The Bookshelf

Money, kidnapping, reality TV, politics, corruption, families, love, and betrayal in all three books on this edition of The Bookshelf. Kate Evans and Jonathan Green, with guests Farz Edraki and Johan Gabrielsson, read Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Long Island Compromise, Porochistaa Khakpour's Tehrangeles and Patrick Holland's Oblivion. Awfully rich, richly awful. BOOKS Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Long Islan...

The band is back together! Join Cassie and Kate as they head to an island off North America in Julia Phillips’ Bear, plus two Australian novels – Jessie Tu’s The Honeyeater and Finegan Kruckemeyer’s The End and Everything Before It. BOOKS Julia Phillips, Bear, Scribe Jessie Tu, The Honeyeater, Allen & Unwin Finegan Kruckemeyer, The End and Everything Before It, Text GUESTS Tom Wright, theatre...

Kate Evans is joined by guest host Richard Aedy to discuss Catherine McKinnon's To Sing of War, a novel of love, war and friendship. Plus, two debut novels... Big Time by Jordan Prosser, set in a not-too-distant future Australia where pop music is propaganda, and Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna, set during a heatwave in London as tensions and secrets come to a head over one life-changing we...

Kate Evans returns with guest reviewers to discuss Bruce Pascoe’s Imperial Harvest, an epic of brutality and imperialism; along with Jenny Ackland’s Hurdy Gurdy, a circus saga set in a near-future Australia; and Miranda July’s All Fours, which looks at one woman's quest for a very unique kind of freedom. BOOKS Bruce Pascoe, Imperial Harvest, Melbourne Books Jenny Ackland, Hurdy Gurdy, Allen &...

Cassie and Kate discuss Jenny Erpenbecks' Kairos (winner of the 2024 International Booker Prize) with critic Declan Fry - originally broadcast August 2023 when the book was first published; and interviews with writers A K Blakemore (The Glutton), Daniel Mason (North Woods) and Gretchen Shirm (The Crying Room) by Kate Evans. BOOKS Jenny Erpenbeck, Kairos, translated from the German by Michael Hofma...

Cassie and Tom Wright read The Parade by Rachel Cusk, her first since 2018’s Kudos, the final part of the acclaimed Outline trilogy. Once again, Cusk questions the very nature of truth. James Ley joins to discuss Ceridwen Dovey’s new collection of short stories, Only the Astronauts, which takes us off-planet and into the “lives” of the objects that humans have sent into space. Gretchen Shirm revie...

Cassie and Jonathan Green review The Ministry of Time by debut British-Cambodian novelist Kaliane Bradley, a heads up, it's brilliant. Michael Brissenden reviews Crooked Seeds by South African writer Karen Jennings, a crime mystery set in Cape Town. Nicole Abadee looks at The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry, a story that takes us to 1891 and a grim winter in a small mining town of immigrant Irish w...

Cassie and Claire Nichols team up on stage at this year's Sydney Writers' Festival to grill some huge literary stars on their reading lives: Irish Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch, U.S. bestseller Celeste Ng, and Australia’s Christos Tsoilkas. GUESTS Paul Lynch, internationally acclaimed, prize-winning author of five novels  including the 2023 Booker Prize Winner Prophet Song Celeste Ng, #1 New York...

Cassie and Jonathan Green review Safe Haven by 2023 Miles Franklin winner Shankari Chandran, Table For Two by Amor Towles (author of A Gentleman In  Moscow), and Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan of Crazy Rich Asians fame. BOOKS Safe Haven, Shankari Chandran (Ultimo Press) Lies and Weddings, Kevin Kwan (Penguin) Table for Two, Amor Towles (Penguin) GUESTS Jennifer Wong, Chinese-Australian writer and...

Cassie and guest host Tom Wright discuss Claire Messud's This Strange Eventful History, about a family torn apart by war, geography, politics and religion, over the course of three generations. Plus, guests Claire Mabey and Shannon Burns review new fiction from Sarah Perry and Alan Murrin. BOOKS This Strange Eventful History, Claire Messud (Hachette) Enlightenment, Sarah Perry (Penguin) The Coast...

Cassie and Jonathan Green discuss Colm Tóibín's eagerly awaited new novel Long Island.  Star reviewers Madeleine Gray and Benjamin Law discuss buzzy new fiction from Siang Lu (Ghost Cities), and Rachel Khong (Real Americans).  BOOKS Long Island, Colm Toibin (Pan Macmillan) Ghost Cities, Siang Lu (UQP) Real Americans, Rachel Khong (Penguin) GUESTS Benjamin Law, writer, columnist, screenwriter. His...

Cassie and Jonathan Green look at Until August, the lost novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and guest reviewers Hannah Kent and Roanna Gonsalves discuss powerful new fiction out of Iceland and the UK.

Cassie and guest host Beejay Silcox read new work by One Day sensation David Nicholls.

Cassie, Tom Wright and guests look at The End of the Morning, the never-before-published novel by the Australian writer Charmian Clift, who died in 1969.  Plus, The Alternatives by Ireland’s Caoilinn Hughes, and Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, about the consequences of colonisation and the forced assimilation of Native Americans, which is already generating high praise. BOOKS The End of the Morni...

Michaela Kalowski and Cassie look at The Work by Bri Lee, plus new novels from Call Me By Your Name author Andre Aciman, and a work of speculative fiction by Mykaela Saunders.

Cassie and guest host Tom Wright take a look at the exceptional new novel from award-winning Scottish writer Andrew O'Hagan, plus, a genre bending mystery from Stuart Turton and a clever new thriller set in Edinburgh.

Cassie and Jonathan read Orange Prize winner Téa Obreht’s The Morningside, a dystopian coming-of-age story, plus, a Japanese bestseller and a new post-war literary crime series.

Reimagining Huckleberry Finn, alienation and a talking fox in this edition of The Bookshelf.

Cassie and Jonathan Green review three new Australian novels with guest star Claire Nichols and novelist Graham Akhurst.

Cassie and co-host Tom Wright review two new Australian novels, and from across the ‘Dutch',

Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green review a literary project edited by Margaret Atwood, and new work by Gail Jones and Jennifer Croft.

Cassie and guest host (and playwright) Tom Wright review three new works of fiction.

Mysteries and twists galore in new work by Kemper Donovan and best-selling British-Cypriot author Alex Michaelides; and award-winning Irish novelist Mike McCormack's follow up to Solar Bones.

Cassie McCullagh and Michaela Kalowski review new novels including Francis Spufford's Cahokia Jazz, Hisham Matar's My Friends and Kiley Reid's Come and Get It.

The Bookshelf is back for 2024 reviewing the latest from Katherena Vermette, Dolly Alderton and Jonathan Lethem.