In Son of Nobody, Yann Martel tells Claire Nichols how he reimagines The Iliad, shifting the epic from heroic legend to life as an ordinary foot soldier.

Twenty-five years after Life of Pi changed his life, he also reflects on the enduring power of myth, storytelling, and why animals continue to resonate in fiction.

Yann spoke to Claire Nichols at the Sydney Writers Festival.

Bestselling author Ann Patchett joins Claire Nichols to discuss her novel Whistler and its unexpected take on step-parents, while Romy Ash unpacks her intimate, sexy and strange new book, Mantle.

American author Ann Patchett is the bestselling author of Commonwealth, Bel Canto and Tom Lake. She tells Claire Nichols how her own experience of growing up in a large, blended family influenced her new novel Whistler which is about a reunion between a woman and her stepfather, 40 years after losing touch. 

Ann Patchett is also a bookseller and shares the books she's excited about this year: John of John by Douglas Stuart and Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li.

Skin, strange rashes, the climate crisis and salmon farming all come together in Romy Ash's follow up to her Miles Franklin shortlisted novel, Floundering. Mantle is about a woman who's travelled to Tasmania to care for her dying mother, meanwhile a bizarre skin rash is spreading through the population. Romy shares her love of geology and why fiction is the perfect avenue to explore this passion.

Why Booker Prize winner David Szalay once thought Flesh was a vulgar title and why he's glad he kept it.

He joined Claire Nichols at the Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival to discuss his award winning novel and its complicated relationship to masculinity.

With the fall of the USSR, the novel charts István's changing fortunes from his humble beginnings in Hungary to a lavish life in the UK.

David also tells Claire about why his first Booker Prize award ceremony for All that Man Is in 2016 was so nerve wracking, but the second time around was much more enjoyable (winning helps).

Why Siri Hustvedt wants Paul Auster to return as a ghost.

American novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt speaks with Claire Nichols about her partner of 43 years, writer and poet Paul Auster. When Auster died in 2024 from complications of lung cancer, Hustvedt began writing in the depths of grief. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, reflects on a life both with and without him, offering rare insight into their creative partnership. It draws on journal entries, correspondence between the two, and letters Auster wrote to his newborn grandson in the final months of his life.

Plus, Lee Lai has won the 2026 Stella Prize for her graphic novel Cannon, marking the first time a graphic novel has been awarded the $60,000 prize. She tells Claire Nichols why she was surprised to win and why the project of growing up is never finished. Listen to the pod extra interview with Lee Lai, the 2026 Stella Prize winner here.

Lee Lai has won the 2026 Stella Prize for her graphic novel Cannon, marking the first time a graphic novel has been awarded the $60,000 prize. She tells Claire Nichols why she was surprised to win and why the project of growing up is never finished.

Running since 2013, the Stella Prize is an Australian award for women and non-binary writers. The judges praised Lai for her "elegant artistry" that "evokes horror and poignancy, shock and delight, and Cannon is an incontestable reminder that — in the hands of a masterful artist and storyteller — the very best graphic novels can do what prose alone cannot. And Cannon is absolutely one of the best."

It's about Luce Cannon who feels her life falling apart as the pressures of being queer, a well behaved second generation Chinese migrant and a carer collide in an epically bad night at work in the kitchen of a Montreal restaurant.

What do fate and past lives reveal about who we are? Claire Nichols speaks with Veronica Roth and Amitav Ghosh on Seek the Traitor's Son and Ghost Eye.

Award-winning, Indian-born American author Amitav Ghosh explores the mysteries of past lives in his latest novel Ghost Eye. Drawing on international case studies of reported reincarnation, Ghosh brings these stories to life through a narrative set in 1960s Calcutta. When a three-year-old girl from a wealthy, strictly vegetarian family wakes up insisting on eating fish, the question is raised: could she be remembering a previous life as a fisherwoman from a rural community? In conversation with Claire Nichols, Ghosh explains why such accounts of past-life memories shouldn't be dismissed outright as they say something profound about what it means to be human.

Amitav Ghosh is visiting Australia in May and will be a guest at the Sydney Writers Festival, Saturday 23 May and the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne, Wednesday 27 May.

Bestselling author Veronica Roth speaks with Claire Nichols about writing her debut novel Divergent while still a university student and how the book and series went on to sell more than 35 million copies worldwide. Now, Roth turns to adult speculative fiction with her new novel Seek the Traitor's Son, the first in an epic series set in a divided world. The story follows a young woman destined to save her people in a society fractured between those who worship the mysterious force known as the "fever" and those who reject it.

Readers have lovingly followed the fictional lives of Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton for more than a decade. Now their creator, Elizabeth Strout introduces a new character to embrace and Claire Nichols finds out why. Plus Amanda Lohrey explains her fascination with the belief in aliens.

Artie Dam is an unassuming Massachusetts high school history teacher who seems to have it all, but is facing internal turmoil, even doubting the notion of free will. As Pulitzer Prize winning author Elizabeth Strout reveals in this interview, The Things We Never Say is a story reflecting our recent volatile times. 

And Miles Franklin winner Amanda Lohrey also dissects the idea of certainty in her latest novel. Capture is about a psychiatrist, Jim, who interviews people who say they've been abducted or visited by aliens. While assumptions may be challenged a truth is out there. Or is it? Amanda Lohrey explores life's mysteries with Claire Nichols. 

British poet, performer and novelist Kae Tempest explains why writing his second novel, Having Spent Life Seeking, was so necessary and Michael Winkler tells Claire Nichols why life might be better as a dog.

Michael Winkler's second novel, Griefdogg follows his lauded genre-bending debut Grimmish about a boxer and a talking goat. It also made Australian literary history in 2022 as the first self-published novel to ever be shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Griefdogg is about a man who makes the unexpected decision to live as the family pet when the pressures of modern life get too much for him; in the conversation, Michael reflects on the appeal of "a dog's life".

Kae Tempest is a British musician, poet, playwright and novelist who - since he was a teenager - has built an international reputation in rap and spoken word poetry. Kae's second novel, Having Spent Life Seeking follows Rothko who's newly released from prison and has returned to the hometown where everything fell apart. Claire also speaks to Kae about the challenges of writing a novel while maintaining a demanding schedule of live performances and musical projects.

David Malouf was a giant of Australian writing who was known and loved for his iconic debut novel, Johnno, about a young Brisbane man during World War 2; a book partly inspired by his own life.

In a career spanning more than 50 years, David wrote plays, poetry, libretto, and more novels, including The Great World, and his Booker Prize shortlisted, Remembering Babylon.

And today, on this special episode of The Book Show, we're remembering David who has died at the age of 92.

Claire Nichols revisits her very special interview with David in 2025 in which he discusses his early life, sharing books with his mother, that first novel and the benefits of a daily walk on the beach.

This interview was first broadcast on 25 September 2025.

Steve Toltz talks to Claire Nichols about his comic novel A Rising of the Lights, and former diplomat Ian Kemish reflects on his tender debut, Two Islands, exploring the long tail of war.

Twins separated by the role of a dice, the rise of AI, and a mystery behind lives trying to hold it together in a lonely fractured world. These are just a few of the themes discussed with Claire Nichols about A Rising of the Lights, the latest darkly comic novel from the Booker Prize shortlisted author Steve Toltz.

Ian Kemish has used his considerable knowledge as a former Australian diplomat to write a debut that is ultimately about compassion. In Two Islands a young man flees the Balkan conflict to an isolated island on the west coast of Scotland. What does he find there and is he safe?