The Bookshelf ABC listen

Kate Evans returns with guest reviewers to discuss Bruce Pascoe’s Imperial Harvest, an epic of brutality and imperialism; along with Jenny Ackland’s Hurdy Gurdy, a circus saga set in a near-future Australia; and Miranda July’s All Fours, which looks at one woman's quest for a very unique kind of freedom.

BOOKS

Bruce Pascoe, Imperial Harvest, Melbourne Books

Jenny Ackland, Hurdy Gurdy, Allen & Unwin

Miranda July, All Fours, Canongate

GUESTS

Beejay Silcox, writer, critic and literary judge. Artistic Director, Canberra Writers Festival; chair of the Stella Prize 2024

Kate Mildenhall, writer whose latest novel is The Hummingbird Effect

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale; Oryx and Crake
Jane McGonigal, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything 
Emily St John Mandel, Station Eleven
Claire G. Coleman, Terra Nullius
Alexis Wright, Praiseworthy
Charlotte Wood, The Natural Way of Things
Naomi Alderman, The Power
Lisa Taddeo, Three Women
David Owen Kelly, Host City
Scott Alexander Howard, The Other Valley
Catherine McKinnon, To Sing of War
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North 
Sharlene Allsopp, The Great Undoing
 

CREDITS
Presenter, Kate Evans
Producer, Kate Evans + Sarah Corbett
Sound engineer, Russell Stapleton + Beth Stewart
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Cassie and Kate discuss Jenny Erpenbecks' Kairos (winner of the 2024 International Booker Prize) with critic Declan Fry - originally broadcast August 2023 when the book was first published; and interviews with writers A K Blakemore (The Glutton), Daniel Mason (North Woods) and Gretchen Shirm (The Crying Room) by Kate Evans.

BOOKS
Jenny Erpenbeck, Kairos, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann, Granta
A K Blakemore, The Glutton, Granta
Daniel Mason, North Woods, John Murray
Gretchen Shirm, The Crying Room, Transit Lounge.

GUESTS
Declan Fry, poet, essayist and critic – who regularly reviews for the Age/ SMH, the Guardian and ABC Arts online.
A K Blakemore, English poet and writer whose novels are The Manningtree Witches and The Glutton
Daniel Mason, American writer, physician and academic, whose novels include The Piano Tuner, The Winter Soldier, A Registry of my Passage Upon the Earth and North Woods
Gretchen Shirm, Australian essayist, critic, novelist and shortstory writer whose books are Having Cried Wolf, Where the Light Falls and The Crying Room

CREDITS
Presenter/ Producer: Kate Evans
Sound Engineer: Ann-Marie De Bettencor
Executive Producer: Rhiannon Brown

 

Cassie and Tom Wright read The Parade by Rachel Cusk, her first since 2018’s Kudos, the final part of the acclaimed Outline trilogy. Once again, Cusk questions the very nature of truth.

James Ley joins to discuss Ceridwen Dovey’s new collection of short stories, Only the Astronauts, which takes us off-planet and into the “lives” of the objects that humans have sent into space.

Gretchen Shirm reviews Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti, constructed of sentences culled from 10 years of her journal writing and arranged, yes, alphabetically.

GUESTS


Gretchen Shirm, critic and writer whose books include the short story collection Having Cried Wolf and the novels Where the Light Falls and The Crying Room


James Ley, critic and literary judge. Deputy Books and Ideas Editor at The Conversation; former editor, Sydney Review of Books; one of the judges of the Miles Franklin Literary Award

BOOKS


Rachel Cusk, Parade (Allen and Unwin)


Ceridwen Dovey, Only the Astronauts (Penguin)


Sheila Heti, Alphabetical Diaries (Allen and Unwin)

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
John Milton, Paradise Lost 
William S. Burroughs, works
Vladimir Sorokin, works
Salmon Rushdie, Knife
Adele Dumont, The Pulling

CREDITS
Presenter, Cassie McCullagh + Tom Wright
Producer, Cassie McCullagh + Sarah Corbett
Sound engineer, Simon Branthwaite + Beth Spencer
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

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