Read This

This week, Michael chats with author Briohny Doyle, whose most recent novel Why We Are Here explores the complexities of grief, both individual and collective. They discuss the role of writing during the pandemic and how relationships with non-human others enable us to access repressed parts of ourselves.
Reading list:The Island Will Sink, Briohny Doyle, 2013Adult Fantasy, Briohny Doyle, 2017Echolalia, Briohny Doyle, 2021Why We Are Here, Briohny Doyle, 2023
The Great Undoing, Sharlene Allsopp, 2024Tremor, Teju Cole, 2023
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. 
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and TwitterGuest: Briohny Doyle

For our first episode of 2024, Michael speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks. She shares her life sentence and reflects on how her upbringing provided the perfect building blocks for a career as a writer. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Reading list:Nine Parts of Desire, Geraldine Brooks, 1994Foreign Correspondence, Geraldine Brooks, 1997March, Geraldine Brooks, 2005Horse, Geraldine Brook, 2022
Dreams of My Russian Summers, Andreï Makine, 1995We All Lived In Bondi Then, Georgia Blain, 2024A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Nathan Thrall, 2023
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. 
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and TwitterGuest: Geraldine Brooks

For our last show of the year, Michael heads to Fitzroy Pool to find out what people are reading as the weather warms up. Plus, some of our previous guests offer book recommendations for the summer holidays.
Reading list:The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett, 2020Down and Out In Paris and London, George Orwell, 1933My Body, Emily Ratajkowski, 2021Ghosts, Dolly Alderton, 2020The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, 2023The Road, Cormac McCarthy, 2006Working Class Boy, Jimmy Barnes, 2018Never Never, Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher, 2023The Spy’s Wife, Fiona McIntosh, 2021Lioness, Emily Perkins, 2023And Then She Fell, Alicia Elliott, 2023The Palestine Laboratory, Anthony Loewenstein, 2023England’s Green, Zaffar Kunial, 2022The Sullivanians, Alexander Stille, 2023Everyone and Everything, Nadine J. Cohen, 2023Why We Are Here, Briohny Doyle, 2023The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman, 2020Middlemarch, George Eliot, 1871
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books.
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter

Max Porter, best known for his debut novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers, has long been inspired by literature – reading it, listening to it, and, most importantly, sharing it with others. This week, Max shares the piece of writing that changed his life and reveals why every single time he thinks about it, its power renews itself like a rechargeable battery.
Reading list:Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter, 2015Lanny, Max Porter, 2019The Death of Francis Bacon, Max Porter, 2021Shy, Max Porter, 2023
Memorial, Alice Oswald, 2011Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit, 2004Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, ed. Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, 2023The Complete Poems, Emily Dickinson, 2017
Day, Michael Cunningham, 2023Roman Stories, Jhumpa Lahiri, 2023
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books.
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and TwitterGuest: Max Porter

Michelle de Kretser began reading Shirley Hazzard well before she herself would become a writer, but she felt an early kinship, and two decades later it exploded into a full obsession. This week, Michael speaks with Michelle and Hazzard's biographer Brigitta Olubas about one of Australia's most underrated and underread authors.
Reading list:The Evening of the Holiday, Shirley Hazzard, 1966The Bay of Noon, Shirley Hazzard, 1970The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard, 1980Greene on Capri, Shirley Hazzard, 2000The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard, 2003On Shirley Hazzard: Writers on Writers, Michelle de Kretser, 2019Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life, Brigitta Olubas, 2023
Prophet Song, Paul Lynch, 2023So Close to Home, Mick Cummins, 2023In Praise of Veg, Alice Zaslavsky, 2020
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books.
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and TwitterGuest: Michelle de Kretser & Brigitta Olubas

Back in 2005, following the publication of her debut novel, Gabrielle Zevin experienced a kind of literary trauma, one that completely fractured her sense of intimacy with the art form that she loved. Since then, she has learned to embrace failure and her latest novel has featured on over thirty “Best Books of the Year” Lists. This week, Michael sits down with Gabrielle for a wide-ranging discussion about collaboration, creativity, ambition and failure in her new book, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. 
Reading list:Margarettown, Gabrielle Zevin, 2005The Hole We're In, Gabrielle Zevin, 2010The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin, 2014Young Jane Young, Gabrielle Zevin, 2017Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, 2022
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro, 1989The Animators, Kayla Rae Whitaker, 2016
Returning, Kirli Saunders, 2023Wellness, Nathan Hill, 2023
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books.
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and TwitterGuest: Gabrielle Zevin

Described by the Washington Post as "one of our greatest living novelists", Richard Flanagan has been writing for more than three decades. His 2013 novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North won the Booker Prize and his essays have been published across Australia and internationally. This week Michael heads to Tasmania to speak with Richard at his home in Hobart about his latest and most personal novel, Question 7.
Reading list:
Gould’s Book of Fish, Richard Flanagan, 2001The Narrow Road to the North, Richard Flanagan, 2013The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, Richard Flanagan, 2020Question 7, Richard Flanagan, 2023
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells, 1898The World Set Free, H.G. Wells, 1914Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov, 1951
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books.
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and TwitterGuest: Richard Flanagan

Rebecca Makkai is a master storyteller – her 2018 book, The Great Believers, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. In I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca switches genres with a literary crime story that takes in the #MeToo movement, the American justice system, race, sex, class and murder, all against the backdrop of a prestigious boarding school. This week, Michael sits down with Rebecca to discuss her latest novel, the perils of true crime, and why being surprised when reading a book is so much more satisfying than a jump scare in a movie.
Reading list:The Borrower, Rebecca Makkai, 2011The Hundred-Year House, Rebecca Makkai, 2014The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai, 2018I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai, 2023
The Stone of Laughter, Hoda Barakat, 1990So Late in the Day, Claire Keegan, 2023The In-Between, Christos Tsiolkas, 2023
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books.
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and TwitterGuest: Rebecca Makkai

Charlotte Wood became a mainstay in Australia’s literary firmament in 2015 following the release of her award-winning novel, The Natural Way of Things. Her latest book, Stone Yard Devotional, is her most personal yet. It’s a meditation on grief, solitude, what it means to live a good life, and what we owe one another. This week, Michael sits down with Charlotte to discuss her new book, and she shares the psychic catastrophe that informed its final form.
Reading list:The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood, 2015The Weekend, Charlotte Wood, 2019The Luminous Solution, Charlotte Wood, 2021Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood, 2023
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson, 2004Gilgamesh, Joan London, 2001The Golden Age, Joan London, 2014
The Wren, The Wren, Anne Enright, 2023Women and Children, Tony Birch, 2023
You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books.
Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and TwitterGuest: Charlotte Wood