Dave Eggers explores the messy intersection of art, friendship and growing up in Contrapposto, while Daniel Mason's Country People follows an academic family into a Vermont landscape full of stories, obsessions and believers in worlds beneath the earth. Then Maria Takolander's The End of Romance imagines life after collapse, where survival, motherhood and hope take unexpected forms.

Joining Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh are our regular reviewers, novelist Madeleine Gray and musician Tim Rogers. 

Plus, playwright and novelist George Kemp shares three favourite Australian books ahead of the ABC's Top 100 Australian Books countdown.

Books discussed

• Contrapposto - Dave Eggers
• Country People - Daniel Mason
• The End of Romance - Maria Takolander
• Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
• The Sun Walks Down - Fiona McFarlane
• Cold Enough for Snow - Jessica Au

Guest recommendations

• Dream Girls - Hannah Goldstein
• Brother of the More Famous Jack - Barbara Trapido
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
• Riverboy - Jim Ewing
• A Suitable Man - Jock Serong
• Fifty Beating Wonders - Dr Michelle Johnston
• Flights - Olga Tokarczuk 

Credits

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Micky Grossman and Tegan Nicholls
• Arts editor, Sarah L' Estrange