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 Times-bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hea...
May 24, 2024•54 min
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 comedian. She’s the presenter of Chopsticks or Fork?, a six-part AACTA-nominated ABC series on Chine...
May 17, 2024•54 min
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 Road, Alan Murrin (Bloomsbury) GUESTS Shannon Burns, writer, critic, and member of The JM Coetzee Ce...
May 10, 2024•1 hr 1 min
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 work includes The Family Law and Wellmania Madeleine Gray, arts writer, critic and PhD candidate in En...
May 03, 2024•1 hr
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.
Apr 26, 2024•59 min
Cassie and guest host Beejay Silcox read new work by One Day sensation David Nicholls.
Apr 19, 2024•54 min
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 Morning, Charmian Clift (New South) Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange (Penguin Random House) The Alternatives,...
Apr 12, 2024•54 min
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.
Apr 05, 2024•54 min
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.
Mar 28, 2024•54 min
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.
Mar 22, 2024•54 min
Reimagining Huckleberry Finn, alienation and a talking fox in this edition of The Bookshelf.
Mar 15, 2024•54 min
Cassie and Jonathan Green review three new Australian novels with guest star Claire Nichols and novelist Graham Akhurst.
Mar 08, 2024•54 min
Cassie and co-host Tom Wright review two new Australian novels, and from across the ‘Dutch',
Mar 01, 2024•54 min
Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green review a literary project edited by Margaret Atwood, and new work by Gail Jones and Jennifer Croft.
Feb 23, 2024•54 min
Cassie and guest host (and playwright) Tom Wright review three new works of fiction.
Feb 16, 2024•56 min
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.
Feb 09, 2024•54 min
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.
Feb 02, 2024•54 min
The Bookshelf is back for 2024 reviewing the latest from Katherena Vermette, Dolly Alderton and Jonathan Lethem.
Jan 26, 2024•54 min
Reclaiming and retelling Australian history, where time is both stilled and circular, in Melissa Lucashenko's Edenglassie; and commenting on the past through alternative futures, in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars, Catherine Lacey's Biography of X and Carole Hailey's The Silence Project.
Jan 19, 2024•54 min
The Bookshelf is a program for dedicated readers and those who wished they read more.
Jan 12, 2024•54 min
Restoration political satire, Mediaeval rumour, eco-terrorism in New Zealand and a young man with a mixtape full of angst. Reading Max Porter's Shy, Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood, Robyn Cadwallader's The Fire and the Rose with guests Clare Mabey and Clare Monagle; and an introduction to the writing of Aphra Behn from novelist Karen Brooks (The Escapades of Tribulation Johnson)
Jan 05, 2024•54 min
Looking for books to rock you back on your heels? You've come to the right place. Kate and Cassie read Deborah Levy's August Blue, Colson Whitehead's Crook Manifesto, Elizabeth McCracken's The Hero of this Book and Claire Kilroy's Soldier Sailor, with Miles Merrill, Bernadette Brennan, Jonathan Green and Ashley Hay
Dec 29, 2023•54 min
Best books from the year, and some new interviews too. Kate and Cassie read Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake and Deepti Kapoor’s Age of Vice with guest crime specialist Sue Turnbull (and an extended conversation with Kapoor), and fantasy and the imagination with scholar and children’s author Katherine Rundell and her Impossible Creatures.
Dec 22, 2023•54 min
Melanie Saward joins Kate for a genre-filled reading recommendation discussion of romance, the pseudonymous crime fiction of Australian author George Johnston (with Derham Groves), and historical fiction of the Hundred Years War with Dan Jones. What will you read over Summer?
Dec 15, 2023•54 min
Kate, Cassie and three reading guests (critic Beejay Silcox, Books Editor Jason Steger and kids' author Tristan Bancks) on the books they've loved, the books they'd recommend, the books to give to a friend, the books to read over Summer (and yes, there is a list).
Dec 08, 2023•54 min
Kate Evans onstage for the Bookshelf and Canberra Writers Festival with CWF Artistic Director and critic Beejay Silcox, and novelist Edwina Preston, on Edwina's novel Bad Art Mother . . . and art, writing, motherhood, poetry and all the rest.
Dec 07, 2023•58 min
Are you a crime fiction thriller fan? Those stories that get your heart racing and keep you awake all night? Even if you only dip into the genre once in a blue moon, you'll want to join us for a lively thriller themed Book Club with two top-notch crime fiction afficiandoes.
Dec 01, 2023•53 min
Kate and Cassie read Nicholas Jose's The Idealist, Michael Cunningham's Day, Naomi Alderman's The Future and Katherine Brabon's Body Friend with guests Eugen Bacon (Serengotti) and Mireille Juchau (The World Without Us)
Nov 24, 2023•54 min
Kate and Cassie read Lucy Treloar’s Days of Innocence and Wonder, Paul Auster’s Baumgartner, Tony Birch’s Women and Children and A K Blakemore’s The Glutton with academic Bruce Isaacs and writer Laura Elvery
Nov 17, 2023•54 min
Kate and Cassie read Richard Flanagan's Question 7, Jayne Anne Phillips' Night Watch and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables with guests novelist Eleanor Limprecht and writer Patrick Carey
Nov 10, 2023•54 min
