The Bookshelf
ABC Australia
300 episodes
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.
Episodes page 2 of 6
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Summer Reading: Bloody Histories
Whodunnit, whydunit, and where in time was all of it done — in an historical crime fiction special for our Summer Bookshelf. Kate Evans, onstage at the 2025 BAD Sydney Crime Festival, with novelists Nilima Rao (the…
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Some of My Favourite Books: Trent Dalton, Garry Disher and Heather Rose at Canberra Writers Festival
Trent Dalton (Gravity Let Me Go, Boy Swallows Universe), Heather Rose (A Great Act of Love, Bruny) and Garry Disher (the Peninsula Crimes and Hirsch series) name some of their favourite books, and the titles may…
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The Best Books of 2025
The best books of 2025 as selected by Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests - Jason Steger, Jon Page and Robert Goodman. Keep scrolling for a full list... GUESTS • Jason Steger, arts journalist.…
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Memoirs, Music, Mystery: new works from Sam Sussman, Sarah Hall, Margaret Atwood
Superstars of the literary and musical world this week: Margaret Atwood’s new memoir; Hannah Kent’s critical readings; Stuart Coupe’s musical knowledge; Bob Dylan . . . OK, well he’s not exactly on the show, but he’s…
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Salman Rushdie's latest/Scandi noir/Australian crime fiction wrap & more...
Short story collections reveal the fragile beauty of human experience in Salman Rushdie’s The Eleventh Hour, Liadan Ní Chuinn’s Everyone Still Here, Morgan Talty’s Night of the Living Rez, and Tony Birch’s Pictures of…
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Fiction bending reality in new books by Thomas Pynchon, Olivia Laing and Jeanette Winterson
This week, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green take a look at Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket - a cryptic plunge into paranoia and power, where nothing is quite what it seems. Plus, Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book, a…
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Madeleine Gray's Chosen Family + Chris Kraus and Graeme Macrae Burnet
Stories of love, friendship, and the ties that bind - with a dash of dirt and darkness in three new works of fiction...Madeleine Gray's Chosen Family, a sharp exploration of friendship, love, and what it means to grow…
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October Book Buzz: Andrew Pippos, Kiran Desai, Olga Ravn & More
Kate and Cassie are back in the studio, introducing a line-up of October releases that span continents, centuries, and genres, kicking off with an Australian story set in the world of print journalism in Andrew Pippos'…
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We reveal the books that didn’t quite make the Top 100
Join us for a lively Top 100 Books of the 21st Century after-party! Following last weekend’s extraordinary two-day countdown, this event recaps the results of over 288,000 votes cast by readers across Australia. Kate,…
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Brisbane Writers Festival: Eric Puchner, Toni Jordan, Patrick Holland, Zeynab Gamieldien
Joining Kate and Cassie on stage at Brisbane Writers Festival, authors Eric Puchner, Toni Jordan, Patrick Holland, and Zeynab Gamieldien discuss their most recent novels and the books and writers who inspire them. With…
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Four new memoirs: Mandy Sayer/Elizabeth Gilbert/Arundhati Roy/S. Shakthidharan
We look at some compelling new memoirs, including Mandy Sayer’s No Dancing in the Lift, a tribute to her jazz drummer father, capturing the grit of Kings Cross and the grace of caregiving. Elizabeth Gilbert’s All the…
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Top Poems of the 21st Century
What are your favourite poems of the last 25 years? The ones that you turn to, couplets memorised and shared, the lines that leapt from the page or stage. Poetry that both defined and defied space and time, whether it…
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Patricia Lockwood's auto-fiction-ish Will There Ever Be Another You + The Buffalo Hunter Hunter + The Original
This week’s episode explores three new books. First up, Patricia Lockwood’s Will There Ever Be Another You, a third-person autofiction-ish tale that includes a family trip to Scotland, grief and fairies. Then we head…
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Ian McEwan's What We Can Know + new work from Olga Tokarczuk and Miranda Darling
We get stuck into some new fiction, starting with Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know, a meditation on a future shaped by climate disaster and memory. We’re joined by Australian authors Madeleine Gray and Gretchen Shirm to…
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Still Turning Heads at 250: Jane Austen’s Enduring Charm
In the year of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, this lively and thought-provoking discussion explores her life, legacy, and literary brilliance — her novels are charming, sure, but also radical, political, witty, and…
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Superstar children's author Andy Griffiths reviews! Plus, Omar Musa's Fierceland and Geoff Dyer's Homework
Australian poet, artist, hip hop musician and author, Omar Musa, tells a story of Australia and Borneo, forests and fathers, in his new novel Fierceland. An American saga of love, war, and complicated families in…
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Greyhounds, dark academia and an Amish community in new fiction by Toni Jordan, R.F. Kuang and Ron Rindo
