Crime fiction that is explicitly about the past or imbedded in the past.

Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov was, briefly, Stalin’s favourite novelist: now there's a precarious position to hold.

Omar El Akkad dystopian novel American War. Amy Tan's memoir Where the past begins, her journey as a daughter and a writer. Morris Gleitzman's Maybe - a 14 year old Felix comes to Australia as a refugee at the close of World War Two. Rachel Leary and Rohan Wilson discuss Tasmanian gothic fiction.

Jennifer Egan's new novel about the waterfront, women and secrets Manhattan Beach; Tracey Chevalier rewrites Othello; Australian fantasy writer Jessica Townsend's new hero Morrigan Crow.

Teen sexuality - Dan Handler's new work for young adults

17 true stories about Maggie O'Farrell close encounters with death.

Ann Patchett reflects on grief and her friendship with the poet Lucy Grealy.

Man Booker Shortlisted novel Elmet, by Fiona Mozley; Award winning Australian novelist Michelle de Kretser’s sharp story of writers and travel, The Life to Come; the ongoing appeal of the Maid of Orlean with Ali Alizadeh and Lili Wilkinson, on Joan of Arc.

What does it mean to write the lives of real women, especially when one of those women is a novelist? Memoirist Lucy Palmer and Thea Astley’s biographer Karen Lamb in conversation. And Scottish crime novelist Denise Mina reveals the works that have influenced her.

Criminal Psychologist Tim Watson-Munro with his stories from the dock; Journalist Matthew Benns with tales of skulduggery; and novelist Garry Disher reveals the fate of a small girl, sold, in the Australian bush.

English fantasy writer Cressida Cowell on training dragons & her new series, The Wizards of Once; Norwegian journalist and novelist Lars Mytting on woodworking and his novel The Sixteen Trees of the Somme; Man Booker longlisted novelist Kamila Shamsie reworks Antigone in Home Fire.

Corrupt cops and violence in New York in Don Winslow’s The Force; Israel and Dante in Nicole Krauss’ The Forest Dark; Richard Hamblyn on clouds in art and culture; writers on what reading means to them.