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The Bookshelf — 534 episodes · page 1 of 6
Australian artists, writers and readers share the Australian books they love most
Chris Hammer, Jem Calder and Pip Williams reviewed on this week's Bookshelf
New fiction from Barbara Kingsolver, Colm Tóibín and Ayad Akhtar
Ambition, Rage, Gothic Hunger: New Novels from Min Jin Lee, Louise Kennedy and Catherine Chidgey
Emily St. John Mandel and John Boyne alongside a Booker-longlisted debut
New Fiction: Donal Ryan, Emma Cline, Max Easton and Sebastian Barry
New Fiction from Melissa Harrison and Malcolm Knox + Mandy Sayer's Top 3
Top 100 Australian Books from Byron Writers Festival
Anjet Daanje's extraordinary The Stork and the Dromedary + Liane Moriarty returns with Big Little Truths
The Haunting Wild, a Trip to Mars and Dreaming of Escape in 1980's France
Miles Franklin winner Omar Musa + Booker-longlisted All Them Dogs and Téa Obreht's Sunrise
Meg Mason's new novel + reviews from Hannah Kent, Andy Griffiths, Tom Wright (BONUS: Anna Funder's Top 3)
From Covid-era China to the world of Frida Kahlo and Colson Whitehead's latest
Art, apocalypse and country people
Laura McPhee Browne, Leïla Slimani, Kris Kneen & Bruce Pascoe's favourite Aus books
Melbourne Writers' Festival with Hannah Kent and Beejay Silcox
The Bookshelf’s best: Four standout novels from the past year
Zan Rowe and Madeleine Gray review: Chris Ames/Fiona Mozley/Niamh Campbell
Michael Robotham and Roanna Gonsalves review: Andrew Sean Greer/Ilka Tampke/Michael Pedersen
Hannah Kent and Tom Wright review: Maggie O'Farrell/Ann Patchett/Christine Balint
Beejay Silcox & Bernadette Brennan review: Doireann Ní Ghríofa/Chloe Wilson/Deborah Levy
Launching ABC Radio National’s 2026 Top 100 Books countdown at SWF
Madeleine Gray & Tim Rogers review: Wayne Marshall/Ellena Savage/Lena Dunham/Douglas Stuart
Robert Forster & Geordie Williamson review: Elizabeth Strout/Daniel Kehlmann/Portia Elan
Elizabeth Strout returns, Caro Claire Burke's Yesteryear and more new fiction
Hannah Kent & Tom Wright review: Amanda Lohrey/Deepa Anappara + International Booker
Tony Birch & Beejay Silcox review: Inga Simpson/Asako Yuzuki/Helen Bain
Tim Rogers & Madeleine Gray review: Amitav Ghosh/Edwina Preston/Gwendoline Riley
Michael Robotham & Geordie Williamson review: Steve Toltz/Ben Lerner/Siân Hughes
~ Festival Special: Irish Writer Colum McCann
Fiona Kelly McGregor: The Trap + Debra Adelaide: When I Am Sixty-Four + Yann Martel: Son of Nobody (REVIEWERS: Hannah Kent and Tom Wright)
Yann Martel, Debra Adelaide and Fiona Kelly McGregor - from myth to mid‑century Sydney
Short fiction from Louise Erdrich; essays by Alex Miller; and a surreal comic tale from Michael Winkler
Lanchester, Groff and Costello — reviewed by Hannah Kent and Tim Rogers
~ Festival Special: Bringing the past to life with Emily Maguire and Jock Serong
Siblings, secrets and shame in regional Australia in M L Stedman's A Far Flung Life and Eva Hornung's The Minstrels (REVIEWERS Michael Robotham and Roanna Gonsalves)
Gabriel Tallent: Crux + Claire Thomas: On Not Climbing Mountains + Helle Helle: They (REVIEWERS: Hannah Kent and Tom Wright)
Does Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights adaptation do justice to the original novel?
