The Book Show

By ABC Australia

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Category: Books

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Subscribers: 153
Reviews: 0
Episodes: 247

Description

Your favourite fiction authors share the story behind their latest books.

Episode Date
Can we escape fate? Veronica Roth and Amitav Ghosh on past lives and destiny
May 10, 2026
Elizabeth Strout and Amanda Lohrey on strange times and aliens
May 03, 2026
Kae Tempest and Michael Winkler on grief, creativity and vulnerability
Apr 26, 2026
Vale David Malouf
Apr 23, 2026
Steve Toltz rolls the dice
Apr 20, 2026
Shaun Micallef and Jenny Tinghui Zhang deliver K-Pop thrills and vampire chills
Apr 13, 2026
Yael van der Wouden on sex, history and an incredible year
Apr 06, 2026
Debra Adelaide on the life and death of Gabrielle Carey
Mar 29, 2026
Colm Tóibín can't stop naming his characters Paul
Mar 22, 2026
Daniyal Mueenuddin's changing Pakistan
Mar 15, 2026
Howard Jacobson embraces being a Jewish writer
Mar 08, 2026
Francis Spufford's Nonesuch shows World War II as you've never it seen before
Mar 01, 2026
Tayari Jones on her beautiful new novel Kin
Feb 22, 2026
Patrick Ryan and Sita Walker on seances, secrets and school rooms
Feb 15, 2026
George Saunders on angels and the afterlife
Feb 08, 2026
Adam Kay on how medicine and comedy shaped his debut novel
Feb 01, 2026
Trent Dalton and Gregory Maguire on why there's no place like home
Jan 25, 2026
Philip Pullman's enduring legacy
Jan 18, 2026
Summer highlights: David Nicholls and Liane Moriarty on their starry screen adaptations
Jan 11, 2026
Summer highlights: Arundhati Roy, Colum McCann and Morgan Talty
Jan 04, 2026
Summer highlights: Samantha Harvey's accidental prize winner
Dec 28, 2025
Summer highlights: Marian Keyes on writing to save her life
Dec 21, 2025
Summer highlights: Ocean Vuong, Charlotte McConaghy and David Malouf
Dec 14, 2025
Bri Lee, Madeleine Gray and Kate Mildenhall on friendship, families and the future
Dec 07, 2025
05 | Dear Jane — The endlessly adaptable Austen
Dec 04, 2025
Jeanette Winterson releases the reading Genie
Nov 30, 2025
04 | Dear Jane — Reading Emma in Pakistan
Nov 27, 2025
Megha Majumdar and Sally Hepworth on climate crisis and granny serial killers
Nov 23, 2025
03 | Dear Jane — Persuasion, the original second chance romance
Nov 20, 2025
Ben Elton and the case for popular fiction
Nov 16, 2025
02 | Dear Jane — the perfectly plotted Pride and Prejudice
Nov 13, 2025
Pod extra: David Szalay wins the Booker Prize
Nov 11, 2025
Patricia Lockwood on Dolly the sheep and long covid
Nov 09, 2025
01 | Dear Jane — the wild, not mild, Jane Austen
Nov 06, 2025
Who will win the Booker Prize?
Nov 02, 2025
An American elegy with Eric Puchner and Jane Harper on grief and the disappeared
Oct 26, 2025
Celebrating Australia's favourite reads with Trent Dalton, Hannah Kent and Barbara Kingsolver
Oct 19, 2025
Heather Rose, Omar Musa and Natalia Figueroa Barroso on champagne, ghosts and the disappeared
Oct 12, 2025
Peter Carey on not writing fiction anymore
Oct 05, 2025
Trent Dalton and David Malouf — Brisbane's favourite sons
Sep 28, 2025
How Ian McEwan is using the future to explore the present
Sep 21, 2025
Arundhati Roy and Mick Herron on monstrous mothers and Slow Horses
Sep 14, 2025
Toni Jordan, Richard Osman and Gail Jones on greyhounds, murder and mystery
Sep 07, 2025
Top 100 Books with Colum McCann, Kate Grenville and Kaliane Bradley
Aug 31, 2025
R.F. Kuang goes to hell with Katabasis
Aug 24, 2025
Gary Shteyngart, Jennifer Mills and Rhett Davis ask what's next
Aug 17, 2025
Florence Knapp and Brandon Jack on the power of a name
Aug 10, 2025
Amy Bloom, Ben Markovits and Barbara Truelove on love, basketball and monsters
