The Book Show - podcast cover

The Book Show

ABC listenwww.abc.net.au
Your favourite fiction authors share the story behind their latest books.

Episodes

Moon colonies and the 'Mandelverse' with Emily St John Mandel

Canadian author, Emily St John Mandel, says the pandemic changed her as a writer. Her latest, Sea of Tranquility, was written during lockdown in New York and while it's a standalone novel, also features links to her previous books, Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel. Also, Goan-Anglo-Indian Australian writer Michelle Cahill's novel, Daisy and Woolf, is a literary homage and post-colonial critique of Virginia Woolf’s classic Mrs Dalloway.

May 23, 202254 min

Family troubles with Steve Toltz, Audrey Magee and Toni Jordan

Here Goes Nothing is the last in what Steve Toltz calls his trilogy of fear which began with A Fraction of the Whole. This latest book is narrated by a ghost who discovers there is an afterlife hierarchy and he is at the bottom. Also, Irish writer Audrey Magee on her second novel The Colony which is colonisation in microcosm and Toni Jordan's sixth novel, Dinner with the Schnabels, billed as a family dramedy.

May 16, 202254 min

Queer stories with Douglas Stuart, Indyana Schneider and Omar Sakr

Booker winner Douglas Stuart's second novel, Young Mungo, is again set in gritty working class Glasgow, but also explores blossoming queer love.And, two debut novels also exploring queer identity with Indyana Schneider's 28 Questions and Omar Sakr's Son of Sin.

May 09, 202254 min

Mum’s the word with Dawn French, Douglas Stuart, Anne Enright, Alice Pung and more

We meet some of the most remarkable mothers in recent fiction, with authors including Dawn French, Douglas Stuart, Anne Enright, Lisa Taddeo, Larissa Behrendt and Alice Pung. These literary mums can be loving, neglectful and sometimes cruel – and they often reveal something about the author’s own relationship with their mother or children. Other featured authors include George Haddad, Craig Sherborne, Lydia Kiesling and Kate Mildenhall.

May 02, 202254 min

Jennifer Down and Jonathan Franzen relive the 1970s

Jennifer Down doesn't turn away from uncomfortable truths in her Stella Prize shortlisted novel, Bodies of Light, about the systemic failures of the residential and foster care systems in the 70s and 80s. Also, we revisit our interview with Jonathan Franzen who talks about faith and family, which are two themes in his latest book, Crossroads.

Apr 25, 202254 min

Hannah Kent and Michelle Johnston unearth the past

Hannah Kent reflects on her time as an exchange student in Iceland and how it allowed her to pursue writing, and Michelle Johnston tells Claire Nichols about her novel, Dustfall, for the international literary event called Literature Live Around the World which was hosted by the Bergen International Literary Festival in Norway.

Apr 18, 202254 min

Jennifer Egan's Goon Squad follow-up

Pulitzer-prize winner, Jennifer Egan, is "interested in the ways technology interacts with our psychologies". Her new novel, The Candy House, plays with a deliciously dangerous idea: what if you could externalise your memory? And two books set in small town Australia: Mandy Beaumont's The Furies and Yumna Kassab's provocatively titled Australiana.

Apr 11, 202254 min

Kári Gíslason gives new life to an old Icelandic saga

The Icelandic sagas have long been a source of fascination for Kári Gíslason and his latest novel, The Sorrow Stone, gives new life to an old Icelandic saga. Also disability advocate and writer Liel Bridgford explores disability representation in fiction with Kay Kerr and Jessica Walton, and Robert Lukins on his second novel Loveland set in Nebraska about two women who've experienced controlling marriages and asks whether trauma is inherited.

Apr 04, 202254 min

Mythology and Marlon James — Moon Witch, Spider King

For his latest novel, Moon Witch, Spider King, Marlon James says "I was trying to connect with my own mythological history as a black man in an African diaspora, in a former British colony". Also, friendship in fiction with Susan Johnson, Juhea Kim and Paige Clark, and Perth writer David Whish-Wilson's writing space.

Mar 27, 202254 min

Recovery and 'ridey men' — Marian Keyes and Again, Rachel

'I have a full and beautiful life', says Irish writer Marian Keyes, 'The only thing I can't do is drink'. And the experience of addiction and recovery is something she's given to the main character in her book Again, Rachel, a sequel to Rachel's Holiday. Also, Michael Trant writes a book on his tractor, Jane Caro explores coercive control in The Mother and Rhett Davis's debut novel, Hovering.

Mar 20, 202254 min

Isabel Allende writes about her mother, Markus Zusak gets your fanmail

Isabel Allende says her latest novel, Violeta, was inspired by her mother but also by Allende's own life. Also, readers who send fan mail and the writers who reply with Markus Zusak, Anita Heiss, John Marsden and Krissy Kneen, and disability in fiction with Joseph Elliott and Kit Kavanagh-Ryan.

Feb 27, 202254 min

Love and literature with Hannah Kent, Roddy Doyle, Elif Shafak and more

From young love and forbidden romance to break-ups and long-term relationships: hear authors wax lyrical about love. Writers include David Nicholls, Amy Bloom, Tayari Jones, Howard Jacobson, Monica Ali, Curtis Sittenfeld, Anita Heiss, Vivian Pham, C.S Pacat and Daniel de Lorne.

Feb 13, 202254 min

Jason Mott's Hell of a Book

Jason Mott's Hell of a Book lives up to its name: it has a snappy title, an eccentric narrator and a Nicolas Cage cameo. Also, two authors who explore older Australian's experiences with Liz Byrski's At the End of the Day and Shankari Chandran's Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens.

Feb 06, 202254 min

Secrets and lies in Monica Ali's Love Marriage

Almost 20 years after Brick Lane, Monica Ali is still unpicking the ins and outs of relationships in her novel, Love Marriage. Also, Skimming Stones by Maria Papas was directly inspired by her daughter's own illness and Jack Ellis challenges a myth about childhood in Home and Other Hiding Places.

Jan 30, 202254 min

Hanya Yanagihara moves on from A Little Life

In her new book To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara asks what would America be if its foundations were different. Also Katherine Collette's ode to Toastmasters in The Competition and Craig Sherborne's difficult mother in A Grass Hotel.

Jan 23, 202254 min

Life at the extremes — Pat Barker, Michael Mohammed Ahmad and Ella Baxter

The Booker-winning author Pat Barker's preoccupation with who's allowed to speak and who isn't continues in The Women of Troy , a sequel to The Silence of the Girls, her exploration of women in the Ancient Greek classics. Also, New Animal author, Ella Baxter, on how her writing relates to her artistic practice, and the final in Michael Mohammed Ahmad's trilogy featuring his alter-ego, Bani Adam, with The Other Half of You....

Jan 09, 202254 min

Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro on Klara and the Sun

Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro introduces us to his latest creation in Klara and the Sun, and we also take a look at how authors name their heroes and villains with six writers including Tony Birch, Tabitha Bird and Mirandi Riwoe.

Jan 02, 202254 min

Darkness and light with Patricia Lockwood, Jessie Tu and Ethan Hawke

"It's such a contradiction in life how much we learn from suffering," says actor and writer Ethan Hawke who tells The Book Show about his fourth novel A Bright Ray of Darkness. Darkness and light is a recurring theme in our other author interviews with American Patricia Lockwood and Australian Jessie Tu.

Dec 26, 202154 min

And the winner is: the book prize winners of 2021

Kate Grenville, Craig Silvey, Susanna Clarke, Nardi Simpson, Damon Galgut, Christos Tsiolkas and more on their prize-winning books. Plus, former winners Colson Whitehead, Bernardine Evaristo and Anthony Doerr on the impact of winning a major prize.

Dec 12, 202154 min

'People were already forgetting' — Jodi Picoult confronts the pandemic

Unlike many authors, Jodi Picoult decided to take on COVID-19 in Wish You Were Here, because Picoult says, "we need to remember everything we got wrong while we were learning what this disease is". Also, the salvation of poetry in Brendan Cowell's Plum and The Kindness of Birds by Filipino Australian writer Merlinda Bobis.

Dec 05, 202154 min

How Val McDermid's time as a newspaper journalist inspired a new crime series

Scottish crime writer Val McDermid's new book, 1979, is the beginning of a new series inspired by her own experience as a newspaper journalist in the 1970s and 80s.Also, to celebrate International Day of People With Disability we have some recommendations for speculative fiction novels that centre disabled characters, and

Nov 28, 202154 min

Christos Tsiolkas on beauty and art

"I can't separate the erotic and the sensual from the beautiful." Melbourne Prize for Literature winner, Christos Tsiolkas on his latest novel 7½ which explores what it means to be a writer and the role of beauty in fiction. Also, Rebecca Starford and Steven Carroll on the real life characters that inspired their World War II novels, The Imitator and O.

Nov 14, 202154 min

Hannah Kent and Susanna Clarke on love and loneliness

Author of Burial Rites and The Good People, Hannah Kent says she wanted to look at human connection in her latest novel Devotion. It's another historical novel but is a love story about two girls whose love transcends rules, religion, and even crosses an ocean. Also, the British author, Susanna Clarke, was the winner of this year's Women's Prize for Fiction for her novel Piranesi. She talks about writing the book while living with a chronic illness....

Nov 07, 202153 min