Colm Tóibín onstage at the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival with The Bookshelf's Kate Evans — on fiction, fridges, rain, hinges, melodrama, reading, and why he can't write American dialogue so every character he writes has to be Irish (except, of course, when they're Thomas Mann and family). This is a conversation that begins in his hometown of Enniscorthy, site of his novels Nora Webster, The Blackwater Lightship, Brooklyn and Long Island — and the site of his memories and overheard conversations — and moves on to his bookshelves, writing, and the story of a tongue. Really.

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 from The Bookshelf, 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.

This program was first broadcast on 12 September 2025

CREDITS

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

It's Christmas, 1962, and a baby is born . . . and left behind, in Ireland. This all takes place in the fictional town of Faha, a place created by write Niall Williams in his novels History of the Rain, This is Happiness and (his latest, and the one featuring said baby) Time of the Child.

Niall Williams spoke to The Bookshelf's Kate Evans onstage at the 2025 Adelaide Writers Week.

(A longer version of this discussion was broadcast on Friday 18 April 2025. You can listen to it here:

The Bookshelf Easter Special: Irish writer Niall Williams — ABC listen

Presenter/ Producer: Kate Evans

Sound engineer: Harvey O'Sullivan

Arts Editor: Rhiannon Brown

Whodunnit, whydunit, and where in time was all of it done — in an historical crime fiction special for our Summer Bookshelf. Kate Evans, onstage at the 2025 BAD Sydney Crime Festival, with novelists Nilima Rao (the story of an Indian police officer in Fiji in the 1910s), Michael Burge (religious communities and Jenolan caves in the 1850s), and Lainie Anderson (women policing Adelaide in the 1910s).

This discussion was recorded at the site of one of Australia's oldest lending libraries — the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts.

BOOKS

Nilima Rao, A Shipwreck in Fiji, Echo Publishing

Michael Burge, The Watchnight, Histria

Lainie Anderson, Murder on North Terrace, Hachette

GUESTS

Nilima Rao, creator of the Akal Singh series set in Fiji — whose latest, and second in the series, is A Shipwreck in Fiji

Michael Burge, journalist and novelist whose books include Tank Water and Dirt Trap — and his latest, The Watchnight

Lainie Anderson, also a journalist and novelist, and creator of the Kate Cocks series of novels set in Adelaide — the second of which is Murder on North Terrace. She has also written a PhD on the real historical figure of Kate Cocks

Presenter/ Producer: Kate Evans

Sound engineers: Timothy Jenkins, Harvey O'Sullivan

Arts Editor: Rhiannon Brown

Trent Dalton (Gravity Let Me Go, Boy Swallows Universe), Heather Rose (A Great Act of Love, Bruny) and Garry Disher (the Peninsula Crimes and Hirsch series) name some of their favourite books, and the titles may delight and surprise you. Hosted by Kate and Cassie as part of this year's Canberra Writers' Festival.

TRENT DALTON'S PICKS

• Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders
• Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole
• John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath

HEATHER ROSE'S PICKS

• Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker
• Virginia Woolf, Orlando
• Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History; Illywhacker
• Haruki Murakami, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
• William Faulkner, Light in August
• John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
• Toni Morrison, Beloved
• David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
• George Eliot, Middlemarch

GARRY DISHER'S PICKS

• Russell Braddon, The Naked Island
• Nicolas Monsarrat, The Cruel Sea
• Raymond Carver, works
• Richard Ford, works
• Evan Connell, Mrs Bridge
• Colm Toibin, Brooklyn
• Alice Munro, works
• Ron Rash, works
• Cormac McCarthy, Child of God
• Helen Garner, The Children's Bach
• Kingsley Amis, works
• Claire Keegan, works
• John Sandford, works
• Michael Connelly, works
• Ian Rankin, works

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Stephen King, The Life of Chuck
• Hannah Kent, Devotion
• James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Dorothy Dunnett, Lymond Chronicles
• Richard Stark, Parker series
• Donald E. Westlake, Dortmunder series
• Lloyd Jones, Mr Pip

The best books of 2025 as selected by Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests - Jason Steger, Jon Page and Robert Goodman. Keep scrolling for a full list...

GUESTS 

• Jason Steger, arts journalist. Former book editor of the Age & SMH, and panellist on ABC TV’s Book Club 
• Jon Page, long time bookseller with Pages and Pages bookshop, former General Manager of Dymocks Sydney – and now, book-buyer for W.H. Smith 
• Robert Goodman, reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction; regularly reviews for the Newtown Review of Books. His website is pilebythebed.com 

Jason Steger's Picks

On-air:

• Flesh by David Szalay
• You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
• Long Island by Colm Tóibín
• My Father Bryce by Adam Courtenay
• Runt and the Diabolical Dognapping by Craig Silvey

Extras:

• My Sister and Other Lovers by Esther Freud

Jon Page's Picks

On-air:

• Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
• Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• I Want Everything by Dominic Amarena
• One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Extras:

• A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan
• The Body Next Door by Zane Lovitt
• The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
• The Rose Field [Book of Dust, Vol. 3] by Philip Pullman
• The Names by Florence Knapp

Robert Goodman's Picks

On-air:

• Salvage by Jennifer Mills
• Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow
• We Do Not Part by Han Kang
• Eden by Mark Brandi
• King Sorrow by Joe Hill
• Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Extras:

• The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia
• Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
• Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
• Lion Hearts by Dan Jones
• Rapture by Emily Maguire
• Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
• The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer
• The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd Robinson
• Hotel Ukraine by Martin Cruz Smith
• The Hollow Girl by Lynn Yeowart
• The White Crow by Michael Robotham
• Stillwater by Tanya Scott
• The Reunion by Bronwyn Rivers
• The Peak by Sam Guthrie
• The Seventh Floor by David McClosky
• Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma

Cassie McCullagh's Picks

On-air:

• Dream State by Eric Puchner
• Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• The Transformations by Andrew Pippos
• Arborescence by Rhett Davis
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
• On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle

Extras:

• The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
• Dancing in the Lift by Mandy Sayer

Kate Evans' Picks

On-air:

• Mother Mary Come to Me by Arundhati Roy
• Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent
• Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
• The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
• The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje
• Twist by Colum McCann
• Landfall by James Bradley
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• Fierceland by Omar Musa
• Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray

Extras:

• On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle
• We Do Not Part by Han Kang
• The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
• Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• I Want Everything by Dominic Amarena

CREDITS

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

Superstars of the literary and musical world this week: Margaret Atwood’s new memoir; Hannah Kent’s critical readings; Stuart Coupe’s musical knowledge; Bob Dylan . . . OK, well he’s not exactly on the show, but he’s the subject of MUCH literary speculation in a buzzy new release by New Yorker Sam Sussman. Also – the voice of the wind howls, laughs and taunts its subjects, in an inventive piece of writing from Sarah Hall.

BOOKS 

• Sam Sussman, Boy from the North Country, Grove Press 
• Sarah Hall, Helm, Faber 
• Margaret Atwood, Books of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, Chatto & Windus 

GUESTS 

• Hannah Kent, novelist and memoirist whose books include Burial Rites, The Good People, Devotion and – most recently - Always Home, Always Homesick: A Love Letter to Iceland

• Stuart Coupe, music writer and promoter whose books include Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock’n’ Roll; Shake Some Action: My Life In Music, (and Other Stuff); and – most recently – Saffron Incorporated: The First King Of King Of The Cross And Fifty Years Of Sex, Murder, Music And Mayhem 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman, Niko Stratis
• Harley Loco, Rayya Elias
• Happy Doll series, Jonathan Ames
• All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert
• The History of Sound, Ben Shattuck
• Linea Maja Ernst, Waist Deep (translated by Sherilyn Hellberg)
• Deborah Levy, Hot Milk
• Heart the Lover, Lily King
• Bread of Angels, Patti Smith

CREDITS

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

Short story collections reveal the fragile beauty of human experience in Salman Rushdie’s The Eleventh Hour, Liadan Ní Chuinn’s Everyone Still Here, Morgan Talty’s Night of the Living Rez, and Tony Birch’s Pictures of You. Then we shift gears and crank up the suspense with a look at some new crime fiction, including the icy new instalment in the phenomenally successful The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Millennium series, the brainchild of late author Stieg Larsson, and now written by Karin Smirnoff; plus, a sharp round-up of some recent Australian releases.

BOOKS 

Short story collections: 

• Salman Rushdie, The Eleventh Hour, Jonathan Cape 
• Liadan Ní Chuinn, Everyone Still Here, Granta 
• Tony Birch, Pictures of You, UQP 
• Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez, Scribe  

Crime: 

• Karin Smirnoff, The Girl with Ice in her Veins (translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death), Maclehose Press 
• Michael Brissenden, Dust, Affirm Press 
• Garry Disher, Mischance Creek, Text 
• Chris Hammer, Legacy, Allen & Unwin 
• Kerry Greenwood, Murder in the Cathedral, Allen & Unwin 
• Jane Harper, Last One Out, Macmillan  
• Michael Connelly, The Proving Ground, Allen & Unwin 
• Abir Mukherjee, The Burning Grounds, Harvill Secker 

GUESTS

• Johan Gabrielsson, Host of the Noir Hear This podcast. Documentary maker. His film Climate Changers is available on the streaming platfrom DocPlay, and has an upcoming screening in Sydney

• Professor Sue Turnbull, Crime fiction reviewer, academic, and co-author of Migrants, Television and Australian Stories: A New History

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, works
• Henning Mankell, works
• John Ajvide Lindquist, The Writing in the Water; The Room in the Ground 
• Christian Kracht, Kracht x 3; The Dead  
• Ulf Kvensler, Sarek
• Sam Guthrie, The Peak

CREDITS

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

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