Aug 03, 2025
Ben Okri, Jana Wendt and Thomas Vowles on heartbreak, new beginnings and queer Melbourne
Jul 27, 2025
"Shimmering" and "strikingly new" — Siang Lu wins Miles Franklin Literary Award
Jul 24, 2025
John Boyne, Maggie Stiefvater and Laura Elvery on hope, enemy diplomats and Florence Nightingale
Jul 20, 2025
From a debut to two-time winner — the Miles Franklin shortlist is here
Jul 13, 2025
Ocean Vuong and Fleur McDonald reimagine Connecticut and Kalgoorlie
Jul 06, 2025
Esther Freud has a lot to say about sisters
Jun 29, 2025
Yael van der Wouden on sex, history and an incredible year
Jun 22, 2025
Catherine Chidgey, Kevin Wilson and Josephine Rowe on history, travel and an almost saint
Jun 15, 2025
Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey loosens the reins
Jun 08, 2025
Alan Hollinghurst and Charlotte Wood on gay lives and celebrity nuns
Jun 01, 2025
Liane Moriaty and David Nicholls on small screen success
May 25, 2025
Kaliane Bradley, Rumaan Alam, success and 'sexy dead guys'
May 18, 2025
Marian Keyes — "I have lived many lives"
May 12, 2025
Eimear McBride, Tasma Walton and James Bradley on stormy weather and broken families
May 04, 2025
Mother fault lines with Betty Shamieh, Debra Oswald and Naima Brown
Apr 27, 2025
Chigozie Obioma on kindness, big families and the Biafran War
Apr 20, 2025
Gregory Maguire has another Wicked tale to tell
Apr 13, 2025
Charlotte McConaghy on The Wild Dark Shore
Apr 06, 2025
Roisin O'Donnell and a woman on the run
Mar 30, 2025
Laila Lalami, Steven MinOn and Madeleine Ryan on mining dreams, a walking corpse and a very bad day
Mar 23, 2025
Bernhard Schlink, Vincenzo Latronico and Diana Reid on transitions, ennui and memory
Mar 16, 2025
Rachel Kushner on writing spies, anarchists and Neanderthals
Mar 09, 2025
Colum McCann, Robert Lukins and Jane Yang on repair, the ultra-rich and bound feet
Mar 02, 2025
Morgan Talty on family, blood and belonging
Feb 23, 2025
My Biggest Book 06 | Markus Zusak on The Book Thief
Feb 22, 2025
When Makassar and Yolnu peoples met, a long history told in A Piece of Red Cloth
Feb 16, 2025
My Biggest Book 05 | Roddy Doyle on The Commitments
Feb 15, 2025
Eowyn Ivey on Alaska, bears and magic
Feb 09, 2025
My Biggest Book 04 | Nikki Gemmell on The Bride Stripped Bare
Feb 08, 2025
Juhea Kim: City of Night Birds
Feb 02, 2025
My Biggest Book 03 | Emma Donoghue on Room
Feb 01, 2025
David Baldacci; Sara Haddad's novella The Sunbird
Jan 26, 2025
My Biggest Book 02 | Hanif Kureishi on The Buddha of Suburbia
Jan 25, 2025
The prolific Alexander McCall Smith
Jan 19, 2025
My Biggest Book 01 | Audrey Niffenegger on The Time Traveler's Wife
Jan 18, 2025
Summer reading with Andrew O'Hagan and Evie Wyld
Jan 12, 2025
Summer reading with Anne Enright
Jan 05, 2025
Summer Reading with Celeste Ng
Dec 29, 2024
Summer reading with Tim Winton, Kaliane Bradley and Siang Lu
Dec 22, 2024
Summer reading with Melissa Lucashenko
Dec 15, 2024
Niall Williams and Nick Harkaway on Christmas miracles and special fathers
Dec 08, 2024
Will Self gets personal about his mother
Dec 01, 2024
Alan Moore's delirious new fantasy The Great When
Nov 24, 2024
Roddy Doyle and the character who's stayed with him
Nov 17, 2024
Pod extra with Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey
Nov 13, 2024
Garry Disher, Emily Maguire and David Dyer on a milestone, a myth and the moon landing
Nov 10, 2024
Your ultimate guide to the Booker Prize
Nov 03, 2024
Robbie Arnott, Fiona McFarlane and Malcolm Knox on wild cats, crime and satire
Oct 27, 2024
Tim Winton's call to action in Juice
Oct 20, 2024
Grande Dames Pat Barker and Kate Atkinson
Oct 13, 2024
Onyi Nwabineli, Ella Baxter and Melanie Cheng on Mumflencers, stalkers and rabbits
Oct 06, 2024
