The Bookshelf

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