Ahead of this week's RN Book Club on Patricia Highsmith, her biographer Richard Bradford answers questions from readers and members of the ABC Book Club Facebook Group. An intriguing woman, and a writer who places you inside the perspective of her dark and disquieting characters
Kate and Cassie read Michael Mohammed Ahmad's The Other Half of You, Cassandra Austin's Like Mother and Suyi Davies Okungbowa's Son of the Storm with writers Monica Dux and Eugen Bacon
Ern Malley was the poet at the centre of Australia's most famous literary hoaxes: an invented poet, supposedly discovered by his sister, Ethel. Well, Ethel has been revived and rediscovered, made solid by the novelist Stephen Orr in his Sincerely, Ethel Malley. Kate and Cassie are joined by Debra Oswald and Gavin Williams as they read this and new novels by Jhumpa Lahiri and Imbolo Mbue
Writer and translator Subhash Jaireth tracks his life through both countries and bookshelves, from India to the (then) Soviet Union and onto Australia, with many countries and literary traditions in between. He speaks to Kate Evans about where reading and books have taken him.
Writer Krissy Kneen and podcaster Mike Williams join Cassie and Kate as they discuss Rahul Raina's How to Kidnap the Rich, Jamie Marina Lau's Gunk Baby and Jasper Gibson's The Octopus Man. An Indian satire, a contemporary not-quite-dystopian shopping centre, and following the voice of a tentacled deity. Three new works of fiction.
India's first woman lawyer practiced, against the odds, in the 1920s. Novelist Sujata Massey used that woman as inspiration for her fictional character, Perveen Mistry, amateur sleuth in a country bursting with change. Sujata Massey speaks to Kate Evans about her own writing and the bookshelf that shaped her. Reading recommendations abound.
Novelist Bram Presser and comparative literature academic Rebecca Suter join Kate and Cassie to talk about Kazuo Ishiguro's latest novel, Klara and the Sun, in light of all his other novels. And yes, the quality of light, shining down on this Artificial Friend - Robot Girl - is one of the many things at stake in this bookish discussion
It's been a long time since Kate and Cassie have seen either writers or readers in person, but here we all are . . .