Writing with an agenda — Laura Jean McKay, Laurie Steed and Chemutai Glasheen
Sep 30, 2024
Rumaan Alam — why we don't talk about money
Sep 23, 2024
Richard Osman's new crime-fighting team
Sep 16, 2024
Elif Shafak and the water that connects us
Sep 09, 2024
Meet Meena Kandasamy: poet, novelist, rebel
Sep 02, 2024
Evie Wyld's writing tip: put a shark in it
Aug 26, 2024
Chigozie Obioma on kindness, big families and the Biafran War
Aug 19, 2024
Looking to the stars with Ceridwen Dovey, Emily St John Mandel and more
Aug 12, 2024
Keanu Reeves and China Miéville write a book together
Aug 05, 2024
Pod extra: Alexis Wright makes literary history
Aug 01, 2024
Meet Samantha Shannon's biggest critic: herself
Jul 29, 2024
Meet the authors on the 2024 Miles Franklin shortlist
Jul 22, 2024
R.O. Kwon's ambitions and desires
Jul 15, 2024
Writer to writer with Claire G Coleman and Dylan Coleman
Jul 08, 2024
Bri Lee and Liam Pieper take down celebrity art
Jul 01, 2024
Kevin Kwan wrote a book about weddings, just don't invite him to one
Jun 24, 2024
Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch and his fear of mediocrity
Jun 17, 2024
Jeanette Winterson and Kate Grenville on the gift of writing
Jun 10, 2024
Celeste Ng — "Every one of my books starts with a question"
Jun 03, 2024
Shankari Chandran, Stuart Turton and Julie Janson on refuge, failure and outlaws
May 27, 2024
Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn sequel
May 20, 2024
Banned Books 05: Censorship in Iran
May 18, 2024
Percival Everett reimagines Huckleberry Finn
May 13, 2024
Banned Books 04: USA's most banned book in Australia
May 11, 2024
Val McDermid and Jonathan Seidler on ancient queens and modern love
May 06, 2024
Banned Books 03: Homoerotic fiction in China
May 04, 2024
Pod extra — Alexis Wright wins a second Stella Prize
May 02, 2024
Téa Obreht and Emily O'Grady on Balkan fairytales, nepo babies and wild creatures
Apr 29, 2024
Banned Books 02: The Satanic Verses and the fatwa
Apr 27, 2024
Andrew O'Hagan's biggest novel yet
Apr 22, 2024
Banned Books 01: Race and racism in the USA
Apr 20, 2024
Sunjeev Sahota, Vanessa Chan and Winnie Dunn bring us stories from home
Apr 15, 2024
André Aciman and Anjali Joseph on the joy of doing nothing
Apr 08, 2024
Melissa Lucashenko on writing through flood, fire and pestilence
Mar 31, 2024
Jane Smiley and Louise Milligan on stories they couldn't let go
Mar 24, 2024
Jonathan Lethem returns to Brooklyn
Mar 17, 2024
Anne Enright on motherhood, Irish poets and famous parents
Mar 10, 2024
RF Kuang and Nam Le on Yellowface, mums and minorities
Mar 03, 2024
Jennifer Croft, Imbi Neeme and Mykaela Saunders on translation, chewing and the Tweed
Feb 25, 2024
Jasper Fforde, Amy Brown and Leo Vardiashvili on surprises, fairytales and rickrolling
Feb 18, 2024
Kristin Hannah, Jodi McAlister and Sharlene Allsopp on women, war and love
Feb 11, 2024
Hisham Matar and Ela Lee on the friendships that save you
Feb 04, 2024
Kiley Reid, Rachael Johns and Iain Ryan on money, love and corruption
Jan 28, 2024
Michael Cunningham and Madeleine Gray on romance and relationship breakdown
Jan 21, 2024
Fakes and Frauds 05 | A big hoax — Wanda Koolmatrie and My Own Sweet Time
Jan 16, 2024
Pip Williams, Shankari Chandran and Josh Kemp on bookbinding, bushwalking and book awards
Jan 14, 2024
Fakes and Frauds 04 | Fake identity and Helen Demidenko's The Hand that Signed the Paper
Jan 08, 2024
John Boyne, Esther Freud, Louise Kennedy and the Irish voice
Jan 07, 2024
Fakes and Frauds 03 | Fabrication and lies in Marlo Morgan's Mutant Message Down Under
Jan 02, 2024
Ian McEwan's most personal novel, plus Booker winner Paul Lynch
Dec 31, 2023
Fakes and Frauds 02 | Fact or fiction in Norma Khouri's Forbidden Love