Tayari Jones: Kin + Nadia Davids: Cape Fever + two bloody rom-coms (REVIEWERS: Tony Birch and Beejay Silcox)
So Far Gone: Jess Walter + Good People: Patmeena Sabit + Eradication: Jonathan Miles (REVIEWERS: Tim Rogers and Madeleine Gray)
Madeline Cash: Lost Lambs + George Saunders: Vigil + new releases by George Kemp and Steven Carroll (REVIEWERS: Michael Robotham & Roanna Gonsalves)
Michael Mohammed Ahmad: Bugger + Jeanette McCurdy: Half His Age + Nina McConigley: How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder (REVIEWERS: Hannah Kent & Tom Wright)
Julian Barnes: Departure(s) + Cassie Stroud: Iluka + Patrick Charnley: This, My Second Life (REVIEWERS: Tony Birch & Beejay Silcox)
Festival Special: Maggie O'Farrell on Hamnet and more
Summer Reading: at the Brisbane Writers Festival
Summer Reading: with Alan Hollinghurst, Mariana Enriquez, Afra Atiq and Catherine Chidgey
Summer Reading: It's time for poetry
Summer Books Special: Novelist, essayist, raconteur Colm Tóibín
Summer Reading: Jane Austen's Enduring Charm
Summer Books Special: Irish writer Niall Williams' Time of the Child
Summer Reading: Bloody Histories
Some of My Favourite Books: Trent Dalton, Garry Disher and Heather Rose at Canberra Writers Festival
The Best Books of 2025
Memoirs, Music, Mystery: new works from Sam Sussman, Sarah Hall, Margaret Atwood
Salman Rushdie's latest/Scandi noir/Australian crime fiction wrap & more...
Fiction bending reality in new books by Thomas Pynchon, Olivia Laing and Jeanette Winterson
Madeleine Gray's Chosen Family + Chris Kraus and Graeme Macrae Burnet
October Book Buzz: Andrew Pippos, Kiran Desai, Olga Ravn & More
We reveal the books that didn’t quite make the Top 100
Brisbane Writers Festival: Eric Puchner, Toni Jordan, Patrick Holland, Zeynab Gamieldien
Four new memoirs: Mandy Sayer/Elizabeth Gilbert/Arundhati Roy/S. Shakthidharan
Top Poems of the 21st Century
Patricia Lockwood's auto-fiction-ish Will There Ever Be Another You + The Buffalo Hunter Hunter + The Original
Ian McEwan's What We Can Know + new work from Olga Tokarczuk and Miranda Darling
Still Turning Heads at 250: Jane Austen’s Enduring Charm
Superstar children's author Andy Griffiths reviews! Plus, Omar Musa's Fierceland and Geoff Dyer's Homework
Greyhounds, dark academia and an Amish community in new fiction by Toni Jordan, R.F. Kuang and Ron Rindo
A simmering summer in Greece, rare snails, dystopia with a twist: new fiction by Amy Taylor, Leif Enger and Maria Reva
AI in America, a kidnapping in Corsica, the transformative power of boxing: books by Gary Shteyngart, Darrow Farr, and Lucas Schaefer
People turning into trees, mythical rivers rising...new novels by Rhett Davis and Gurnaik Johal (plus, Irish fiction with Colm Tóibín)
2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award assessed
Parties, scandals, sex, love: new novels by Nell Zink, Amy Bloom and the controversial James Frey
New Australian crime + hungry ghosts and a great white whale
Sydney Writer's Festival: The State of the Art of the Novel
Mystery in new fiction from Ben Okri, Sameer Pandya and Anjet Daanje
Sweat, sport and sharp Australian satire; And the 2025 International Booker Prize winner
Popular fiction across space and time, and queer bush doof thriller in Thomas Vowles' Our New Gods
Reading James Joyce's Ulysses for Bloomsday (and new fiction galore)
New fiction from Gail Jones, S A Cosby and Seán Hewitt
A vibrant gay coming-of-age story set in Geraldton
Sydney Writers' Festival: Top 100 Books launched with Alan Hollinghurst, Catherine Chidgey, Mariana Enriquez, Afra Atiq
On stage at Melbourne Writers' Festival with Hannah Kent and Beejay Silcox
A woman falls through the cracks of time in the first of Solvej Balle's seven-novel-series
A beach holiday told four ways in Luke Horton's Time Together
James Bradley's Landfall reveals a flooded, baked and dilapidated city
The Bookshelf Easter Special: Irish writer Niall Williams
A love triangle set against the beauty of Montana in Eric Puchner's Dream State
Folk horror, dreams under surveillance, lonely in Guatemala
Andrea Goldsmith's The Buried Life - and a train steaming towards disaster . . .
Curtis Sittenfeld's Show Don't Tell + Tim Rogers and Zan Rowe on two new debuts
This week’s novels takes us to Zanzibar, Budapest and Renaissance Florence
On stage at Adelaide Writers' Week with Niall Williams, Charlotte Mendelson and Brian Castro
Australian bestseller Diana Reid returns with Signs of Damage
Irish writer Colum McCann’s Twist dives deep under the ocean and takes on a charismatic mystery
Mothers and Sons...is the story as fraught as the title suggests?
Alaska, folktales, mothers and daughters
A story of yearning, belonging, secrets and identity from Native America
Sweden, France, New Zealand: books from around the world
A medical crisis brings one man close to love, art, and beauty
Summer Reading: Quick, give me a recommendation!