Why the resurgence in Australian painting? Book to Film: Love & Friendship. Top Shelf: Sami Shah. The Vinyl Frontier: Bagpipes.

African Book Club: Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men.

OpticNerve Performance Group mount a stage adaptation George Eliot's classic novel The Mill on the Floss; Michael Gow and Melissa Reeves on the National Play Festival; Mahogany L. Browne speaks out on poetry, activism, and the West Writers Forum; and Antonia Hayes shares her Top Shelf.

A big survey of contemporary Australian painting has just opened at ACCA in Melbourne, acclaimed performer Carolyn O'Connor stars in a revival of the musical Funny Girl, the writer and comedian Sami Shah shares his favourite works of art, and in Book to Film Thomas Caldwell and Alicia Sometimes review the new movie Love and Friendship, based on Jane Austen's novella Lady Susan.

Dutch writer Herman Koch in conversation with Kate Evans at the 2016 Sydney Writers' Festival.

At the 2016 Adelaide Writers' Week, Michael Cathcart is in conversation with Jennifer Clement, whose latest novel, Prayers for the Stolen, tells the story of the young girls kidnapped and trafficked into sexual slavery by the drug mafia in Mexico.

Ben Lerner on how poetry works and why it matters; a new play, devised by artists and former prisoners, that asks us to re-examine our understanding of the criminal justice system; the glory days of Perth's art deco cinemas; and the best of the Adelaide Guitar Festival.

A conversation with Ann Goldstein, who is responsible for the English translation of Italian writer Elena Ferrante's critically acclaimed and very successful series of novels; My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child.

A tender conversation with poet Dennis Haskell, about his new collection of poems which documents his experience of his wife dying from cancer, and author Krissy Kneen on the lack of support we give to older writers who haven't yet been published.

The Chat is a new play, devised by artists and former prisoners, that asks us to re-examine our understanding of the criminal justice system. Bestselling novelist Paula Hawkins joins us to discuss The Girl on the Train, and director Justin Martin explains why Clare McIntyre's feminist play Low Level Panic continues to resonate.