# A simmering summer in Greece, rare snails, dystopia with a twist: new fiction by Amy Taylor, Leif Enger and Maria Reva

An episode of [The Bookshelf](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/499762704), 21 Aug 2025, 55 min.

Audio: https://mediacore-live-production.akamaized.net/audio/02/cg/Z/dm.mp3

The Bookshelf continues to explore new fiction, beginning in this episode with Ruins by Amy Taylor, a plunge into holiday chaos during a simmering summer in Greece. Maria Reva’s Endling takes us to Ukraine, where an eccentric scientist is breeding rare snails. And, Leif Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse...dystopia with a twist. BOOKS Amy Taylor, Ruins, Allen & Unwin Maria Reva, Endling, Virago Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse, Grove Press GUESTS Mark Mordue, music writer, journalist, and poet – whose books include Boy On Fire: The Young Nick Cave Robert Goodman, critic who writes regularly for the Newtown Review of Books and on his website, Pile by the Bed OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED • Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro • The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal • On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan • Louise Erdrich, works • Lanny, Max Porter • The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, Shehan Karunatilaka • By Night in Chile; 2666, Roberto Bolaño • Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey • Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie • Chronicles, Bob Dylan • Just Kids, Patti Smith • Road Series, Hugo Race • Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, Will Hermes • Perdido Street Station, China Mieville • Babel; Yellowface; Katabasis, R.F. Kuang • The Animals in That Country, Laura Jean McKay • The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation, Charlotte Beradt • The White Hotel, D.M. Thomas • Salvage, Jennifer Mills • Juice, Tim Winton • Arborescence; Hovering, Rhett Davis • Deaf Republic, Ilya Kaminsky CREDITS • Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh • Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett • Sound engineer, John Jacobs and Tegan Nicholls • Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

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