Melbourne writer A. S. Patric takes to the high seas in his new novel Atlantic Black, The Invisible War wins The Most Underrated Book Award, print maker, street artist and disability advocate Larissa MacFarlane talks about doing a handstand a day for over a decade, and an independent bookseller expresses concern on the eve of Amazon's launch in Australia.

Marramb-ik is an exhibition of Indigenous Australian superheroes on at the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Culture Centre at the Melbourne Museum, the impact of Melina Marchetta's cult young adult novel Looking for Alibrandi now that it's 25 years old, photographer Ilona Nelson shines a light on the lives of women in visual arts in Australia in her project This Wild Song and American writer Julie Lekstrom Himes's first novel is about Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov who was, briefly, Stalin’s favourite novelist.

Artist Del Kathryn Barton's exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria The Highway is a Disco, Actor Nicole Kidman on her latest film The Killing of a Sacred Dear, playwright Joanna Murray-Smith chooses her masterpiece and The Pacific Room by Sydney arts journalist Michael Fitzgerald.

Poet, translator and artist Sholeh Wolpé from Iran, Mexican novelist and poet Carmen Boullosa and poet, translator and academic Ana Luísa Amaral from Portugal speak passionately about their literary and poetic traditions. Recorded at the 2017 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.

Join us for the best of this week's Books and Arts.

Peter Carey finally tackles the novel he spent his 'whole life not knowing how to write'.

Indigenous writer Tony Birch reflects on winning this year's Patrick Award, Christmas glitz takes on satanic dimensions in Silent Night, Bram Presser explores his grandparents' story of Holocaust survival and a look back at when Australia caught the wave of surf music in the early 60s.

We discover the work of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama whose work is being celebrated at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, take a look at the Barangaroo Ngangamay project, which is a smart-phone app that allows you to hear ancient songs and stories, travel to the WA regional town of Collie to visit its world class art gallery and catch up with American thriller writer Don Winslow, whose new book is called The Force.

Australian novelist Alex Miller speaks about his new novel The Passage of Love, we chat to Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits about the exhibition Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum on show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and compare the book to film adaptation of Agatha Christie's tale Murder on the Orient Express.

A conversation from the 2017 Sydney Writers Festival with writer Ashley Hay about her latest novel 100 Small Lessons as well as her writing processes.