This week, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green take a look at Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket - a cryptic plunge into paranoia and power, where nothing is quite what it seems. Plus, Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book, a shimmering meditation on the cinema scene in 1970s Italy, and Jeanette Winterson’s One Aladdin Two Lamps, which re-imagines duality and the stories we tell ourselves.

BOOKS

• Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon (Jonathan Cape) 
• The Silver Book by Olivia Laing (Hamish Hamilton) 
• One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson (Penguin Random House)

GUESTS

• Huw Griffiths — Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School in English and Writing at the University of Sydney
• Claire Mabey — Founder of New Zealand’s literary festival Verb Wellington, books editor at The Spinoff, and author of the award-winning middle-grade novel The Raven's Eye Runaways. Its sequel, The Raven’s Eye Rebellion, is due in April next year.

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Naomi Arnold, Northbound
• Nadine Huder, Slowing the Sun
• Thomas Mann, Death in Venice
• Seán Hewitt, Open Heaven
• Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials trilogy - The Rose Field
• Ruby Tandoh, All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now

CREDITS

• Presenter, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green
• Producer, Cassie McCullagh and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Beth Stewart
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown 

Stories of love, friendship, and the ties that bind - with a dash of dirt and darkness in three new works of fiction...Madeleine Gray's Chosen Family, a sharp exploration of friendship, love, and what it means to grow up when life gets messy; Chris Kraus' The Four Spent The Day Together, an autofiction-ish journey through a fractured America; and Graeme Macrae Burnet's Benbecula, where secrets unravel on the windswept shores of the Outer Hebrides.

BOOKS 

• Graeme Macrae Burnet, Benbecula, Text 
• Madeleine Gray, Chosen Family, Summit Books 
• Chris Kraus, The Four Spent the Day Together, Scribe 

GUESTS 

• Nicola Heath, ABC Arts journalist; editor of ABC Online monthly book review column
• Patrick Carey, writer and content maker who works at Sydney Theatre Company 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Mary McCarthy, The Group
• Dylin Hardcastle, A Language of Limbs
• David Owen Kelly, Host City
• Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore
• Andrew Pippos, The Transformations
• Helen Whybrow, Salt Stones 
• James Rebanks, The Shepherd's Life
• Maggie Mackellar, works
• Andrew Miller, A Land in Winter 
• Lisa Tuttle, My Death 
• A.S. Byatt, Possession  
• Edmund White, The Married Man
• Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington  

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Tegan Nicholls, Antonia Gauci and Tim Jenkins
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Kate and Cassie are back in the studio, introducing a line-up of October releases that span continents, centuries, and genres, kicking off with an Australian story set in the world of print journalism in Andrew Pippos' The Transformations. Then, we head to India with Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, a grand tale shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. And finally, we travel back to 16th-century Denmark, where the spectre of witch trials looms large in Olga Ravn's The Wax Child.

BOOKS

• Andrew Pippos, The Transformations — Picador
• Kiran Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny — Hamish Hamilton
• Olga Ravn, The Wax Child — Viking Penguin (Translated from Danish by Martin Aitken)

GUESTS

• Scott Stephens — Editor of ABC’s Religion & Ethics online and co-host of The Minefield on Radio National (with Waleed Aly)
• Beejay Silcox — Critic and writer

OTHER BOOKS AND WRITERS MENTIONED

• George Eliot, Middlemarch
• EM Forster, Howard's End
• Charles Dickens, works
• Ernest Hemingway, works
• Leo Tolstoy, works
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, works
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
• Jeanette Winterson, The Daylight Gate
• Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders
• Jenni Fagan, Hex
• Ceridwen Dovey, Only the Astronauts
• Chris Flynn, Here be Leviathans
• Josephine Rowe, Little World
• Angela O'Keefe, Night Blue
• Hannah Kent, Burial Rites
• Lydia Davis, Into the Weeds
• Inger Sigrun Brodey, Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness
• J.M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimopulos, Speaking in Tongues
• J.M. Coetzee, The Pole
• Toni Morrison, works
• Karl Ove Knausgaard, works
• Lydia Davis, Into the Weeds
• Joy Williams, works
• Lily King, Heart the Lover
• Michael Winkler, Grimmish; Grief Dog
• Devoney Looser, Wild For Austen
• Sofie Laguna, The Underworld 
• The Rose Field (The Book of Dust: Volume 3), Philip Pullman 
• Margaret Atwood, Book of Lives
• Patti Smith, Bread of Angels 
• Mick Herron, Clown Town
• Claire-Louise Bennett, Big Kiss Bye-Bye
• Brandon Taylor, Minor Black Figures
• John Irving, Queen Esther
• Catherine Newman, Wreck
• Eleanor Elliott Thomas, Do We Deserve This
• Thomas Pynchon, Shadow Ticket
• Olivia Laing, The Silver Book
• Jeanette Winterson, One Aladdin Two Lamps
• Madeleine Gray, Chosen Family
• Chris Krauss, The Four Spent the Day Together
• Graeme Macrae Burnet, Benbecula

CREDITS

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

Join us for a lively Top 100 Books of the 21st Century after-party!

