profession, the novel follows Zaid Saban: a young man on the cusp of becoming a barrister, whose carefully curated life is disrupte...

In this week’s episode of Booksmart , host Soaliha Iqbal sits down with award-winning author, artist, and screenwriter Dylin Hardcastle - the creative force behind Below Deck , Breathing Underwater , Running Like China , and the critically acclaimed A Language of Limbs , winner of the 2023 Kathleen Mitchell Award and longlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize (casually).  Together, they dive deep into t...

In this episode of Booksmart , Soaliha sits down with internationally acclaimed author Mona Awad to dive into the world of her cult classic Bunny and its highly anticipated sequel, We Love You, Bunny, that has just been released (get your copy STAT!) ICYMI: first published in 2019, Bunny became an instant literary sensation -named a Best Book of the Year by TIME , Vogue , and the New York Public L...

In this episode of Booksmart , Randa Abdel-Fattah sits down with Soaliha for a powerful conversation that spans her brand-new novel Discipline , the controversies rocking Australia’s literary scene, and the realities of racism and resistance today across the country and beyond.  Together, they unpack Randa’s decision to speak out against the Bendigo Writers Festival - where more than 50 writers an...

In this week's episode of Booksmart, Soaliha Iqbal sits down with writer Natalia Figueroa Barroso to talk about her extraordinary debut novel Hailstones Fell without Rain . Of Uruguayan descent with Charrúa, Yoruba and Iberian origins, Natalia was born on Dharug Ngura and raised between her birthland and her homeland. A member of Sweatshop Literacy Movement (who we are huge fans of too!), her...

In this week's episode of Booksmart, we’re joined by the wonderful Nicky Gonzalez, the author of one of this year’s most haunting debuts, Mayra - a novel that brims with tension, longing, and the sticky heat of Florida’s swamplands. Set in the sultry, surreal wilds of the Everglades, Nicky’s novel dives deep into the complicated terrain of female friendship. The novel explores the intoxicatin...

The Nile brought them life, but the Nile was not their friend. When a little boy drowns in the treacherous currents of the Nile, the search for his body unearths calamity and disaster, and exposes forgotten secrets buried for generations in a small northern Sudanese village. Three women try to make their way through a world that wants to keep them back, separated from each other by time but bound...

Not to hype this week's book too much....but Soaliha has confirmed that Candice Chung's new memoir Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You is one of the best books she has read this year. So, PSA: Go and buy this book, stat.  Candice is a writer, editor, and a former restaurant reviewer for The Sun-Herald - and is a founding member of Diversity in Food Media Australia, which supports a...

Meet Anne-Marie Te Whiu (Te Rarawa): a poet, editor and cultural producer - who is making BIG waves in the literary world. It was an honour to have her join us on the podcast this week. ICYMI: Anne-Marie has released Mettle , a remarkable and impressive debut collection of poems that speak to the complexity of family, identity and the proud legacy of Māori language and culture. Her collection of p...

Khadija Gbla is an absolute force to be reckoned with - and we've been closely following her work for a long time. If she's not on your radar already - Khadija is a leading human rights activist and writer, amongst many other things. She was born in Sierra Leone, spent her youth in Gambia, and, as a teenager, moved to Australia. She is a leading voice and campaigner on Female Genital Mut...

It goes without saying that due to misrepresentations of Autism in media and popular culture, many Autistic people miss out on seeing themselves, their unique experiences and their triumphs, platformed or seen .  In the new anthology Someone Like Me , award-winning author Fiona Wright reflects on her experience of anorexia – with the unique perspective of an autism diagnosis in her mid-thirties, a...

Acclaimed wildlife scientist Vanessa Pirotta has been mugged by whales, touched by a baby whale and covered in whale snot (just casually - as you do).  Pirotta’s enthusiasm and deep knowledge of whales shine through in her book Humpback Highway as she explores a variety of timely topics – from why whale snot and poo are important for us and the ocean to the life cycle of whales, the challenges hum...

Hello, friends - we're back with a really special episode! Soaliha Iqbal got to sit down with Samah Sabawi to discuss Samah's book  Cactus Pear For My Beloved. It's a really moving conversation. Samah shares the story of her parents, and many like them, who were born while their parents were being forced to leave their homelands. Cactus Pear For My Beloved is a narrative memoir of h...

TW: Discussion of violence against women We are only 41 weeks into the year — which means we have surpassed the much-quoted statistic of one woman being killed every week in Australia. By the time this podcast is edited and published, it’s probable that another woman will have been killed by an intimate partner. Around the world, a woman is killed every 11 minutes. It was with this heavy heart tha...

Introducing a **very** different episode this week, just to shake things up here at Booksmart. Because honestly, why not? This week, Tash sits down with the iconic Dr Jen Gunter for an equally iconic conversation. Dr Gunter is also known as "Tik Tok and Twitter's Resident Gynecologist", having used the platform to debunk myths about women's health, amassing a huge following in...

We're excited to bring you a really special episode this week. Our Editorial & Partnerships Lead Alicia got to sit down with the wonderful Alyssa Huynh for a chat about her new (debut!) book Safe Space. ICYMI: In 2020, Alyssa began sharing her thoughts on racism and connection to cultural identity through her Instagram account @ alyssahuynhwritings and quickly gained a following for her c...

“I had to relearn how to live after nearly dying. It felt like a rite of passage no-one else had ever experienced, a journey there was no map for, and for so long afterwards, I was lost to myself.  This book is for anyone who is interested in knowing more about life. And maybe a little about death, too. " Queensland-based writer Carly-Jay Metcalfe was born with cystic fibrosis, survived a dou...

If Dr Mykaela Saunders isn't on your radar, then we are changing that today. Mykaela is a Koori/Goori and Lebanese writer, researcher, editor and teacher. Her incredible speculative fiction collection Always Will Be (casually) won the David Unaipon Award and has taken the literary world by storm. In this new thought-provoking collection, Mykaela poses the question: what might country, communi...

Shankari Chandran was once told that her stories weren't 'Australian enough.' She later went on to win the prestigious Miles Franklin Award - an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". Here at Missing Perspectives, we are huge fans of Shankari - it's actually  the second time...

Everyone. We know we say that every episode of Booksmart is special, but this one is PARTICULARLY so (we promise). And it's poetry too, so even better. This week, Hannah Diviney got to sit down with proud Wiradjuri poet Jeanine Leane to discuss her new work of poetry titled Gawimarra: Gathering. We don't want to spoil the collection, or this discussion, but here's the poetry in a nu...

Breaking our (small yet needed) hiatus from Booksmart and coming back with an absolute BANGER: the one and only Lisa Taddeo! Our EIC Hannah was lucky enough to sit down with Lisa to chat about her incredible writing, career, and bestselling novel  Three Women.   The book has been adapted into a TV show for Stan - and we got to hear all about it. This is an episode not to be missed (although honest...

CW: Discussion of sexual assault It's been described as the game-changing book about sex and consent that every woman - and man - should read. In 2021, Chanel Contos posted on Instagram asking people to share their stories of sexual assault during their schooling years. This post unexpectedly went viral, and almost 7000 people sent in testimonies describing behaviour that constitutes rape. Vi...

Is there a better way to kick off this year then chatting with the author of one of the most buzziest books of 2023?! Madeleine Gray is an arts writer, book critic, a PhD candidate in English literature at the University of Manchester (what can't she do!?) and the author of The Green Dot . The book has been described witty, profound and painfully relatable debut novel exploring solitude, desi...