In American Hagwon, the bestselling author of Pachinko, Min Jin Lee, explores family, education, ambition and the long shadow of economic upheaval, set between Seoul, Sydney and California. Louise Kennedy's Stations offers a tough and deeply felt Irish family story, while Catherine Chidgey's The Starving Bride turns hunger into a strange gothic performance. Kate and Cassie are joined this time by regulars, novelist and academic Professor Tony Birch and critic and literary judge Beejay Silcox. And, as we count down to the Top 100 Australian Books, Frank Moorhouse's biographer Matthew Lamb reveals his top three.

Books featured

• Min Jin Lee, American Hagwon, Fourth Estate
• Louise Kennedy, Stations, Bloomsbury Circus
• Catherine Chidgey, The Starving Bride, Penguin 

Matthew Lamb's Top 100 picks

• Forty-Seventeen (1988) by Frank Moorhouse
• Tourmaline (1963) by Randolph Stow
• Writer Reader Critic (1992) by Dorothy Green 

Other books mentioned

• Janet McCalman, Struggletown
• Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History
• The Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book
• Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs and Djawa Burarrwanga, A Piece of Red Cloth
• Gretchen Shirm, Out of the Woods
• Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

Kate and Cassie take a look at bestselling author Emily St. John Mandel's latest, Exit Party, an epic that follows a doppelgänger and a man who disappears from a Los Angeles party in 2031, leading to a journey across parallel worlds and fractured timelines. Internationally-bestselling crime writer Michael Robotham is in to discuss The Weight of Angels by John Boyne; and Graham Akhurst, novelist, academic and Director of Indigenous Studies at the University of Technology  on Turkish writer Kenan Orhan's Booker Longlisted novel The Renovation; and historian and author Anna Clark is in to share her Top 100 picks.

Books featured

• Emily St John Mandel, Exit Party, Picador
• John Boyne, The Weight of Angels, Doubleday
• Kenan Orhan, The Renovation, Hamish Hamilton

Anna Clark's Top 100 picks

• Raimond Gaita, Romulus, My Father
• Gay'wu Group of Women, Songspirals: Sharing Women’s Wisdom of Country through Songlines
• Billy Griffiths, Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia
• The Macquarie Dictionary, first edition published 1981
• Ken Simpson and Nicolas Day, Field Guide to the Birds of Australia, first edition published in 1984

Other books mentioned

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
• James Joyce, Ulysses
• Alexis Wright, PraiseworthyChina Miéville, The City & the City
• Claire G. Coleman, works
• Curtis Sittenfeld, Rodham
• Peter Carey, Illywhacker
• Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole
• Alexis Wright, Carpentaria
• Kim Scott, Benang: From the Heart

We want to know what you think of Radio National's book podcasts (The Book Show and The Bookshelf). Help us understand what's working, what's not, and how we can make our book programs even more useful, relevant and unmissable. Please take this quick survey.

We step into Irish bestseller Donal Ryan's world in Where Are the Kings, a tender coming of age story about a boy navigating grief. Inside a fracturing mind in Emma Cline’s Booker Longlisted novel Switzy, read with novelist Madeleine Gray. A chronicle of DIY activism, collectives and autonomous living in Sydney's west in Australian writer Max Easton’s Now, Autonomy, read for us by singer-songwriter Tim Rogers, and a newer world emerges in the wake of the American Civil War in Sebastian Barry’s new novel, The Newer World, read by author Hannah Kent.

BOOKS FEATURED

• Donal Ryan, Where Are the Kings, Doubleday
• Emma Cline, Switzy, Chatto & Windus
• Max Easton, Now, Autonomy, Giramondo
• Sebastian Barry, The Newer World, Faber

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through
• Meg Howrey, Body Language
• Colum McCann, Apeirogon
• Melina Marchetta, Looking for Alibrandi
• Abigal Ulman, Hot Little Hands
• Patrick White, The Tree of Man
• Heather Rose, The Museum of Modern Love
• Elizabeth Jolley, The Well

We want to know what you think of Radio National's book podcasts (The Book Show and The Bookshelf). Help us understand what's working, what's not, and how we can make our book programs even more useful, relevant and unmissable. Please take this quick survey.

Kate and Cassie with regular reviewer Tom Wright discuss new releases including Melissa Harrison’s The Given World and Malcolm Knox’s The Second Child. Plus, novelist and memoirist Mandy Sayer on her Top 3 Australian books ahead of Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books Countdown.

Mandy Sayer's Top 3 Australian Books

• Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
• Robin Dalton, Aunts up the Cross (1965)
• David Malouf, Johnno (1975) 

Other books mentioned

• A.B. Facey, A Fortunate Life
• George Johnston, My Brother Jack
• Eric C. Rolls, They All Ran Wild
• Emily St John Mandel, Exit Party
• Colm Toibin, The Bridge
• Barbara Kingsolver, Partita
• John Boyne, The Weight of Angels
• Marlon James, The Disappearers
• Max Porter, works
• Patrick Gale, works
• Sarah Moss, works
• Joseph Furphy, Such is Life
• Peter Carey, Illywhacker
• Gerald Munane, The Plains

Voting in Radio National's Top 100 Books countdown is about to open and this year we're celebrating Australian books. As you think about your own Top 10, Kate and Cassie bring together a trio of award-winning writers (including last year's Top 100 Books winner!) to reveal the Australian books they have loved and been influenced by: Trent Dalton, Claire Thomas and Steve MinOn, with a surprise appearance in the audience from Grimmish and Griefdogg author Michael Winkler.

Books mentioned

• Storm Boy by Colin Thiele
• Hating Alison Ashley by Robin Klein
• Cole's Funny Picture Book by E.W. Cole
• The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
• Johnno; Fly Away Peter by David Malouf
• Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook
• The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson
• Ruth Park, works
• Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
• The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith; Schindler's Ark  by Thomas Keneally
• Possum Magic by Mem Fox
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
• Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
• Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
• Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
• The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
• She Is Me by Tahlia Isaac
• Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
• Zigzag Street by Nick Earls
• The Garden Book by Brian Castro
• The Children's Bach by Helen Garner
• A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey
• My Brilliant Career by Miles Stella Franklin
• A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville
• The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough
• The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazard
• The Vivisector by Patrick White
• A Short History of Longans by Mirandi Riwoe
• The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Credits

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Steve Fieldhouse
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Anjet Daanje's The Song of Stork and Dromedary, translated from the Dutch, explores the intimate work of death and care in the eighteenth century. Liane Moriarty returns to the world of Big Little Lies with Big Little Truths, reuniting readers with the coastal suburb of Pirriwee and her cast a decade on,  just with a little more menopausal rage, teenage angst, and a severed finger. Joining us are regular reviewer Beejay Silcox, along with Cheryl Akle from Better Reading. Plus, critic and publisher Geordie Williamson shares his Top 3 Australian books.

Books

• The Song of Stork and Dromedary by Anjet Daanje, translated from Dutch by David McKay (Scribe)
• Big Little Truths by Liane Moriarty (Macmillan)

Geordie Williamson's Top 3 Australian Books

• Such is Life  by Joseph Furphy
• Translations from the Natural World by Les Murray
• The Eye of the Crocodile by Val Plumwood

Other books mentioned

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
• Mine by Adam Ousten
• Dark Places by Kate Grenville
• John Brown, Rose, and the Midnight Cat by Jenny Rose
• Little Bear series by Maurice Sendak
• Tell Me Something True by Michael Robotham 

We want your feedback! Help us understand what's working, what's not, and how we can make our book programs even more useful, relevant and unmissable. Please take this survey:

• https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/RsSBGWuFEU

Credits

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Micky Grossman
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

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

Omar Musa joins us after winning the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Plus, Michael Robotham and Madeleine Gray review Djamel White's Booker Prize-longlisted debut All Them Dogs and Téa Obreht's sweeping new novel Sunrise.

From the nightclubs of 1930s Berlin to the heartache and awkwardness of high school, and into the green rooms and backstage spaces of writers' festivals.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead’s latest novel Cool Machine is a vivid portrait of Black New York in the 1980s. The book reunites readers with furniture salesman and part-time fence Ray Carney. Kate Evans and regular reviewer, critic and essayist Beejay Silcox discuss.

Also this week, Isabelle Li’s The Northern Tomb offers an intimate and richly textured portrait of life in Northeast China during the Covid pandemic, while Claire Berest’s Frida brings the passion, colour and complexity of artist Frida Kahlo vividly to the page. 

Plus, Kate speaks with Ashley Hay, novelist and interim editor of Meanjin, about the magazine's rich literary history and how its archive can help guide your vote in the ABC's Top 100 Australian Books countdown. (Ashley also shares her top three Australian picks).

Each week, a specially curated selection of archival material will be released at Meanjin:

• Meanjin – The Finest New Writing in Australia

Books discussed

• Cool Machine - Colson Whitehead (Fleet)
• The Northern Tomb - Isabelle Li (Puncher & Wattmann)
• Frida - Claire Berest, translated from French by Stephanie Smee (Mountain Leopard Press)

Also mentioned

• But Won't I Miss Me - Tiffany Tsao (Harper Via)

Beejay Silcox's recommendations

• Angel Down - Daniel Kraus
• The Children - Melissa Albert
• Their Brilliant Careers - Ryan O'Neill

Ashley Hay's Top 3 Australian picks

• The Commandant - Jessica Anderson
• Edenglassie - Melissa Lucashenko
• The Great Fire - Shirley Hazzard

Credits

• Presenter - Kate Evans
• Producer - Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound - Tim Jenkins and Isabella Tropiano
• Arts editor - Rhiannon Brown