ABC Australia
The Bookshelf
What are you reading, loving or being challenged by? We review the latest in fiction for dedicated readers and for those who wish they read more.
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Episodes
Dystopias, ship's monsters and trees: Claire G Coleman, Jokha Alharthi, Jess Kidd and Jane Rawson 09.07.2022 57:39
Australian dystopias, historical shipwrecks and women's lives in Oman: reading Claire G Coleman's Enclave, Jokha Alharthi's Bitter Orange Tree and Jess Kidd's The Night Ship with guests novelist Sally Piper and essayist Eda Gunaydin; and Jane Rawson on her A History of Dreams and its influences
The Book Club: Celebrating Australian literature for the ABC's 90th 02.07.2022 54:07
Reading Alexis Wright's Carpentaria and Patrick White's The Vivisector with critic Geordie Williamson - and with words from the writers themselves, as well as other voices and commentators from the ABC Archives
Frank Moorhouse from the ABC Archives: podcast special 27.06.2022 1:05:39
Vale Frank Moorhouse, journalist, essayist, shortstory writer and novelist. Remembering the writer with his friend, Angelo Loukakis, and with archival interviews from 1980 (The Everlasting Secret Family) and 2000 (Dark Palace, the second in the Edith Campbell Berry trilogy, which went on to win the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award)
A Métis family tree and a Sydney Leprosarium: Katherena Vermette's The Strangers and Eleanor Limprecht's The Coast 25.06.2022 54:05
A tough and poetic family story of the Métis (Michif) people of Canada in Katherena Vermette's The Strangers; and exclusion and compassion in Australian history, with a novel set in a lazaret, in Eleanor Limprecht's The Coast (read by historian Dr Ian Hoskins)
Abomination, modernism and crime: new fiction from Ashley Goldberg, Michelle Cahill and Matthew Spencer 18.06.2022 59:58
Three books by Australian authors: crime in Sydney in Matthew Spencer's Black River; rewriting a sidelined character from a classic of modernism, in Michelle Cahill's Daisy and Woolf, and friendship and exile in an Orthodox Jewish community in Melbourne in Ashley Goldberg's Abomination, with guests writer Kari Gislason and literary interviewer Michaela Kalowski
Racecourses, race, sex work and exile: new fiction from Geraldine Brooks, Leila Mottley and Zaheda Ghani 11.06.2022 57:30
Reading Geraldine Brooks' Horse, Leila Mottley's Nightcrawling and Zaheda Ghani's Pomegranate and Fig with journalist, music writer and memoirist Mawunyo Gbogbo (Hip Hop and Hymns) and CEO of the Australian Muslim Women's Centre for Human Rights, Diana Sayed
The Book Club: Horses and their Riders 04.06.2022 59:59
Reading Gillian Mears' 2011 novel Foal’s Bread and Craig Sherborne's recent release The Grass Hotel with critic and biographer Bernadette Brennan and writer and cultural historian Luke Stegemann
Ireland, Italy, England and Oz: four bold new works of fiction 28.05.2022 54:06
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 with novelists Nigel Featherstone (My Heart is a Little Wild Thing) and Ellie O'Neill (Family Matters)
From the Sydney Writers Festival: The Joy of Re-reading 25.05.2022 51:48
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 scholar Bernadette Brennan
From the Sydney Writers Festival: with Jackie Huggins, Damon Galgut and George Haddad 21.05.2022 54:05
In front of an audience, and with plenty of book recommendations, Kate and Cassie are onstage with historian and biographer Jackie Huggins and novelists Damon Galgut and George Haddad
Making umbrellas in the afterlife: New books from Steve Toltz, Emiliano Monge and Domonique Wilson 14.05.2022 57:32
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) and Jonty Claypole (Words Fail Us: In Defence of Disfluency)
Soap, silences and happy stories (maybe): new fiction from Paddy O'Reilly, Patrick Gale and Norman Erikson Pasaribu 07.05.2022 54:06
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 (Sadvertising) and Hilde Hinton (A Solitary Walk on the Moon)
The Book Club: Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad & The Candy House 30.04.2022 55:19
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 novelist Rhett Davis
A moon colony, T S Eliot, Shakespeare and pain: new fiction from Emily St John Mandel, Steven Carroll and Mona Awad 23.04.2022 54:06
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, Vivienne, Goodnight, and Mona Awad's All’s Well, with novelist Rhett Davis and critic Nicole Abadee
A Glasgow teenager, a Roman emperor and a sneaky revolutionary: new books by Douglas Stuart, Julian Barnes and Charmian Clift 16.04.2022 55:46
Reading Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo, Julian Barnes' Elizabeth Finch and Charmian Clift's Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected Essays with writers Nadia Wheatley and Ruth Wilson (The Jane Austen Remedy)
A snowy Tokyo, a haunted house and a cracked swimming pool: books by Jessica Au, John Darnielle and Julie Otsuka 09.04.2022 53:33
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 01.04.2022 57:14
Children, violence, landscape, and powerful and strange writing: we're talking fiction from New Zealand with the director of Wellington's Verb Writers' Festival Claire Mabey and novelist Sam Coley. Rereading Keri Hulmes' The Bone People from 1984 and the newly-released The Fish by Lloyd Jones. Passion, laughter, and even some tears
Mexico, dystopian exile, and Oz suburbia: new fiction from Fernanda Melchor, Toni Jordan and Tom Watson 25.03.2022 53:43
Reading Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor's Paradais, Australian Toni Jordan's Dinner with the Schnabels and English debut novelist Tom Watson's Metronome
Iceland, Nebraska and the Sunshine Coast: new fiction from Robert Lukins, Kári Gíslason and Harlan Coben 18.03.2022 57:43
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 mediaeval Icelandic literature specialist Lisa Bennett
New fiction from Ireland and New Zealand 11.03.2022 56:55
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 Jemma Birrell and novelist Lyn Yeowart
The Book Club: Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Love Marriage 04.03.2022 55:54
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, marriage, migration, displacement, drama, storytelling.
New fiction from Omar Sakr, Karen Joy Fowler and Aoife Clifford 25.02.2022 54:05
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 We Fall with guests historian Ethan Blue and crime afficionado Felix Shannon
Reading Korean history, fierce Italian parents and a theme park of funerary futures 18.02.2022 56:57
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 Melissa Fulton from The Big Issue and literary studies academic Julian Novitz
Reading our way to islands, monsters, balloons, snowscapes, heroes and more 11.02.2022 54:07
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 writers Michelle Law and Molly Murn
The Book Club: Rebecca and Rebecca 04.02.2022 54:08
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 Rebecca persona in direct response to du Maurier's novel) - with guests literary lecturer Susannah Fullerton and crime writer Chris Hammer
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