An Australian story of the tender, eager lives of greyhounds and their owners in Tenderfoot by Australian author Toni Jordan. Dark academia in Yellowface author R.F. Kuang’s new fantasy novel, Katabasis. Sport,…
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A simmering summer in Greece, rare snails, dystopia with a twist: new fiction by Amy Taylor, Leif Enger and Maria Reva
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…
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AI in America, a kidnapping in Corsica, the transformative power of boxing: books by Gary Shteyngart, Darrow Farr, and Lucas Schaefer
Kate and Cassie discuss Vera, or Faith, Gary Shteyngart’s new novel about a ten-year-old Korean-American girl growing up in a dystopian United States. Alongside guest critics, they also look at The Bombshell by Darrow…
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People turning into trees, mythical rivers rising...new novels by Rhett Davis and Gurnaik Johal (plus, Irish fiction with Colm Tóibín)
Australian author Rhett Davis re-imagines the everyday in his novels. In his latest, Arborescence, ordinary people begin transforming into trees. Is it a cult? Performance art? Or something else entirely? Also on the…
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2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award assessed
A critical assessment of the shortlist and winner of Australia’s most prestigious literary award, The Miles Franklin Literary Award. Kate and Cassie are joined by guests, scholar and literary biographer (and former…
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Parties, scandals, sex, love: new novels by Nell Zink, Amy Bloom and the controversial James Frey
Parties, scandals, sex, love, families, friendship, death – these books have, as they say, all the things. Nell Zink’s Sister Europe moves through one night in Berlin, while Amy Bloom’s I’ll Be Right Here sweeps…
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New Australian crime + hungry ghosts and a great white whale
Stories of the sea – and a great white whale in Xiaolu Guo's Call Me Ishmaelle; Hungry ghosts and kitchen mishaps in Daria Lavelle's NYC set novel Aftertaste; and the latest Australian crime fiction (of which there is…
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Sydney Writer's Festival: The State of the Art of the Novel
What’s the state of fiction today? Four brilliant minds—Samantha Harvey (UK), Rumaan Alam (USA), Torrey Peters (USA), and Robbie Arnott (AUS)—tackle the question live at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. Expect bold…
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Mystery in new fiction from Ben Okri, Sameer Pandya and Anjet Daanje
The same question is at the heart of three very different international novels on The Bookshelf this week, “What really happened”… To a WWI soldier who has forgotten his name and identity in The Remembered Soldier by…
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Sweat, sport and sharp Australian satire; And the 2025 International Booker Prize winner
What would make a great Australian sporting novel? Our guests discuss translating the love of the game, footy nicknames, and intense team culture in ex-AFL player Brandon Jack’s Pissants. And making sport of the…
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Popular fiction across space and time, and queer bush doof thriller in Thomas Vowles' Our New Gods
The latest best-selling novels from Taylor Jenkins-Reid (Atmosphere) and Fredrik Backman (My Friends) explore 1980s astronauts, ambition and romance; and teenage anguish, friendship and art. Emotive and cinematic, how…
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Reading James Joyce's Ulysses for Bloomsday (and new fiction galore)
A guide to James Joyce from Irish writer Mary Morrissy, ahead of Bloomsday (16 June); New Zealand writer Becky Manawatu continues to explore howls of pain and compassion in her second novel, Kataraina; and magic…
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New fiction from Gail Jones, S A Cosby and Seán Hewitt
Fiction from all over the world, crossing genres, borders and ideas in American crime writer S A Cosby's King of Ashes, a gripping tale of family, smoke, and fire; Irish writer Sean Hewitt’s Open, Heaven, a beautifully…
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A vibrant gay coming-of-age story set in Geraldton
Kate and Cassie read W.A. writer Holden Sheppard's King of Dirt, a vibrant, gay coming-of-age story set in Geraldton. Plus, Australian author Jennifer Mills' new one, Salvage, in which we enter a very well drawn post…
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Sydney Writers' Festival: Top 100 Books launched with Alan Hollinghurst, Catherine Chidgey, Mariana Enriquez, Afra Atiq
What books have shaped the 21st century so far? Recorded live at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival, literary heavyweights Catherine Chidgey (NZ), Mariana Enriquez (Argentina), and Alan Hollinghurst (UK) swap…
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On stage at Melbourne Writers' Festival with Hannah Kent and Beejay Silcox
A live recording from Melbourne Writers' Festival as Hannah Kent and Beejay Silcox sit down with Kate Evans and Jonathan Green to discuss the latest fiction releases they’re enjoying, loving and being challenged by.…
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A woman falls through the cracks of time in the first of Solvej Balle's seven-novel-series
One day lived over and over again with humour, despair and self-improvement is what we’re up against in Danish novelist Solvej Balle’s On The Calculation of Volume, a fictional work in seven volumes, the first volume…
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A beach holiday told four ways in Luke Horton's Time Together
