The Bookshelf ABC listen

Cassie and Jonathan Green review The Ministry of Time by debut British-Cambodian novelist Kaliane Bradley, a heads up, it's brilliant.

Michael Brissenden reviews Crooked Seeds by South African writer Karen Jennings, a crime mystery set in Cape Town.

Nicole Abadee looks at The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry, a story that takes us to 1891 and a grim winter in a small mining town of immigrant Irish workers in the Rocky Mountains. 

BOOKS
The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley (Hachette)
Crooked Seeds, Karen Jennings (Text)
The Heart in Winter, Kevin Barry (Allen and Unwin)

GUESTS
Nicole Abadee, books writer, podcaster and festival moderator who regularly interviews at writers festivals and literary events. Contributor to Good Weekend magazine
Michael Brissenden, award-winning journalist and author. His latest book is a crime thriller novel called Smoke

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
Cormac McCarthy, works
Paul Lynch, works
Sebastian Barry, work
Joseph O'Connor, works  
Malcolm Knox, The First Friend
Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

CREDITS
Presenter, Cassie McCullagh + Jonathan Green
Producer, Cassie McCullagh + Sarah Corbett
Sound engineer, Roi Huberman + Ann Marie Debettencor
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

 

Cassie and Claire Nichols team up on stage at this year's Sydney Writers' Festival to grill some huge literary stars on their reading lives: Irish Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch, U.S. bestseller Celeste Ng, and Australia’s Christos Tsoilkas.

GUESTS
Paul Lynch, internationally acclaimed, prize-winning author of five novels  including the 2023 Booker Prize Winner Prophet Song
Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts
Christos Tsiolkas, author of eight novels, including the international bestseller The Slap. His latest is The In-Between

BOOKS AND WRITERS MENTIONED
Colm Tóibín, works
Gustave Flaubert, works
Graham Greene, works
Marcel Proust, works
Virginia Woolf, works 
E.M. Forster, works
Flannery O'Connor, works
Joseph Conrad, Typhoon
Patrick White, works
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Possessed; Crime and Punishment; The Brothers Karamazov
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Vladimir Nabokov, works
Robbie Arnott, Limberlost
John Steinbeck, The Breakfast
Saul Bellow, Herzog
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
William Faulkner, works
Charles Dickens, works
William Shakespeare, works
Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian
Stendahl, The Red and the Black
Hannah Kent, Devotion
Peter Polites, God Forgets About the Poor
(Christos also mentioned the film criticism of Pauline Kael)

CREDITS
Presenter, Cassie McCullagh + Claire Nichols
Producer, Cassie McCullagh + Sarah Corbett
Sound engineer, Beth Stewart + David Le May
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Cassie and Jonathan Green review Safe Haven by 2023 Miles Franklin winner Shankari Chandran, Table For Two by Amor Towles (author of A Gentleman In  Moscow), and Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan of Crazy Rich Asians fame.

BOOKS

Safe Haven, Shankari Chandran (Ultimo Press)

Lies and Weddings, Kevin Kwan (Penguin)

Table for Two, Amor Towles (Penguin)

GUESTS

Jennifer Wong, Chinese-Australian writer and comedian. She’s the presenter of Chopsticks or Fork?, a six-part AACTA-nominated ABC series on Chinese restaurants in regional Australia

Sam Twyford-Moore, writer and cultural historian whose latest book is Castmates: Australian actors in Hollywood and at Home

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
Roald Dahl, works
John Cheever, works
O Henry, works
Paul Auster, works
Kirstin Chen, Counterfeit
Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief
Geoff Dyer, The Ongoing Moment

CREDITS
Presenter, Cassie McCullagh + Jonathan Green
Producer, Cassie McCullagh + Sarah Corbett
Sound engineer, Isabella Tropiano + Simon Branthwaite
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Cassie and guest host Tom Wright discuss Claire Messud's This Strange Eventful History, about a family torn apart by war, geography, politics and religion, over the course of three generations. Plus, guests Claire Mabey and Shannon Burns review new fiction from Sarah Perry and Alan Murrin.

BOOKS

This Strange Eventful History, Claire Messud (Hachette)

Enlightenment, Sarah Perry (Penguin)

The Coast Road, Alan Murrin (Bloomsbury)

GUESTS

Shannon Burns, writer, critic, and member of The JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide. His book Childhood: A Memoir is published by Text and has just been shortlisted for the NSW Premiers' Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction

Claire Mabey, Founder of Verb Wellington and books editor at The Spinoff (NZ online culture and news site). Her first book, a middle grade novel called The Raven's Eye Runaways will be published in July

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

Edna O'Brien, Byron in Love
Javier Marías, A Heart So White
Nicholas John Turner, Let the Boys Play
Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds
Louise Wallace, Ash
Max Porter, works

CREDITS
Presenter, Cassie McCullagh + Tom Wright
Producer, Cassie McCullagh + Sarah Corbett + Barbara Heggen
Sound engineer, Hamish Camilleri + Ann Marie Debettencor
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Cassie and Jonathan Green discuss Colm Tóibín's eagerly awaited new novel Long Island. 

Star reviewers Madeleine Gray and Benjamin Law discuss buzzy new fiction from Siang Lu (Ghost Cities), and Rachel Khong (Real Americans). 

BOOKS

Long Island, Colm Toibin (Pan Macmillan)

Ghost Cities, Siang Lu (UQP)

Real Americans, Rachel Khong (Penguin)

GUESTS

Benjamin Law, writer, columnist, screenwriter. His work includes The Family Law and Wellmania

Madeleine Gray, arts writer, critic and PhD candidate in English Literature. Her debut novel is Green Dot (A&U)

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

Haruki Murakami, works

Sarah Firth, Eventually Everything Connects

Helen Garner, works

Joan Didion, works

Dylin Hardcastle, A Language of Limbs

Jessie Tu, The Honeyeater

Jessica Au, Cold Enough For Snow

Madison Godfrey, Dress Rehearsals

CREDITS
Presenter, Cassie McCullagh + Jonathan Green
Producer, Cassie McCullagh + Sarah Corbett
Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth + Ann Marie Debettencor
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Cassie and Jonathan Green look at Until August, the lost novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and guest reviewers Hannah Kent and Roanna Gonsalves discuss powerful new fiction out of Iceland and the UK.