The Bookshelf

Never in the short history of The Bookshelf has there been so much loathing for a novel! Which is the book that will generate so much dislike and despair? You will need to listen to find out.

Kate and Cassie discuss Aminatta Forna's Happiness, Emily O'Grady's The Yellow House, Meena Kandasamy's When I Hit You, Joseph Cassara's The House of Impossible Beauties and Westwords — with Emily O'Grady, Chloë Cooper and Michael Campbell

Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh are joined by George Williams on Raymond E Feist's King of Ashes, by Fiona Lowe on Kate Mosse's The Burning Chambers and by Lynne Malcolm on Lisa Genova's Every Note Played

Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh have a great stack of books and readers to share with you: Christos Tsiolkas on Patrick White, Stuart Coupe on Irvine Welsh's Dead Men's Trousers, Eleanor Limprecht on Alicia Drake's I Love You Too Much and Jonathan Green on Meanjin's short fiction collection

Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh are joined by journalist Stephen Romei as they disagree over Michael Ondaatje's Warlight, by novelist Suzanne Leal to discuss Jenny Ackland's Little Gods and David Peace's Patient X, and by academic and biographer Bernadette Brennan to ponder Charmaine Craig's Miss Burma.

What books will these three extraordinary writers offer up as influential titles on their own bookshelves? Junot Diaz, Jennifer Egan and Tayari Jones step onto the stage to share the reading that has made them.

Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh are joined by Maria Takolander and Tamara Neal to talk Laura Lindstedt's Oneiron, Madeline Miller's Circe, Bridie Jabour's The Way Things Should Be and Madeline Seys is along on Fashion and Narrative in Victorian Popular Literature

Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh are joined by novelist Sandra Leigh Price and political scientist Shaun Crowe as they discuss Rodney Hall's A Stolen Season, Leïla Slimani's Lullaby, Imogen Hermes Gowar's The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, and Natasha Lester reveals the fashion-filled bookshelf that made her in light of her novel The Paris Seamstress.

Kate and Cassie are joined by reviewers Luke Stegemann, Sonya Voumard and Bri Lee as they discuss Gail Jones' The Death of Noah Glass, Antonio Muñoz Molina's Like a Fading Shadow, Åsne Seierstad's Two Sisters and Heidi Sopinka's The Dictionary of Animal Languages.

Mediaeval historian Kimberley Knight and Sisters in Crime's Robyn Walton join Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh as they discuss four new books by Australian writers. Novels set in regional Victoria in the 1960s, England in the 1320s, in contemporary Ireland and inside Cold War suspicion. (Robert Hillman's The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted, Robyn Cadwallader's Book of Colours, Dervla McTiernan's The...

Mark Brandi wins the Indie Award for debut fiction for Wimmera; writer Cath Crowley reviews Steven Camden's Nobody Real; Kali Napier reviews Han Kang's The White Book; Cassie and Kate read Holly Ringland's The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart; and literary academic Susan Sheridan on Scottish writer Muriel Spark.

Cassie and Kate read variations on the 1940s in Alan Hollinghurst's The Sparsholt Affair and Eleanor Limprecht's The Passengers, with insights and expert commentary on these and other books from critics Nicole Abadee and Geordie Williamson and historian Frank Bongiorno. And there's some disagreement about whether everyone owns a book bag.

Fiction that takes on big ideas: Tim Winton's The Shepherd's Hut and Jenny Erpenbeck's Go Went Gone, with critics Mireille Juchau and Brett Evans

Kate and Cassie are joined by chair of the judging panel for the Stella Prize, Fiona Stager, to reveal the shortlist; and writers Trent Jamieson and Robert Lukins reveal their cornerstone books and discuss new Irish fiction; while Kate and Cassie disagree about German novel Look at Me by Marieke Krügel.

Cassie and Kate are joined by writers Pamela Hart, Bri Lee and Tara June Winch to review new books by Katherena Vermette, Ahmed Saadawi, Stuart Turton and Michael Mohammed Ahmad.

Cassie and Kate are joined by writer Krissy Kneen and criminal psychologist Tim Watson Munro to discuss new fiction from Emma Glass, Ceridwen Dovey and C J Tudor; and literary history with Caroline Fraser on Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House books.

At Lunar New Year, Chinese-Australian writer Isabelle Li shares her insights into China’s dynamic literary and genre fiction; and with a nod to Valentine’s Day, she reviews Julian Barnes’ new novel, The Only Story. Crime writer Aoife Clifford reveals her past, as a shelver at a supermarket in regional Australia, feeding into the discussion of Shaun Prescott’s surreal novel, The Town, while also re...

Kate and Cassie discuss A J Finn's bestselling thriller The Woman in the Window, and are also joined by novelist Catherine McKinnon to talk Louise Erdrich's chilling and funny dystopian Future Home of the Living God, by editor Peter Rose to talk forty years of fiction and the Australian Book Review, and literary biographer Claire Tomalin on her memoir A Life of My Own and an entire life shaped by...

Kate and Cassie are joined by writer Roanna Gonsalves and political journalist Dennis Atkins as they discuss Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Stanley Johnson's Kompromat, Tayari Jones An American Marriage and twitter bookclub #TheDarkisRising

Summer reading and reviews of Peter Carey's A Long Way from Home, Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists, Naomi Alderman's The Power, John Green's Turtles All the Way Down