Dec 26, 2023
Pulitzer Prize winners Barbara Kingsolver and Hernán Diaz
Dec 24, 2023
Fakes and Frauds 01 | Plagiarism scandal in The Dogs by John Hughes
Dec 19, 2023
Ego and creativity with Anna Funder and Paul Jennings
Dec 17, 2023
Naomi Alderman and Charlotte Wood on bunkers, billionaires and nuns
Dec 10, 2023
Amanda Lohrey, Matthew Reilly and Katherine Brabon on the sacred, swimming and Einstein
Dec 03, 2023
Pod extra with the Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch
Nov 27, 2023
Richard Flanagan on the atomic bomb, HG Wells and a kiss
Nov 26, 2023
Tony Birch and Christos Tsiolkas on love, shame and dangerous dinner-parties
Nov 19, 2023
Booker Prize shortlist — mythical, profound and lyrical
Nov 12, 2023
"We don't come from nowhere" — Melissa Lucashenko on her historical novel Edenglassie
Nov 05, 2023
Haunting fiction with Shehan Karunatilaka, Steve Toltz and many more
Oct 29, 2023
Between two worlds with Jesmyn Ward, Graham Akhurst and Anna McGahan
Oct 22, 2023
"It began with a crime" — Cassandra Clare's latest fantasy fiction
Oct 15, 2023
Trent Dalton on homelessness, hope and the tyrannosaurus waltz
Oct 08, 2023
Jeanette Winterson on avatars and the afterlife, plus Kate Mildenhall
Oct 01, 2023
Sebastian Faulks and what makes us human
Sep 25, 2023
Booker Prize winner: Margaret Atwood
Sep 18, 2023
Booker Prize winner: Damon Galgut
Sep 18, 2023
Booker Prize winner: Shehan Karunatilaka
Sep 18, 2023
Booker Prize winner: George Saunders
Sep 18, 2023
Booker Prize winner: Douglas Stuart
Sep 18, 2023
Booker Prize winner: Bernardine Evaristo
Sep 18, 2023
Feel good fiction with Anita Heiss, Marlon James, Monica Ali and more
Sep 18, 2023
Zadie Smith on Jamaica, delusion and Dickens
Sep 11, 2023
"We love the people we damage" — Anne Enright
Sep 04, 2023
Coming of age with Chris Womersley, Maxine Beneba Clarke and Zeynab Gamieldien
Aug 28, 2023
"Trinidad writes itself" — Kevin Jared Hosein's Hungry Ghosts, plus Kate Grenville
Aug 21, 2023
Crime fiction queen Jane Harper on what she'll do next
Aug 14, 2023
Ann Patchett and Tracy Sorensen on famous friends and talking organs
Aug 07, 2023
Melancholy in the library with Patrick deWitt, Josh Kemp and Ali Cobby Eckermann
Jul 31, 2023
Pod Extra with 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Shankari Chandran
Jul 25, 2023
Anna Funder and Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life
Jul 24, 2023
Richard Ford says goodbye to his creation
Jul 17, 2023
Myth-busting and Judge Judy with Tracey Lien and Nina Wan
Jul 10, 2023
Writer to writer with Larissa Behrendt, Anita Heiss and Ellen van Neerven
Jul 03, 2023
Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist 2023: pod extra interview special
Jun 29, 2023
Booker winners Shehan Karunatilaka and Damon Galgut
Jun 26, 2023
Lisa See's portrait of female friendship in Ming dynasty China
Jun 19, 2023
Home, art and love with Kate Morton, Stephanie Bishop and Zoya Patel
Jun 12, 2023
Max Porter and Barbara Kingsolver's lost boys
Jun 05, 2023
Don Winslow, plus Fakes and Frauds #5 Wanda Koolmatrie hoax
May 29, 2023
Trees in fiction with Richard Powers, Hannah Kent, Elif Shafak and more
May 22, 2023
Fakes and Frauds #4 Helen Demidenko, plus Shirley Le
May 15, 2023
Eleanor Catton, plus Fakes and Frauds #3 Mutant Message Down Under
May 08, 2023
Curtis Sittenfeld, plus Fakes and Frauds #2 Norma Khouri
May 01, 2023
Alexis Wright, plus Fakes and Frauds #1 The Dogs by John Hughes
Apr 24, 2023
Mothers on the page with Larissa Behrendt, Alice Pung and Chloe Hooper
Apr 17, 2023
Lessons in life, mortality and love from Julian Barnes
Apr 10, 2023
Bookbinding and ghost towns with Pip Williams and Dominic Smith
Apr 03, 2023
‘I didn’t know I had anger in me’ – Anindita Ghose kills off the patriarch
Mar 26, 2023
John Boyne, Esther Freud, Louise Kennedy and the Irish voice
Mar 19, 2023
Margaret Atwood on witches, cats and a lifetime of writing
Mar 12, 2023
Grief, plague and Star Trek with Sequoia Nagamatsu
Mar 05, 2023
Dragons, literary acrobatics and a house called Shirley with Samantha Shannon, Cate Kennedy and Ronnie Scott
Feb 26, 2023
Love, lust and ghosts: celebrating queer fiction
Feb 19, 2023
Ballet, bodies and grief with Meg Howrey, Inga Simpson and Dinuka McKenzie
Feb 12, 2023
Parties, miracles and Pop Tarts with Deepti Kapoor, Michelle Johnston and Kevin Wilson
Feb 05, 2023
Small-town murder with Julie Janson and Stuart MacBride
Jan 29, 2023
Bret Easton Ellis and Paul Jennings come to terms with fame and ego
Jan 22, 2023
Tim Winton on a life of accidents, successes, and the business of 'useless beauty'
Jan 15, 2023
Jamaica's Marlon James creates an 'African Game of Thrones', plus Meg Mason
Jan 08, 2023
Queer stories with Douglas Stuart, Indyana Schneider and Omar Sakr
Jan 01, 2023
Craig Silvey, Tony Birch and Dervla McTiernan's joy of reading
Dec 25, 2022
Prize winners Ruth Ozeki, Shehan Karunatilaka and Jennifer Down
Dec 18, 2022
"Hardest thing I've ever written" — Heather Rose shares tales from her extraordinary life
Dec 11, 2022
Superheroes and fun with NK Jemisin, Bonnie Garmus and Katharine Pollock
Dec 04, 2022
"It's addictive" — George Saunders on short stories
Nov 27, 2022
Ageing and autopsies with Alex Miller and Patricia Cornwell
Nov 20, 2022
Paterson Joseph, Orhan Pamuk and Fiona McFarlane dig up the past
Nov 13, 2022
Graham Norton and the power of the Irish mammy
Nov 06, 2022
Why Ian Rankin keeps returning to Rebus
Oct 30, 2022
Barbara Kingsolver finds the hillbilly in Charles Dickens
Oct 23, 2022
Pod extra with the Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka
Oct 18, 2022
Beginnings and endings with Holly Ringland, Elizabeth Strout and Jane Harper
Oct 16, 2022
Kamila Shamsie and NoViolet Bulawayo on the rise and fall of dictators
Oct 09, 2022
Andrew Sean Greer and Craig Silvey share the joy
Oct 02, 2022
AM Homes plots an American revolution
Sep 25, 2022
Booker magic with Ian McEwan, Percival Everett and Jay Carmichael
Sep 18, 2022
Historical resurrection with Maggie O'Farrell, Robert Drewe and Zaheda Ghani
Sep 11, 2022
Sloane Crosley's Cult Classic a rom-com with a twist
Sep 04, 2022
Hannah Gadsby on comedy, self-awareness and living an authentic life — bonus episode
Aug 31, 2022
Star Wars, monks and puffins — Emma Donoghue on Haven
Aug 28, 2022
Tim Winton on a life of accidents, successes, and the business of 'useless beauty' — bonus episode
Aug 23, 2022
Spirituality and writing with Ruth Ozeki and Ann Cleeves
Aug 21, 2022
Trees in fiction with Richard Powers, Hannah Kent, Elif Shafak and more
Aug 15, 2022
Double trouble — crime fiction with Dervla McTiernan and Aoife Clifford
Aug 08, 2022
Sibling rivalry and secrets with Liane Moriarty
Aug 01, 2022
Surprising journeys with Jessie Burton, Thomas Mayor and Sulari Gentill
Jul 25, 2022
Meet the 2022 Miles Franklin Shortlist
Jul 18, 2022
'I guess I'm a weirdo' — Benjamin Myers on crop circles and being a loner
Jul 11, 2022
Anita Heiss, Tony Birch and SJ Norman grapple with the past
Jul 04, 2022
'They're about real things' — Madeline Miller on the popularity of Greek myths
Jun 27, 2022
'I got obsessed with horses' — Geraldine Brooks on her novel Horse
Jun 20, 2022
Meg Mason's surprise success with Sorrow and Bliss
Jun 13, 2022
'I wish I’d had more resolution of character' — Booker winner Damon Galgut on privilege and power
Jun 06, 2022
Lessons in life, mortality and love from Julian Barnes
May 30, 2022
Moon colonies and the 'Mandelverse' with Emily St John Mandel
May 23, 2022