Old friends gather together on the coast in Australian writer Luke Horton’s Time Together, Kate and Cassie take a look. Plus, Jo Harkin’s The Pretender, set during the time of the Tudors' ascent it tells the story of a…
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James Bradley's Landfall reveals a flooded, baked and dilapidated city
Cities that are both flooded and on alert for the next storm in James Bradley’s Landfall. The body of a saint, dreamily and weirdly listening to everyone around her in Western Australia, in Josephine Rowe’s Little…
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The Bookshelf Easter Special: Irish writer Niall Williams
Irish writer Niall Williams with Kate Evans at the 2025 Adelaide Writers Week — with a focus on his Faha novels, History of the Rain, This is Happiness and (his latest) Time of the Child. Williams is also a…
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A love triangle set against the beauty of Montana in Eric Puchner's Dream State
Families, secrets, mysteries, war...Kate and Cassie read Eric Puchner’s Dream State, an American saga that spans fifty years and is set against the expansive beauty of Montana; mysterious encounters and marital strife…
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Folk horror, dreams under surveillance, lonely in Guatemala
Cassie McCullagh is on leave this week, so Kate Evans and guests read Lucy Rose’s The Lamb, Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel, and Rachel Morton’s The Sun was Electric Light (with interview extracts from Lucy Rose on body…
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Andrea Goldsmith's The Buried Life - and a train steaming towards disaster . . .
Kate and Cassie read three new works of fiction, with the help of two guest reviewers: a novel of ideas, death, love and music, in Australian writer Andrea Goldsmith's The Buried Life; a real train derailment from the…
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Curtis Sittenfeld's Show Don't Tell + Tim Rogers and Zan Rowe on two new debuts
Kate and Cassie discuss bestselling American writer Curtis Sittenfeld’s sharp and observant collection of short stories Show Don’t Tell; You Am I frontman Tim Rogers reads First Name Second Name, an excellent debut…
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This week’s novels takes us to Zanzibar, Budapest and Renaissance Florence
This week’s novels takes us to Zanzibar, Budapest and Renaissance Florence with Nobel Prize-winning English-Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Theft; while guest reviewers Tim Ayliffe reads Laurent Binet’s…
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On stage at Adelaide Writers' Week with Niall Williams, Charlotte Mendelson and Brian Castro
This edition of the Bookshelf was recorded on stage at Adelaide Writers' Week on Sunday 2 March – with Irish writer Niall Williams (Time of the Child), English writer Charlotte Mendelson (Wife) and all the way from the…
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Australian bestseller Diana Reid returns with Signs of Damage
Four women’s lives intertwined between Africa and the USA in Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count. Plus, secrets and trauma in the South of France in Australian novelist Diana Reid’s new one, Signs of…
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Irish writer Colum McCann’s Twist dives deep under the ocean and takes on a charismatic mystery
Irish writer Colum McCann’s Twist dives deep under the ocean and takes on a charismatic mystery; 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang’s We Do Not Part explores massacres on Jeju Island during (and after) the Korean War,…
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Mothers and Sons...is the story as fraught as the title suggests?
An examination of family dynamics through three novels...Adam Haslett’s Mothers and Sons reflects on unspoken stories and familial divides; The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr, set in 1970s Ireland, tells the story of…
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Alaska, folktales, mothers and daughters
Alaska, folktales and mothers and daughters in Eowyn Ivey's Black Woods Blue Sky. Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Anne Tyler is back with Three Days in June, another novel about mothers and daughters; and Italian…
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A story of yearning, belonging, secrets and identity from Native America
A story of yearning, belonging, secrets and identity from Native America in Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit; rusted robots, prosthetic limbs, AI and noisy families in Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the…
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Sweden, France, New Zealand: books from around the world
Cassie and Kate read Marie-Hélène Lafon’s The Son’s Story, a family story that spans the twentieth-century, full of melancholy beauty and secrets. Crime writer Hayley Scrivenor reads Geoff Parkes’ When the Deep Dark…
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A medical crisis brings one man close to love, art, and beauty
Kate and Cassie are back for 2025! In this episode, a discussion of Panic by Catherine Jinks, about a young woman looking for a fresh start after posting a drunken rant that went horrifically viral. Novelist George…
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Summer Reading: Quick, give me a recommendation!
Reading Percival Everett's James, Dylin Hardcastle's Language of Limbs and James McBride's The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store Cassie and literary interviewer Michaela Kalowski discussed Percival Everett's James in a…
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