Following last weekend’s extraordinary two-day countdown, this event recaps the results of over 288,000 votes cast by readers across Australia. Kate, Cassie, and special guests will unpack the trends, surprises, and insights that reveal what Australians are reading — and why. 

Plus, the countdown is not over. We're revealing the books that almost cracked the Top 100!

GUESTS

• Michaela Kalowski, Curator and Top 100 Producer
• Gavin Williams, Owner - Matilda Bookshop in the Adelaide Hills; Chair - BookPeople 
• Maryanne Vagg, Librarian, Warrnambool Library

Download a printable list of The Ones That Got Away

Listen to the Top 100 Books countdown.

CREDITS

• Presenter, Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans
• Producer, Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans, Michaela Kalowski, Shevonne Hunt, Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Simon Branthwaite, Beth Stewart
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown

Joining Kate and Cassie on stage at Brisbane Writers Festival, authors Eric Puchner, Toni Jordan, Patrick Holland, and Zeynab Gamieldien discuss their most recent novels and the books and writers who inspire them. With voting cast for our Top 100 Books of the Century, these writers make the case for their favourites.

GUESTS

Eric Puchner, novelist, academic, and short story writer, whose books include the collections Last Day on Earth and Music Through the Floor, and the novels Model Home and (his latest) Dream State

Toni Jordan, a writer whose novels include Nine Days, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts, Prettier If She Smiles More, Dinner with the Schnabels . . . and her latest, Tenderfoot

Patrick Holland is a writer and academic, and author of eight books, including the novel The Mary Smokes Boys and – his latest – Oblivion. He lives between Hong Kong and Brisbane 

Zeynab Gamieldien is a writer whose first novel, The Scope of Permissibility, won the inaugural WestWords/Ultimo Prize (for emerging writers from Western Sydney); and her second novel, Learned Behaviours, has just been published

BOOKS MENTIONED BY ERIC PUCHNER

• James Salter, Light Years
• Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
• Joy Williams, works
• Willa Cather, My Ántonia
• Jhumpa Lahiri, A Temporary Matter
• Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
• Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge
• César Aira, An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

BOOKS MENTIONED BY TONI JORDAN

• Craig Silvey, Jasper Jones
• Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe
• Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
• Zadie Smith, White Teeth
• Alexis Wright, Carpentaria
• Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet
• Richard Ford, Canada

BOOKS MENTIONED BY PATRICK HOLLAND

• Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country
• Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
• Ernest Hemingway, 88 Poems
• Leah Swann, Bearings
• Felix Calvino, works
• Brian Castro, works
• Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse
• Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian; All the Pretty Horses
• Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji

BOOKS MENTIONED BY ZEYNAB GAMIELDIEN

• Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
• Tara June Winch, The Yield
• Hisham Matar, The Return; My Friends
• Anne Enright, The Gathering
• Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn; Long Island
• Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These
• Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

OTHER BOOKS AND WRITERS MENTIONED

• J.G. Ballard, works
• Graham Greene, The Quiet American
• David Malouf, works
• Patrick White, works
• Curtis Sittenfeld, Show Don't Tell
• David Mitchell, works

CREDITS

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

We look at some compelling new memoirs, including Mandy Sayer’s No Dancing in the Lift, a tribute to her jazz drummer father, capturing the grit of Kings Cross and the grace of caregiving. Elizabeth Gilbert’s All the Way to the River recounts her intense love story with Rayya Elias, confronting addiction and devotion. Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me reflects on her formidable mother’s legacy - equal parts shelter and storm, and S. Shakthidharan’s Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath offers a tender, multi-generational journey from Sri Lanka to Western Sydney.

BOOKS

Mandy Sayer, No Dancing in the Lift: A Memoir, Transit Lounge

Elizabeth Gilbert, All the Way to the River: Love, Loss and Liberation, Bloomsbury

Arundhati Roy, Mother Mary Comes to Me, Hamish Hamilton

SHAKTI Shakthidharan, Gather Up Your World in One Long Breath, Powerhouse Publishing  

GUESTS

Melanie Tait, Playwright. Her latest, How To Plot a Hit in Two Days, plays at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney until 11 October.

Roanna Gonsalves, novelist and academic; editor of the literary journal, Southerly  

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDHannah Kent, Always Home, Always HomesickJeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Can Be NormalElizabeth Strout, worksJenny Hocking, Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History; His TimeSarah Malik, Desi Girl: On Feminism, Race, Faith and Belonging

CREDITS

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

What are your favourite poems of the last 25 years? The ones that you turn to, couplets memorised and shared, the lines that leapt from the page or stage. Poetry that both defined and defied space and time, whether it rhymed or not.

