What if the most talked‑about streaming show of the moment was a mirror reflecting your most private fears and failures? That unnerving question sits at the heart of John Lanchester’s Look What You Made Me Do, a sharp novel about resentment, revenge, money, class and generational unease. Plus: the art of the short story, as Hannah Kent reads and reflects on Lauren Groff’s new collection Brawler; and a woman’s inner life rendered with quiet and devastating precision in Mary Costello’s A Beautiful Loan.

BOOKS

• John Lanchester, Look What You Made Me Do, Faber
• Lauren Groff, Brawler, Hutchinson Heinemann
• Mary Costello, A Beautiful Loan, Text

GUESTS

• Hannah Kent, novelist behind the phenomenon Burial Rites + The Good People, Devotion and Always Home, Always Homesick
• Tim Rogers, author of Detours; frontman of You Am I, The Hard-Ons and various musical escapades. His solo tour Le Charme Defensif kicks off this week

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Andrew O'Hagan, Caledonian Road
• Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 
• Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
• Michelle de Krester, Theory and Practice
• Jacqueline Maley, Lonely Mouth
• Erin Somers, The Ten Year Affair 
• James Joyce, The Dubliners; The Dead 
• Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
• Colm Tóibín, The Magician
• Steve Hanley, The Big Midweek: Life Inside the Fall

CREDITS

• Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh
• Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett
• Sound: Craig Tilmouth, Antonia Gauci
• Arts editor; Sarah L'Estrange

A Bookshelf festival special with Kate Evans onstage with writers Jock Serong and Emily Maguire on historical fiction, from the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival.

Statues come alive and London is re-imagined in Francis Spufford's Nonesuch, and surprising parallels in two Australian novels of secrets, shame, land and time in M L Stedman's A Far-Flung Life and Eva Hornung's The Minstrels. Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh, Michael Robotham and Roanna Gonsalves - to help you decide what to read next.

BOOKS

Francis Spufford, Nonesuch, Faber

Eva Hornung, The Minstrels, Text

M L Stedman, A Far-Flung Life, Penguin

GUESTS

Michael Robotham, internationally acclaimed crime writer – whose books include the Joe O’Loughlin series, the Cyrus Haven/ Evie Cormac series, and his latest – featuring Philomena MCcCarthy, The White Crow. His first Australian-based novel is out later this year

Roanna Gonsalves, writer whose collection of short stories is The Permanent Resident, and whose first novel (The Servants) will be published later this year. She is also one of the hosts of a monthly book club at the State Library of NSW

Other books mentioned:

Phillippa McGuiness and Richard Neville (eds) The Library that Made Me (you can write your own stories about libraries that have shaped you right here)

Anita Heiss, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams 

Emily St John Mandel, Station Eleven

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Rashida Murphy’s Old Ghosts  and Karleah Olson’s Bloodwood (forthcoming)

Michelle de Kretser, The Hamilton Case

Natasha Brown, Assembly, Universality

Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore

Don Winslow, The Power of the Dog, The Death and Life of Bobby Z,  The Final Score [stories]

• Presenters: Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer: Kate Evans
• Sound engineers: Timothy Jenkins
• Arts Editor: Rhiannon Brown

In this episode, we travel from the Swiss Alps to the quiet strangeness of Danish suburbia and the fierce edges of American literary drama. We begin with the visceral intensity of Gabriel Tallent’s latest novel, Crux, where characters cling to passion and survival with bloodied fingertips. Claire Thomas reflects on art, ambition, and the lure of towering peaks in On Not Climbing Mountains, and Helle Helle's They, a delicately surreal portrait of mothers, daughters, and the lives lived between silences. 

BOOKS 

• Gabriel Tallent, Crux, Fig Tree 
• Claire Thomas, On Not Climbing Mountains, Hachette 
• Helle Helle, They, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, Giramondo 

GUESTS

• Hannah Kent, novelist, scriptwriter, and memoirist, whose books include Burial Rites, The Good People, Devotion, and Always Home Always Homesick 
• Tom Wright, theatre writer and adaptor; Artistic Associate at Belvoir Theatre in Sydney 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Olga Tocarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
• Rachel Cusk, works
• W.G. Sebald, works
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
• Henry James, works
• Rainer Maria Rilke, works
• James Baldwin, works
• Katherine Mansfield, works
• Leo Tolstoy, works
• Teju Cole, works
• Muriel Sparks, works
• Johanna Spyri, Heidi
• Blaise Cendrars, works
• Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow
• Harry Matthews, Sleuth
• John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent 
• Harry Mathews, Tlooth 
• Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume
• Catherine Lacey, The Möbius Book

CREDITS

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

Emerald Fennell's film adaptation of Wuthering Heights has been marketed as "the greatest love story ever told", which is not typically the description given to the original novel. What does this adaptation achieve, and what does it sacrifice in the process?

The Bookshelf's Kate Evans and Radio National's Arts Hour's Sky Kirkham discuss what they felt did and didn't work in this film and, in an expanded podcast extra edition, they also discussed the film adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet

Kate and Cassie read Kin, the latest novel from Tayari Jones — the acclaimed American novelist behind An American Marriage, a book that resonated with both critics and readers alike. Her work sits alongside a bold mix of stories in this episode, from a vampiric love story to speed‑dating slasher fiction, and South African writer Nadia Davids adds her own unsettling brilliance, taking us into the life of a furious yet outwardly obedient domestic servant in a mysterious house on a hill in Cape Fever.

BOOKS

• Tayari Jones, Kin, Penguin
• Nadia Davids, Cape Fever, Scribner
• Shailee Thompson, How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates, Atria Books
• Pip Knight, Aubrey Wants to Die, Harper Collins  

GUESTS

• Tony Birch, poet and novelist; Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at Melbourne University
• Beejay Silcox, writer and critic

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• David Peace, The Red Riding Quartet; Twilight series
• Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
• Dan Jennings, Dancing Through the Fire
• Rebecca Perry, May We Feed the King
• Maylis de Kerangal, Painting Time

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Harvey O'Sullivan and Simon Branthwaite
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Join Kate and Cassie as they explore new fiction alongside guests: musician Tim Rogers (You Am I) and novelist Madeleine Gray (Green Dot, Chosen Family). Three American novels, each tackling big ideas in very different ways - from the political absurdity and humour of Jess Walter’s So Far Gone, to the mockumentary-style tensions of Patmeena Sabit’s Good People, to the darkly comic moral maze of Jonathan Miles’ Eradication.

BOOKS

• Jess Walter, So Far Gone, Harper
• Jonathan Miles, Eradication, Riverrun
• Patmeena Sabit, Good People, Virago

GUESTS

• Tim Rogers, singer-songwriter and actor. Frontman of You Am I.
• Madeleine Gray, novelist whose books are Green Dot and Chosen Family

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Larry McMurtry, works
• Bertie Blackman, Bohemian Negligence
• Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts
• Nussaibah Younis, Fundamentally
• Niamh Campbell, Make Strange
• Ellena Savage, The Ruiners; Blueberries
• Alexandra Vasti, Ladies in Hating
• Katherine Mansfield, works
• Ian Penman, Three Piece Suite
• Zadie Smith, The Fraud
• Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

CREDITS

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

Madeline Cash’s buzzy debut Lost Lambs pairs an off‑kilter storytelling sensibility with a sharp exploration of displacement and identity. George Saunders returns with Vigil, offering his moral curiosity in a novel that probes what it means to pay attention to the world. George Kemp’s Soft Serve delivers a charming and quietly affecting debut about growing up in a small town; and Steven Carroll’s The Afterlife of Harry Playford continues his investigations of history and memory.

