The Bookshelf

On this week’s edition of The Bookshelf: dogs in literature, writing about Alzheimer’s and fragmenting language, big books versus novellas, and why there’s so much time travel in books right now. Reviewers Tony Birch and Beejay Silcox tackle these big reading questions and share an overview of October new releases, with a focus on Carrie Tiffany’s The Lady with the Dog, Favel Parrett’s One for Sorrow and Claire North’s As We Fall Through Time.

Books featured

• The Lady with the Dog, Carrie Tiffany, New South
• One for Sorrow, Favel Parrett, Hachette
• As We Fall Through Time, Claire North, Orbit

Other Books Mentioned

Dogs in literature

• Women and Children, Tony Birch
• The Odyssey, Homer
• Discworld series, Terry Pratchett
• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski
• Clariel, Garth Nix
• Flush, Virginia Woolf
• The Famous Five, Enid Blyton
• Tenderfoot, Toni Jordan
• Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, Susan Orlean
• The Friend, Sigrid Nunez
• The Philosopher's Dog, Raimond Gaita

Big books vs Novellas

• China Miéville, The Rouse
• Marlon James, The Disappearers
• Public Access Afterworld, Jane Schoenbrun
• Claire Keegan, works
• Dark Roots, Cate Kennedy,
• The Song of Stork and Dromedary, Anjet Daanje
• Susanna Clarke, works
• O Now! — Niall Williams
• The Lady with the Little Dog, Anton Chekhov

Time Travel

• Playing Beatie Bow, Ruth Park
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
• The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley
• Time Travel for Beginners, Jaclyn Moriarty
• Life Out of Order, Audrey Niffenegger
• The Other Valley, Scott Alexander Howard
• Time Shelter, Georgi Gospodinov,
• On the Calculation of Volume #5, Solvej Balle

October new releases + other books mentioned

• A Court of Splintered Harmony, Sarah J. Maas
• Finding Justice, Larissa Behrendt
• Dey, Edwidge Danticat
• Bad Words, Rioghnach Robinson
• Fifty Beating Wonders, Michelle Johnston
• Memoir, John McGahern
• Music Against Time, Yiyun Li
• Switzy, Emma Cline
• You Must Remember This, Sean Wilson
• Music Against Time, Yiyun Li
• Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle
• The Friday Bookshop, Sawako Natori
• Arendel, Karl Ove Knausgaard
• The Housekeeper, Rose Tremain

Kate and Cassie discuss Chinese-born American writer Yiyun Li's Music Against the Night, an exquisite exploration of music and time. Plus, with regular guests crime writer Michael Robotham and novelist and university lecturer Roanna Gonsalves, they unpack violence and homophobia in Jamaica in Marlon James' Booker-shortlisted novel The Disappearers; and review Peck & Peck, the latest screwball literary caper from Lessons in Chemistry bestseller Bonnie Garmus.

BOOKS 

• Yiyun Li, Music Against the Night, Farrar Straus and Giroux
• Marlon James, The Disappearers, Hamish Hamilton
• Bonnie Garmus, Peck & Peck, Manilla Press 

GUESTS 

• Michael Robotham, crime writer whose latest, and 20th, novel has just been released. It’s called Tell Me Something True
• Roanna Gonsalves, writer, university lecturer, and editor of the literary journal Southerly, whose 81st edition has recently been published 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Joyride by Susan Orlean
• The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
• Black Bag by Luke Kennard
• May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
• John of John by Douglas Stuart
• The Second Child by Malcolm Knox

More than 280,000 votes were cast. Now Kate and Cassie reveal the books that just missed Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books countdown.

With special guests literary curator and Top 100 producer Michaela Kalowski, and critic and publisher Geordie Williamson, they unpack the biggest talking points from the vote and spotlight the next 100 books in Australia's literary ranking.

Download a printable Top 100 Australian Books 1-100 ranked

Also, the list from 101-200

The 'Ones That Got Away' List: 101-200

101 — Phosphorescence (2019) — Julia Baird

102 — Bliss (1981) — Peter Carey

103 — Always Home Always Homesick (2025) — Hannah Kent

104 — Kissed by the Moon (2013) — Alison Lester

105 — The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997) — Richard Flanagan

106 — A Room Made of Leaves (2020) — Kate Grenville

107 — The Eleventh Hour (1988) — Graeme Base

108 — The Labyrinth (2020) — Amanda Lohrey

109 — Fight Like a Girl (2016) — Clementine Ford

110 — Eggshell Skull (2018) — Bri Lee

111 — Bruny (2019) — Heather Rose

112 — Any Ordinary Day (2018) — Leigh Sales

113 — No Friend But the Mountains (2018) — Behrouz Boochani

114 — The Season (2024) — Helen Garner

115 — Who Sank the Boat? (1982) — Pamela Allen

116 — Bridge of Clay (2018) — Markus Zusak

117 — The Riders (1994) — Tim Winton

118 — Romulus My Father (1998) — Raimond Gaita

119 — Banjo Paterson's Bush Ballads (2007) — A.B. Banjo Paterson

120 — On the Beach (1957) — Nevil Shute

121 — Wake in Fright (1961) — Kenneth Cook

122 — The Transit of Venus (1980) — Shirley Hazzard

123 — The Complete Adventures of Blinky Bill (1939) — Dorothy Wall

124 — The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930) — Henry Handel Richardson

125 — All Our Shimmering Skies (2020) — Trent Dalton

126 — Obernewtyn (1987) — Isobelle Carmody

127 — An Imaginary Life (1978) — David Malouf

128 — Mary Poppins (1934) — P.L. Travers

129 — Death of a River Guide (1994) — Richard Flanagan

130 — Disgrace (1999) — J. M. Coetzee

131 — The Rúin (2018) — Dervla McTiernan

132 — Hating Alison Ashley (1984) — Robin Klein

133 — Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (1984) — Mem Fox and Julie Vivas

134 — He Died with a Felafel in His Hand (1994) — John Birmingham

135 — Sorrow and Bliss (2020) — Meg Mason

136 — Gould's Book of Fish (2001) — Richard Flanagan

137 — Dusk (2024) — Robbie Arnott

138 — Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996) — Doris Pilkington and Nugi Garimara

139 — Tell Me Why (1993) — Archie Roach

140 — Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (2021) — Anita Heiss

141 — The Year of Living Dangerously (1978) — Christopher Koch

142 — Holding the Man (1995) — Timothy Conigrave

143 — How To End a Story: Collected Diaries (2021) — Helen Garner

144 — The Drover's Wife (1892) — Henry Lawson

145 — Journey to the Stone Country (2002) — Alex Miller

146 — Grand Days (1993) — Frank Moorhouse

147 — Grug (1979) — Ted Prior

148 — Ransom (2009) — David Malouf

149 — See What You Made Me Do (2019) — Jess Hill

150 — The Songlines (1987) — Bruce Chatwin

151 — The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea (1965) — Randolph Stow

152 — Memorial Days (2025) — Geraldine Brooks

153 — Tirra Lirra by the River (1978) — Jessica Anderson

154 — The First Stone (1995) — Helen Garner

155 — Rowan of Rin (1993) — Emily Rodda

156 — The White Girl (2019) — Tony Birch

157 — The Good People (2016) — Hannah Kent

158 — The Women in Black (1993) — Madeleine St John

159 — Bitter Wash Road (2013) — Garry Disher

160 — The CWA Cookery Book and Household Hints, 54th edition (1993) — CWA

161 — Once (2005) — Morris Gleitzman

162 — Nevermoor (2017) — Jessica Townsend

163 — Tracks (1980) — Robyn Davidson

164 — Poor Man's Orange (1949) — Ruth Park

165 — The Biggest Estate on Earth (2011) — Bill Gammage

166 — Australian Gospel (2024) — Lech Blaine

167 — The Wife and the Widow (2019) — Christian White

168 — Praise (1992) — Andrew McGahan

169 — The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972) — Thomas Keneally

170 — Illywhacker (1985) — Peter Carey

171 — Migrations (2020) — Charlotte McConaghy

172 — The Barefoot Investor (2004) — Scott Pape

173 — Past the Shallows (2011) — Favel Parrett

174 — Blueback (1997) — Tim Winton

175 — Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia (2013) — David Hunt

176 — Sabriel (1995) — Garth Nix

177 — The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow (2002) — A.J. Mackinnon

178 — Barracuda (2013) — Christos Tsiolkas

179 — The Muddleheaded Wombat (1962) — Ruth Park

180 — Reckoning (2015) — Magda Szubanski

181 — Killing for Country (2023) — David Marr

182 — Fly Away Peter (1982) — David Malouf

183 — The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia (2010) — Nicolas Day and Ken Simpson

184 — A Fraction of the Whole (2008) — Steve Toltz

185 — The Lost Thing (2000) — Shaun Tan

186 — The Tea Ladies (2023) — Amanda Hampson

187 — The Getting of Wisdom (1910) — Henry Handel Richardson

188 — Flames (2018) — Robbie Arnott

189 — Bodies of Light (2021) — Jennifer Down

190 — Love and Virtue (2021) — Diana Reid

191 — The Weekend (2019) — Charlotte Wood

192 — The Will of the Many (2023) — James Islington

193 — Homecoming (2023) — Kate Morton

194 — The Lucky Country (1964) — Donald Horne

195 — Capricornia (1938) — Xavier Herbert

196 — Ten Steps to Nanette (2022) — Hannah Gadsby

197 — Poor Fellow My Country (1975) — Xavier Herbert

198 — Discipline (2025) — Randa Abdel-Fattah

199 — The Nowhere Child (2018) — Christian White

200 — Cocaine Blues (1989) — Kerry Greenwood

On this special edition of The Bookshelf, ahead of the Top 100 Australian Books Countdown, Kate Evans speaks with historian Professor Martyn Lyons about the history of reading in Australia and what our reading lives can reveal about the nation. Plus, crime fiction expert Sue Turnbull traces the evolution of Australian crime writing before sharing three books she loves. Singer-songwriter Fanny Lumsden and artist-performer Maeve Marsden also reveal their top three Australian reads. And in the podcast edition, music journalist Stuart Coupe joins us with three Australian books he can't live without.

Guests

• Martin Lyons – Emeritus Professor of History and European Studies in the School of Humanities and Languages at UNSW
• Sue Turnbull – Honorary Professor of Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong, with expertise in crime fiction, television and popular culture
• Maeve Marsden – Theatre maker, performer and Creative Director of Varuna, the National Writers' House in the NSW Blue Mountains
• Fanny Lumsden – ARIA Award-winning country singer-songwriter whose fifth studio album, Traditions, is due for release on 30 October
• Stuart Coupe – Australian music journalist, author, band manager, promoter, publicist and record label founder

Books mentioned and Guest Recommendations

Literary Foundations

• Martyn Lyons, The Uses of Literacy in Colonial Australia
• Jane Austen, works
• Walter Scott, works
• Henry Kendall, poetic works
• Adam Lindsay Gordon, poetic works
• A B ‘Banjo’ Paterson, works
• Henry Lawson, works
• Charles Dickens, works

Classic Australian Fiction 

• Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms
• Eleanor Dark, The Timeless Land
• Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career

Crime & Mystery

• Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes stories
• Fergus Hume, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
• Lucy Sussex, Blockbuster!
• Peter Corris, The Empty Beach
• Marele Day, The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender
• Sharon Kernot, Night Swimming
• Dorothy Porter, The Monkey’s Mask
• Peter Temple, The Broken Shore
• Garry Disher, Bitter Wash Road
• Jane Harper, The Dry
• Peter Corris, The Dying Trade

Contemporary Fiction 

• Geraldine Brooks, Horse
• Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words, The Bookbinder of Jericho
• Helen Garner, Monkey Grip
• Eda Gunaydin, Root and Branch
• Evelyn Araluen, The Rot
• Jane Harrison, The Visitors
• Jessie Tu, A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous thing

Children's Literature

• Alison Lester, Kissed by the Moon

Music, Culture & Memoir

• Colin Talbot’s Greatest Hits
• Garrie Hutchinson, From the Outer
• Renee Geyer, Confessions of a Difficult Woman
• Stuart Coupe and Toby Creswell, Sounds Like Teen Spirit: The Anarchic Unauthorised Story of Triple J & Double J

Kate and Cassie are joined by rockstar Tim Rogers and novelist Madeleine Gray to discuss some big new releases.

Australian crime heavyweight Chris Hammer swaps the outback for the world of high finance in Full Circle, a thriller of money, power and corruption. Then there's Jem Calder's I Want You to Be Happy, a zeitgeisty portrait of young Londoners searching for connection in an increasingly disconnected world; and Pip Williams' The German Wife, her eagerly anticipated follow-up to The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho, a sweeping World War I story of forbidden love and art.

Plus, as Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books countdown draws closer, novelist, essayist and art critic Fiona Kelly McGregor discusses three Australian books that have had an impact on her life and writing. 

FEATURED BOOKS

• Full Circle by Chris Hammer, Summit Books
• I Want You to be Happy by Jem Calder, Faber
• The German Ward by Pip Williams,  Affirm Press 

FIONA KELLY MCGREGOR'S TOP 3 AUSTRALIAN BOOKS

• Working Hot by Mary Fallon
• The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia by Henry Reynolds
• Voss by Patrick White

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Famesick by Lena Dunham
• The Book of George by Kate Greathead
• Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
• Lean Cat, Savage Cat by Lauren J. Joseph
• Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
• Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados
• Johnno by David Malouf
• Night Boat to Tangier, Beatlebone by Kevin Barry
• A Suitable Man by Jock Serong

This week, Kate and Cassie are joined by regulars Hannah Kent and Tom Wright to discuss three books that echo one another across themes of art, beauty, family and transformation.

In Barbara Kingsolver's Partita, a young woman longs to escape her small town and difficult mother through music (and there are dogs and an accident); Ayad Akhtar's The Radiance follows a man whose vivid, radiant life is shaped by music and ambition (and there’s a terrible accident); And in Colm Tóibín's The Bridge, a son and father navigate change, possibility and belonging in a new world (accompanied by a whole pack of dogs).

Plus, voting may have closed for The Bookshelf's Top 100 Australian Books, but we're still taking inspiration from readers' recommendations. Actor, writer and trans activist Zoe Terakes joins us to share their three favourite Australian books.

Featured books

• Barbara Kingsolver, Partita, Faber
• Colm Toíbín, The Bridge, Picador
• Ayad Akhtar, The Radiance, Summit

Zoe Terakes' Top 3

• Christos Tsiolkas , Loaded
• Chelsea Watego, Another Day in the Colony
• Timothy Conigrave, Holding the Man 

Other Books mentioned

• Stephanie Alexander, The Cook's Companion
• Alison Lester, Magic Beach
• Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
• Hannah Moloney, The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World
• Christina Stead, Seven Poor Men of Sydney

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