Join Kate Evans, as she is joined by acclaimed author and poet Maxine Beneba Clarke, Stella Prize-winning poet and academic Sarah Holland-Batt, much-loved broadcaster and author Daniel Browning, and best-selling author and journalist Julia Baird to discuss and read some of the poems that have shone brightest for each of them this century, as well as how the art-form has evolved.

This event was presented at the State Library of NSW in partnership with Red Room Poetry.

POETS AND POETRY MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Warsan Shire, Home
• Adam Zagajewski, Try to Praise the Mutilated World
• Graeme Dixon, Six Feet of Land Rights
• Gwen Harwood, In the Park
• Anonymous Rose,  Broken World
• Zora Howard and Joshya Bennett, Still Life with Police Sirens
• Ali Cobby Eckermann, works
• Simon Armitage, The Shout
• Evelyn Araluen, decolonial poetics (avant gubba)
• Candy Royale, works
• Max Porter, works

CREDITS

Presenter, Kate Evans

Producer, Kate Evans, Lisa Needham

Sound engineer, Ann Marie Debettencor

Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

This week’s episode explores three new books. First up, Patricia Lockwood’s Will There Ever Be Another You, a third-person autofiction-ish tale that includes a family trip to Scotland, grief and fairies. Then we head to the American frontier for blood-soaked vengeance and vampires in Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Finally, Nell Stevens’ The Original takes us into a world of art forgeries, lost sons, con-artists and the tangled truths behind paintings.

BOOKS

Patricia Lockwood, Will There Ever Be Another You, Bloomsbury Circus

Stephen Graham Jones, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Titan Books

Nell Stevens, The Original, Scribner

GUESTS

Paul Daley, journalist, essayist, and novelist – who writes for the Guardian, and whose books include the non-fiction Beersheba and On Capitalism, and the novels Jesustown and The Leap

Tom Wright, playwright and dramaturg. Artistic Associate, Belvoir St Theatre. His latest play, Troy, has just finished its run at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre

PAUL DALEY'S TOP 100 LIST

• Percival Everett, The Trees
• Robin Robertson, The Long Take

TOM WRIGHT'S TOP 100 LIST

• Martin Crimp, The City
• Ella Hickson, The Writer

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart
• Eric Puchner, Dream State
• Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch

CREDITS

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

We get stuck into some new fiction, starting with Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know, a meditation on a future shaped by climate disaster and memory. We’re joined by Australian authors Madeleine Gray and Gretchen Shirm to take a look at Miranda Darling’s Fireweather, a poetic story of breakdown and resistance,  and Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk’s House of Day, House of Night, a dreamy blend of folklore and philosophy.

BOOKS

Ian McEwan, What We Can Know, Jonathan Cape

Miranda Darling, Fireweather, Scribe

Olga Tokarczuk, House of Day, House of Night, (Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones), Text

GUESTS

Gretchen Shirm, is a novelist and literary critic whose books include Having Cried Woolf and The Crying Room. Her latest, Out of the Woods, was published in April 

Madeleine Gray, is a critic, arts writer, and novelist whose debut novel, Green Dot, was published in 2023, and whose latest novel, Chosen Family, will be out in November 

GRETCHEN SHIRM'S TOP 100 LIST

Rachel Cusk, Outline trilogy

Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be

Vigdis Hjorth, Will and Testament

Tara June Winch, Swallow the Air

MADELEINE GRAY'S TOP 100 LIST

Ali Smith, How To Be Both

Evelyn Araluen, Dropbear

Jessica Love, Julian is a Mermaid

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

Helen Garner, works

Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet, The Marriage Portrait

Erin Hortle, A Catalogue of Love

Michelle Arrow, The Seventies: The personal, the political and the making of modern Australia

A.S. Byatt, Possession

James Fenton, works

Richard Holmes, Footsteps

Robert Louis Stevenson, works

CREDITS

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

In the year of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, this lively and thought-provoking discussion explores her life, legacy, and literary brilliance — her novels are charming, sure, but also radical, political, witty, and entertaining.

Presented in partnership with the State Library of NSW, this event brings together Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh with Scott Stephens from Radio National's The Minefield, and Sophie Gee, English Professor at Princeton, Vice-Chancellor's Fellow in the humanities at the University of Sydney, and co-host of the Secret Life of Books podcast, for a conversation that delves into Austen’s sharp observations on friendship, ambition, money, love, power, and equality.

CREDITS

• Panellists: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh, Scott Stephens, Sophie Gee
• Producer: Kate Evans, Amanda Roberts
• Sound engineer: John Jacobs
• Executive producer: Muditha Dias