BOOKS

Madeline Cash, Lost Lambs, Doubleday

George Saunders, Vigil, Bloomsbury

George Kemp, Soft Serve, UQP

Steven Carroll, The Afterlife of Harry Playford, Fourth Estate

GUESTS

• Michael Robotham is an international crime writer and former journalist whose books include The Secrets She Keeps, Good Girl Bad Girl, and his latest, White Crow. His next novel — his first to be set in Australia — will be published in October.
• Roanna Gonsalves is a writer and teacher of creative writing whose short‑story collection The Permanent Resident won wide acclaim. Her novel The Servants will be published later this year.

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Kurt Vonnegut, works
• Joseph Heller, works
• Thomas Pynchon, works
• Jonathan Franzen, works
• Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
• DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
• Shaun Prescott, The Town
• Stephen King, works
• Liz Nugent, The Truth About Ruby Cooper
• Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
• Deborah Adelaide, When I Am Sixty-Four
• Tim Ayliffe, Dark Desert Road
• Katie Kitamura, Audition

CREDITS

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

Kate and Cassie read award-winning Australian author Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s bold new novel Bugger, while reviewers Hannah Kent and Tom Wright take on Jennette McCurdy’s provocative new book Half His Age — from the former child actor whose memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died shook readers worldwide — and Nina McConigley’s How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder...does it live up to the name?

BOOKS 

• Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Bugger, Hachette 
• Jennette McCurdy, Half His Age, Fourth Estate 
• Nina McConigley, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder, Fleet 

GUESTS 

• Hannah Kent, novelist, screenwriter, and memoirist, whose books include Burial Rites, The Good People, Devotion, and Always Home, Always Homesick 
• Tom Wright, Artistic Associate at Belvoir St.Theatre 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Jim Butcher, Twelve Months: The Dresden Files 
• Sita Walker, In a Common Hour 
• Jonas Jonasson, The Distinctly Competent District Councillor  
• Catherine Newman, Wreck 
• India-Rose Bower, We Call Them Witches 
• Amie Kaufman, Red Star Rebels 
• Yxavel Magno Diňo, The Firefly Crown 
• Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
• Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
• Olga Ravn, The Wax Child 
• Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
• Travis Baldree, Brigands and Breadknives 
• Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Micky Grossman and Ann Marie Debettencor
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Kate and Cassie are back for a big year of books, beginning with Booker-Prize winner Julian Barnes' Departures, a novel about looking back, facing the future, and coming to the end of life. Plus, regular reviewers Tony Birch and Beejay Silcox join us for discussions on This, My Second Life by British novelist Patrick Charnley, and Iluka, by Australian author Cassie Stroud.

BOOKS

• Julian Barnes, Departure(s), Jonathan Cape
• Cassie Stroud, Iluka, HQ Books
• Patrick Charnley, This, My Second Life, Hutchinson Heinemann

GUESTS

• Tony Birch, poet, novelist and short story writer whose books include Dark as Last Night, Shadow Boxing, Women and Children and The White Girl. His latest is Pictures of You. He is also a Professor of Australian literature at the University of Melbourne
• Beejay Silcox, critic, writer and regular interviewer at writers festivals.

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Lily King, Heart the Lover
• Anne Enright, Attention
• Melissa Lucashenko, Not Quite White in the Head
• Bryan Washington, Palaver; Family Meal
• Souvankham Thammavongsa, Pick the Colour
• Charlotte Wood, The Weekend
• Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
• Jonathan Tropper, And Then We Came To the End
• Maggie Shipstead, Seating Arrangements
• Emily O'Grady, Feast
• Hayle Felicity, Our Brother Nick and the Tolling Bell
• Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton
• Joe Hill, King Sorrow
• Haldor Laxness, Independent People
• Dani Netherclift The Shape of Absent Bodies
• George Eliot, Middlemarch
• Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
• Eric Puchner, Dream State

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Roi Hubermann and Ann Marie Debettencor
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown