A live recording from the 2025 Melbourne Writers Festival, with guests Hannah Kent and Beejay Silcox.

• Hannah Kent, Always Home, Always Homesick (Picador)
• Eimear McBride, The City Changes Its Face (Faber)
• Susan Choi, Flashlight (Jonathan Cape)
• Edward St Aubyn, Parallel Lines (Jonathan Cape)
• Caryl Phillips, Another Man in the Street (Bloomsbury)

Guests

Hannah Kent is the author of the novels Burial Rites, The Good People and Devotion. Her latest book is the memoir, Always Home, Always Homesick

Beejay Silcox is a critic, writer, festival director and literary interviewer

Other Books Mentioned

• Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
• Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
• Eric Puchner, Dream State
• Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers
• Emily Maguire, Rapture
• Mariana Enríquez, A Sunny Place for Shady People
• Susan Hampton, Anything Can Happen

We review the latest in fiction for dedicated readers and for those who wish they read more.

Cassie McCullagh is joined by Jonathan Green this time, for a wide-ranging hour of new fiction, from Australia and beyond. First, Fiona Mozley’s unsettling Awake Awake, where a young woman begins to suspect her grandfather may have killed Adolf Hitler, Zan Rowe weighs in. Then, Irish writer Niamh Campbell’s Make Strange, a quietly eerie novel about a four-year-old asking impossible questions, including whether she’s lived before...Madeleine Gray gives her verdict. And we begin with a striking new Australian voice in the short story collection I Made This Just For You by Chris Ames.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Elmet; Hot Stew, by Fiona Mozley
• What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan
• The Ruiners, by Ellena Savage
• The Shepherd's Life; A Place of Tides, by James Rebanks
• The Animators; Returns and Exchanges, by Kayla Rae Whitaker
• Fruit Fly, by Josh Silver
• Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang
• A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
• Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green
• Producer, Cassie McCullagh and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Antonia Gauci and Ann Marie Debettencor
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

From a sun-drenched Tuscan reset with a side of style advice (Andrew Sean Greer's Villa Coco via Michael Robotham), to Ilka Tampke’s How To Love the World, a tender take on parenting and the pull of the bush (guided by Roanna Gonsalves), and throw in a windswept lighthouse on the edge of the world with Michael Pedersen’s Muckle Flugga.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Charles Bukowski, works
• Andrew Sean Greer, Less
• Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt
• Patrick Dennis, Auntie Mame
• Steve Toltz, works
• Ilka Tampke, Skin; Songwoman
• Debra Adelaide,When I Am Sixty-Four
• David Sedaris, The Land and Its People; Me Talk Pretty One Day
• Rashida Murphy, Old Ghosts; The Historian's Daughter
• Olga Ravn, The Wax Child; The Employees

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Tegan Nicholls and Harvey O'Sullivan
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh are joined by regulars Hannah Kent and Tom Wright to talk new fiction from three major voices: Maggie O’Farrell’s Land, an expansive novel set in famine-era Ireland that traces memory, myth and the imprint of history on place; Ann Patchett’s Whistler, a sharp story of family, lost fathers and the long shadow of childhood; and Christine Balint’s A Single Witness, which follows a teenage girl confronting her community and the law in 18th-century Italy.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Maggie O'Farrell, works
• Ann Patchett, works
• Christine Balint, works
• George R.Stewart, Names On The Land 
• Sumner Locke Elliott’s Careful, He Might Hear You 
• Tusiata Avia, Big Fat Brown Bitch 
• Dominic Hoey, 1985
• Ingrid Horrocks, All Her Lives: Nine Stories
• Tāme Iti, MANA

~ CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound: Micky Grossman, Isabella Tropiano
• Arts editor: Rhiannon Brown

Kate Evans is joined by Bernadette Brennan and Beejay Silcox to talk three striking new releases: Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s Said the Dead, a haunting, archive-rich exploration of a derelict Irish asylum; Chloe Wilson’s The Thornbacks, a darkly comic debut of morticians, dating apps and unsettling female entanglements; and Deborah Levy’s My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, a playful meditation on literary life in Paris. 

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Amitav Ghosh, Ghost-Eye
• Susan Choi, Flashlight
•  S.A. Cosby, works
• Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat
•  Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
• Angela Carter, Wise Children
• Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides
• Daisy Johnson, Sisters
• Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
• Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister the Serial Killer
• Deborah Levy, works
• Kim Scott, Benang
• Alexis Wright, Carpentaria
• Francesca Wade, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife
• Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas 
• Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain, Bone Horn
• Erin Vincent. Fourteen Ways of Looking
• Claire Thomas, On Not Climbing Mountains
• Gwendoline Riley, The Palm House
• Chloe Wilson, Hold Your Fire
• Robin Robertson, The Long Take
• Joseph Furphy, Such is Life
• Elizabeth Jolley, works

~ CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound: Antonia Gauci
• Arts editor: Rhiannon Brown

The Bookshelf comes to you from a sold out session at Sydney Writers’ Festival, for a conversation that brings together an exceptional line-up: acclaimed novelist and poet Tony Birch, Miles Franklin Award-winning author Siang Lu, and internationally celebrated writer Lily King. Together, with Cassie, Kate and special guest Claire Nichols from The Book Show, they mark the launch of ABC Radio National’s 2026 Top 100 Books countdown, this year turning the spotlight on the very best of Australian writing, fiction and non-fiction, across all time.

~ ABC RADIO NATIONAL TOP 100 AUSTRALIAN BOOKS COUNTDOWN

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/top-100-books-2026/106621398

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY LILY KING

• Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds
• Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus; The Evening of the Holiday
• Kate Grenville, The Idea of Perfection
• Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY TONY BIRCH

• William Dick, A Bunch of Ratbags
• Ruth Park, works
• Colin Johnson, Wild Cat Falling
• Kenneth Cook, Wake in Fright
• Frank Hardy, Power Without Glory
• Peter Carey, American Dreams; Crabs
• Pi O, 24 Hours: Ulysses in Fitzroy

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY SIANG LU

• Nam Le, The Boat
• Michael Winkler, Grimmish
• Peter Carey, The True History of the Kelly Gang
• Helen Garner, Monkey Grip
• Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY CASSIE MCCULLAGH

• Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career
• Peter Temple, Broken Shore
• Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History

~  BOOKS MENTIONED BY KATE EVANS

• Ethel Turner, Seven Little Australians
• Florence James and Dymphna Cusack, Come in Spinner
• Peter Carey, Illywhacker; Oscar and Lucinda

~ BOOKS MENTIONED BY CLAIRE NICHOLS

• The Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book
• Mem Fox, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald
• Kim Scott, works
• Tim Winton, works
• Josephine Wilson, Extinctions

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED 

• Tim Winton, Cloudstreet
• Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe
• Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore
• Sally Morgan, My Place
• Archie Roach, Tell Me Why
• Jimmy Barnes, Working Class Boy
• Ruby Langford Ginibi, Don’t Take Your Love to Town
• Thea Astley, works
• Helen Garner, The Children's Bach; The Spare Room
• Melina Marchetta, Looking for Alibrandi
• Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North; Question 7
• Madeleine St John, Ladies in Black
• Shankari Chandran, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens
• Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow
• Andrew McGahan, Praise
• Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
• Robbie Arnott, Limberlost
• Hannah Kent, Burial Rites
• Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding
• A.B. Facey, A Fortunate Life
• David Malouf, Johnno 
• Jane Harper, The Dry

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh, Claire Nichols
• Producer, Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Harvey O'Sullivan
• Arts Editor, Rhiannon Brown

We head by rackety ferry to Scotland in John of John, the latest, quietly devastating novel from Shuggie Bain author Douglas Stuart. Henry Lawson reimagined - brawling poets, strange tunnels, time loops, and a warped tussle between city and bush in Wayne Marshall’s Henry Goes Bush, reviewed by You Am I's Tim Rogers. From there, novelist Madeleine Gray turns her eye to Lena Dunham’s sharp, self‑aware memoir Famesick, before moving to Ellena Savage’s The Ruiners, which shifts between a Melbourne lobster shack and a smoke‑wreathed Greek island.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Norman Lindsay, Bohemians of the Bulletin
• Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow
• Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays
• Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl
• Joan Didion, works
• Eve Babitz, works
• Ellena Savage, Blueberries
• Charles Dickens, works
• Charmian Clift, works
• George Johnston, works
• Michael Winkler, Griefdogg
• Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch
• Colum McCann, Apeirogon
• Steve MinOn, First Name Second Name
• Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
• James Bailey, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark
• Lee Lai, Cannon

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Roi Huberman
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

This week’s Bookshelf features the latest from Elizabeth Strout, creator of Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton, returning with a stand‑alone novel called The Things We Never Say. We’re also reading an ambitious, genre‑bending novel that moves from 1980s gaming culture to far‑future space travel, and Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director, a German novel in translation that explores film, power and propaganda. Joining us to review are Geordie Williamson - critic, publisher and writer; and Robert Forster - singer‑songwriter, founding member of The Go‑Betweens, memoirist and brand new novelist with Songwriters on the Run.

~ REVIEWERS

• Robert Forster and Geordie Williamson

~ BOOKS

• Daniel Kehlmann, The Director (translated from the German by Ross Benjamin), Riverrun
• Elizabeth Strout, The Things We Never Say, Viking Penguin  
• Portia Elan, Homebound, Chatto & Windus
• Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear, Fourth Estate 

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Daniel Kehlmann, works
• Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton
• The Boundless Deep, Richard Holmes
• Johnno, David Malouf
• Keeley Jobe, The Endling
• Ana Paula Maia, On Earth as It Is Beneath

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound, Craig Tilmouth and Roi Huberman
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

In this episode, superstar reviewer Hannah Kent tackles the rugged terrain of a journey that edges towards the Tibetan border in Deepa Anappara's The Last of Earth, and theatre writer Tom Wright ponders extraterrestrial encounters in Amanda Lohrey's new one, Capture. Plus, Kate and Cassie take a look at two titles on the International Booker Prize shortlist, from France and Bulgaria, one follows a not‑very‑successful witch who weeps tears of blood; and the other is the story of a woman in Albania who switches genders through an ancient ritual.

~ BOOKS 

• Marie NDiaye, The Witch, translated from the French by Jordan Stump, MacLehose Press 
• Rene Karabash, She Who Remains, translated from the Bulgarian by Izidora Angel, Peirene Press 
• Deepa Anappara, The Last of Earth, One World 
• Amanda Lohrey, Capture, Text

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• David Malouf, works
• Chloe Dalton, Raising Hare
• Laura McPhee Brown, Worry Doll 
• Ranginui Walker, Struggle Without End 
• Patricia Walker, Potiki 
• Cameron Sullivan, The Red Winter

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Bella Tropiano and Hamish Camilleri
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown