The Bookshelf

By ABC listen

Listen to a podcast, please open Podcast Republic app. Available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Image by ABC listen

Category: Books

Open in Apple Podcasts


Open RSS feed


Open Website


Rate for this podcast

Subscribers: 261
Reviews: 0
Episodes: 243

Description

What are you reading, loving or being challenged by? We review the latest in fiction for dedicated readers and for those who wish they read more.

Episode Date
Colm Tóibín's Long Island + Ghost Cities and Real Americans
May 03, 2024
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's lost novel + powerful new fiction from Iceland and the UK
Apr 26, 2024
David Nicholls, Winnie Dunn, Xochitl Gonzalez: bestselling, debut and much anticipated authors
Apr 19, 2024
Never-before-published & new novels from Charmian Clift, Tommy Orange and Caoilinn Hughes
Apr 12, 2024
Bri Lee, Andre Aciman, Mykaela Saunders: art, ambition, parallel lives, alternate futures
Apr 05, 2024
Andrew O'Hagan, Stuart Turton, Helen Fitzgerald: some must-reads!
Mar 28, 2024
Téa Obreht, Asako Yuzuki, Steven Carroll: dystopia, butter, murder
Mar 22, 2024
Reimagining Huckleberry Finn, a talking fox, art and alienation
Mar 15, 2024
Three new Australian novels! Iain Ryan, Amy Brown, Sharlene Allsopp
Mar 08, 2024
A Trans-Tasman edition: Myfanwy Jones, Anna Smaill and Sulari Gentill
Mar 01, 2024
Meditations on writing: Gail Jones, Jennifer Croft and a new anthology edited by Margaret Atwood
Feb 23, 2024
Dreams and nightmares: Leo Vardiashvili, Teju Cole, Matthew Blake
Feb 16, 2024
Mysteries and meta-physical thrillers: Kemper Donovan, Mike McCormack and Alex Michaelides
Feb 09, 2024
New fiction from Francis Spufford, Hisham Matar and Kiley Reid
Feb 02, 2024
We're back for 2024 featuring new novels from Katherena Vermette, Dolly Alderton and Jonathan Lethem
Jan 26, 2024
Summer Reads: history remade, futures reimagined
Jan 19, 2024
Summer Reads: True Crime, historical injustice, NZ satire and God's Teeth
Jan 12, 2024
Summer Reads: from Aphra Behn to Max Porter
Jan 05, 2024
Summer reading: heists, horses, Harlem, Ireland, rage
Dec 29, 2023
Summer Reads: Impossible creatures, an Indian thriller and love in a cherry orchard
Dec 22, 2023
Romance, crime, adventure: Summer reading recommendations
Dec 15, 2023
Best Books of 2023: What to read now, next and over Summer
Dec 08, 2023
Bad Art Mother: Canberra Writers Festival Book Club pod extra
Dec 07, 2023
The Book Club: Thrillers
Dec 01, 2023
Reading the end of the world: Naomi Alderman, Michael Cunningham, Nicholas Jose, Katherine Brabon
Nov 24, 2023
Lucy Treloar, Tony Birch, Paul Auster, A K Blakemore: Books to chew on
Nov 17, 2023
Memory, history, ghosts and parrots: Richard Flanagan, Sigrid Nunez, Jayne Anne Phillips
Nov 10, 2023
The Book Club: Historical Fiction with Jesmyn Ward's Let Us Descend and Zadie Smith's The Fraud
Nov 03, 2023
New novels from Christos Tsiolkas, Amanda Lohrey, David Diop and Siân Hughes
Oct 27, 2023
Jellyfish, beauty, betrayal and Camelot: new fiction
Oct 20, 2023
Melissa Lucashenko, Charlotte Wood and Bryan Washington: powerful new fiction
Oct 13, 2023
Three major new works - Trent Dalton, Paul Harding and Suzie Miller
Oct 06, 2023
The Book Club - Short Stories
Sep 29, 2023
Lauren Groff, Daniel Mason and Anna Kate Blair: fables, trees, history and art
Sep 21, 2023
Novels by Anne Enright, Paul Lynch and Emma Donoghue: love, pain, politics and Ireland
Sep 15, 2023
Bringing the Past to Life: with Geraldine Brooks, Pip Williams and Sally Colin-James
Sep 07, 2023
The Book Club: Frank Moorhouse Retrospective
Sep 01, 2023
New fiction from Chris Womersley, Jenny Erpenbeck and Tan Twan Eng: Australia, Germany, Malaysia
Aug 25, 2023
New fiction from Peter Polites, Angela O'Keeffe and Guy Guneratne
Aug 18, 2023
New books by Ann Patchett, Naoise Dolan and Hwang Sok-yong: “Good marriages are never as interesting as bad affairs”
Aug 11, 2023
The Book Club - Miles Franklin Literary Award 2023 shortlist
Aug 04, 2023
Crooked Harlem, corrupt Wellington, bereaved London: books by Colson Whitehead, Emily Perkins and Elizabeth McCracken
Jul 28, 2023
A crying room, a road trip and blazing fury: Gretchen Shirm, Richard Ford and Claire Kilroy
Jul 21, 2023
Fiction: The State of the Art
Jul 13, 2023
Wifedom, hoarded memories and political road rage: New books by Anna Funder, Jen Craig and Priya Guns
Jul 07, 2023
The Book Club: The Greek Myths
Jun 30, 2023
Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist 2023: pod extra interview special
Jun 29, 2023
Gay saunas, dog walking and an extravagant lie: new fiction from R F Kuang, Dennis Altman and Briohny Doyle
Jun 23, 2023
Strangers and Saints: Katherena Vermette and Benjamin Myers
Jun 16, 2023
Politicians, ghosts and sad girls: books by Lorrie Moore, Robert Gott and Pip Finkemeyer
Jun 09, 2023
The Book Club - Romantic Comedy
Jun 02, 2023
From the Sydney Writers Festival with Shehan Karunatilaka, Jason Reynolds and Grace Chan
May 26, 2023
Grifters, pilgrims and scribes: new fiction from Emma Cline, Benjamin Myers and Robyn Cadwallader
May 19, 2023
History, identity, doppelgangers: new fiction from Deborah Levy, André Dao and Catherine Lacey
May 12, 2023
Poetry, jumpers, islands: new fiction from John Kinsella, Justin Cronin, Jente Posthuma
May 05, 2023
The Book Club: Salman Rushdie
Apr 28, 2023
New books by Max Porter, Han Kang and Yan Lianke
Apr 22, 2023
A bookbinder, Andy Warhol's typist and the cleverest woman in the world
Apr 14, 2023
Dystopia, satire, gladiators and gardeners: new fiction from Eleanor Catton and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Apr 06, 2023
The Book Club - weather in fiction with Hannah Kent and Robbie Arnott
Mar 31, 2023
Mermaids, man overboard and more: new fiction from Julia Langbein and Stephanie Bishop
Mar 24, 2023
Sleuths, silence, secrets: new fiction from Rebecca Makkai, Carole Hailey and Sebastian Barry
Mar 17, 2023
Freedom, family and an all-consuming love: new fiction from Anindita Ghose, Vigdis Hjorth and Alice Nelson
Mar 10, 2023
Podcast extra: Infidelity and compassion: changing morality in 19th century fiction
Mar 06, 2023
The Book Club: Infidelity
Mar 03, 2023
Raucous aunts, warriors and dragons, Queer Nigeria and more: new fiction
Feb 24, 2023
Trinidad, Antarctica and a corporate city-state in not-quite Korea: three new novels for you
Feb 17, 2023
From Barbados in the 1830s to the Melbourne present via the Scottish imaginary: three new books
Feb 10, 2023
From frontier western to a wandering ghost: new fiction
Feb 03, 2023
Serial killers, thrillers and Shirley Hazzard: new books from Bret Easton Ellis and Deepti Kapoor
Jan 27, 2023
Summer Reading: Where will books take you?
Jan 20, 2023
Books Extra: Fiona McFarlane's The Sun Walks Down
Jan 19, 2023
Summer reading: from the afterlife to New Zealand fiction, we have you covered
Jan 13, 2023
Books Extra: Becky Manawatu and Leila Mottley
Jan 12, 2023
Summer Reading: It's time to catch up on some great books you missed
Jan 06, 2023
Books Extra: Audrey Magee's The Colony
Jan 05, 2023
Summer Reading: love, sex, drugs and mischief
Dec 30, 2022
Books Extra: the criminal (ish) minds of John Darnielle and Charity Norman
Dec 29, 2022
Summer reading: Islands of the imagination
Dec 23, 2022
Books Extra: Patrick Gale's Mother's Boy
Dec 22, 2022
Shelflife: Four writers on the books that electrified them (no, not literally)
Dec 16, 2022
Summer reading extra: Republic and Revolution in England with Philippa Gregory
Dec 13, 2022
Books of the year: 2022 with a panel of readers
Dec 09, 2022
The Book Club: Beyond the boundary
Dec 02, 2022
Stolen bicycles, stolen love and stolen children: new books by Philip Salom, Celeste Ng and Arinze Ifeakandu
Nov 25, 2022
Underclass, underground, undone: New Australian fiction from Fiona Kelly McGregor, Shaun Prescott and Yumna Kassab
Nov 18, 2022
Blazing stories: new fiction from Gail Jones, Alex Miller and Luke Carman
Nov 11, 2022
The Book Club: Reading Kamila Shamsie
Nov 04, 2022
New fiction from Cormac McCarthy, Fiona McFarlane and Cole Haddon
Oct 28, 2022
George Saunders, Barbara Kingsolver, John Irving: an American Bookshelf
Oct 21, 2022
Sisters at breaking point, a grizzly bear on the run and living with 100 ex-boyfriends
Oct 14, 2022
A whale gone mad, fierce Irish love and a Māori detective
Oct 07, 2022
The Book Club: The ouevre of Ian McEwan
Sep 30, 2022
Pod extra: Hilary Mantel, the Booker prize-winning author of the Wolf Hall trilogy has died
Sep 26, 2022
Siblings, revelry and fear: Peggy Frew, Kate Atkinson and Adrian McKinty
Sep 23, 2022
Drugs, gangs, racism and reputation: three new works of fiction
Sep 16, 2022
A Renaissance wedding, a Mediaeval war and the ghosts of Modernism: three new novels
Sep 09, 2022
The Book Club: Is crime fiction a literature of resistance? (plus a guide to Korean lit)
Sep 02, 2022
Three monks in a boat, the last white man, and wild wild women
Aug 26, 2022
Joan of Arc re-imagined, dystopian coastlines and trees in the Oz literary imagination
Aug 19, 2022
A champion pedestrianist, an island haunted by grief and running into all your exes
Aug 12, 2022
Big Weekend of Books at the State Library of NSW: writers special
Aug 07, 2022
Reviewing the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner and shortlist
Jul 30, 2022
An urn full of memories, an everlasting lightbulb and what to read next: Chris Womersley's The Diplomat and Anjali Joseph's Keeping in Touch
Jul 23, 2022
Paul Daley's Jesustown, A G Slatter's The Path of Thorns, and a guide to books for kids
Jul 16, 2022
Dystopias, ship's monsters and trees: Claire G Coleman, Jokha Alharthi, Jess Kidd and Jane Rawson
Jul 09, 2022
The Book Club: Celebrating Australian literature for the ABC's 90th
Jul 02, 2022
Frank Moorhouse from the ABC Archives: podcast special
Jun 27, 2022
A Métis family tree and a Sydney Leprosarium: Katherena Vermette's The Strangers and Eleanor Limprecht's The Coast
Jun 25, 2022
Abomination, modernism and crime: new fiction from Ashley Goldberg, Michelle Cahill and Matthew Spencer
Jun 18, 2022
Racecourses, race, sex work and exile: new fiction from Geraldine Brooks, Leila Mottley and Zaheda Ghani
Jun 11, 2022
The Book Club: Horses and their Riders
Jun 04, 2022
Ireland, Italy, England and Oz: four bold new works of fiction
May 28, 2022
From the Sydney Writers Festival: The Joy of Re-reading
May 25, 2022
From the Sydney Writers Festival: with Jackie Huggins, Damon Galgut and George Haddad
May 21, 2022
Making umbrellas in the afterlife: New books from Steve Toltz, Emiliano Monge and Domonique Wilson
May 14, 2022
Soap, silences and happy stories (maybe): new fiction from Paddy O'Reilly, Patrick Gale and Norman Erikson Pasaribu
May 07, 2022
The Book Club: Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad & The Candy House
Apr 30, 2022
A moon colony, T S Eliot, Shakespeare and pain: new fiction from Emily St John Mandel, Steven Carroll and Mona Awad
Apr 23, 2022
A Glasgow teenager, a Roman emperor and a sneaky revolutionary: new books by Douglas Stuart, Julian Barnes and Charmian Clift
Apr 16, 2022
A snowy Tokyo, a haunted house and a cracked swimming pool: books by Jessica Au, John Darnielle and Julie Otsuka
Apr 09, 2022
The Book Club: reading New Zealand through Keri Hulmes' The Bone People + Lloyd Jones' The Fish
Apr 01, 2022
Mexico, dystopian exile, and Oz suburbia: new fiction from Fernanda Melchor, Toni Jordan and Tom Watson
Mar 25, 2022
Iceland, Nebraska and the Sunshine Coast: new fiction from Robert Lukins, Kári Gíslason and Harlan Coben
Mar 18, 2022
New fiction from Ireland and New Zealand
Mar 11, 2022
The Book Club: Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Love Marriage
Mar 04, 2022
New fiction from Omar Sakr, Karen Joy Fowler and Aoife Clifford
Feb 25, 2022
Reading Korean history, fierce Italian parents and a theme park of funerary futures
Feb 18, 2022
Reading our way to islands, monsters, balloons, snowscapes, heroes and more
Feb 11, 2022
The Book Club: Rebecca and Rebecca
Feb 04, 2022
Reading Hanya Yanagihara, Gary Shteyngart and Nikki May
Jan 28, 2022
Pip Williams and The Dictionary of Lost Words
Jan 28, 2022
Summer Reads: Hannah Kent, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Sunjeev Sahota and Aravind Adiga
Jan 21, 2022
The Bookshelf that Made Me: Siri Hustvedt & Jennifer Mills
Jan 20, 2022
Summer Reads: Patricia Lockwood, Ann Patchett, Simon Winchester, Suyi Davies Okungbowa and Jay Kristoff
Jan 14, 2022
The Bookshelf that Made Me: Tilly Lawless & Jon McGregor
Jan 13, 2022
Summer Reads: James Ellroy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Guillermo Martinez and Charlotte McConaghy
Jan 07, 2022
The Bookshelf that Made Me: R W R Mcdonald & Jacqueline Bublitz
Jan 06, 2022
Summer Reading: a wild party, Beowulf, and Gillian Mears
Dec 31, 2021
The Bookshelf that Made Me: Colm Tóibín and Emily Gale
Dec 30, 2021
Summer Reading: Jane Austen, Joan Silber, Kevin Barry and Elizabeth Strout
Dec 24, 2021
The Bookshelf That Made Me: Sarah Winman and Nick Earls
Dec 23, 2021
The Bookshelf That Made Me: Ken Follett, Rose Tremain, Amie Kaufman & Jaclyn Moriarty
Dec 17, 2021
Best Reads 2021 Part 2: General Adult Fiction
Dec 10, 2021
Claudia Karvan and the Books that Made Us: Pod Extra
Dec 08, 2021
The Book Club: John Hughes' The Dogs + Kate Grenville's The Secret River
Dec 03, 2021
Classic Australian Novels - Alexis Wright's Carpentaria
Nov 30, 2021
Classic Australian Novels - Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang
Nov 30, 2021
Classic Australian Novels - Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish
Nov 30, 2021
Classic Australian Novels - Michelle de Kretser's Questions of Travel
Nov 30, 2021
Classic Australian Novels - Helen Garner's Monkey Grip
Nov 30, 2021
Classic Australian Novels - Kim Scott's That Deadman Dance
Nov 30, 2021
Classic Australian Novels - Kate Grenville's The Secret River
Nov 30, 2021
Best Reads 2021 Part 1: Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction
Nov 26, 2021
On Christos Tsiolkas' 7 ½, Vietnamese smoky ghosts & a helluva book
Nov 19, 2021
Behemoths, Novellas and Essays: reading recommendations
Nov 12, 2021
The Book Club: Amor Towles' The Lincoln Highway + Cormac McCarthy's The Road
Nov 05, 2021
Adam Liaw and Hannah Kent: Star Reviewers #4
Oct 29, 2021
Geraldine Hakewill and Graeme Simsion: Star Reviewers #3
Oct 22, 2021
Tim Rogers and Pip Williams: Star Reviewers #2
Oct 15, 2021
Marta Dusseldorp and John Safran: Star Reviewers #1
Oct 08, 2021
The Book Club: George Eliot's Middlemarch + Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle
Oct 01, 2021
Did you hear the one about the obscenity trial?
Sep 24, 2021
'Uneasy, Ambiguous and Strange': Why rewrite Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann?
Sep 17, 2021
Yes, we are reviewing Sally Rooney's new novel
Sep 10, 2021
The Book Club: On Memory
Sep 03, 2021
How to read like an Australian writer
Aug 27, 2021
Why you should read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (and meet his feistiest character)
Aug 20, 2021
Wolves, ghosts and a great flood: scary things in books
Aug 13, 2021
Outraged tweeters, miniature soldiers and the flooded canals of Venice
Aug 06, 2021
The Book Club: Amanda Lohrey's The Labyrinth & the Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist
Jul 30, 2021
Three novels of seclusion: by Mark Brandi, Sunjeev Sahota, Patrick McGrath
Jul 23, 2021
The deliberately depraved and dissolute worlds of James Ellroy and Lisa Taddeo
Jul 16, 2021
Podcast Extra: More Musical Mayhem with Taylor Jenkins Reid and Dawnie Walton
Jul 14, 2021
The Book Club: Turn up the Music!
Jul 09, 2021
Can't Travel? Here's a collection of books that will transport you
Jul 02, 2021
A party to end all parties, a stranded whale, musical words and a train: what to read this week
Jun 25, 2021
A shrinking lake, a circus of wonders, and a baby: novels to make you feel and think
Jun 18, 2021
Reading Jane Austen from the 1940s until now (and other adventures in reading and reviewing)
Jun 11, 2021
The Book Club: Patricia Highsmith
Jun 04, 2021
Podcast Extra: Patricia Highsmith's biographer answers your questions
May 31, 2021
Reading Western Sydney, a hot country town & fantasy Africa remade
May 28, 2021
Ern Malley Rides Again! Writes, we meant writes
May 21, 2021
Podcast Extra: Reading the world in Spinoza's Overcoat
May 19, 2021
Earwax, kidnappings and an octopus god
May 14, 2021
Podcast Extra: Sujata Massey and a woman lawyer in India in the 1920s
May 12, 2021
The Book Club: reading Kazuo Ishiguro in the sun
May 07, 2021
Live from the Sydney Writers Festival with Anita Heiss, Rick Morton and Emily Maguire
Apr 30, 2021
Podcast Extra: General Sir Peter Cosgrove reads historical fiction and political biography
Apr 28, 2021
New books by Patricia Lockwood, Jacqueline Maley, Peace Adzo Medie and Marco Missiroli
Apr 23, 2021
Podcast extra: Maria Dahvana Headley and all that monstrous reading
Apr 21, 2021
New fiction from Ethan Hawke, Olivia Sudjic and Dirk Kurbjuweit
Apr 16, 2021
Podcast Extra: Steven Carroll on reading wartime surrender in the scandalous Story of O
Apr 14, 2021
New books by Haruki Murakami, Patricia Engel and Blair James
Apr 09, 2021
Podcast Extra: Fiona Mozley reads her way into London and Edinburgh
Apr 07, 2021
The Book Club: The Vietnamese diaspora and the aftermath of war
Apr 02, 2021
Podcast Extra: Francis Spufford's Light Perpetual and the books behind it
Mar 31, 2021
Trevor Shearston's The Beach Caves, Fiona Mozley's Hot Stew and what Caleb Azumah Nelson reads
Mar 26, 2021
Podcast Extra: Robert Jones Jr on James Baldwin and the other writers that have shaped him
Mar 24, 2021
New fiction from Edward St Aubyn, Steven Carroll and Lisa Harding
Mar 19, 2021
Podcast Extra: Daisy Buchanan is insatiable for books
Mar 17, 2021
Ella Baxter's New Animal, Francis Spufford's Light Perpetual & the Sydney Writers' Festival is back
Mar 12, 2021
Podcast Extra: Max Porter answers your questions
Mar 10, 2021
The Book Club: February — Art in fiction
Mar 05, 2021
Podcast Extra: Simon Winchester's Bookshelf
Mar 03, 2021
Reading Simon Winchester, Sarah J Maas, John Kinsella and Guillermo Martínez
Feb 26, 2021
Podcast Extra: What does Angie Thomas read?
Feb 24, 2021
New fiction by Caleb Azumah Nelson, Melissa Broder and Sònia Hernández
Feb 19, 2021
Podcast Extra: Andrew Pippos and the bookshelf that made Lucky's
Feb 17, 2021
On Robert Jones Jr's The Prophets, Una Mannion's A Crooked Tree, and a new translation of Beowulf
Feb 12, 2021
Podcast Extra: More on the writer Madeleine St John
Feb 09, 2021
The Book Club 2021 No 1: Work
Feb 05, 2021
On Anna North's Outlawed, Raven Leilani's Luster & Kevin Barry's That Old Country Music
Jan 29, 2021
Summer Bookshelf celebrating Australian writing
Jan 22, 2021
Summer Bookshelf with novels by Malcolm Knox, Frances Cha & Garth Greenwell
Jan 15, 2021
Summer Bookshelf with novels by Aravind Adiga, Richard Flanagan and Maggie O'Farrell
Jan 08, 2021
Summer Bookshelf and The Dry on screen plus novels by Laura Jean McKay, Curtis Sittenfeld & Mieko Kawakami
Jan 01, 2021
Summer Bookshelf: The Rain Heron, Greenwood, A Theatre for Dreamers and Mayflies
Dec 25, 2020
The Bookshelf's Best Reads of 2020 (Part 2)
Dec 18, 2020
The Bookshelf's Best Reads of 2020 (Part 1)
Dec 11, 2020
Podcast Extra: Naomi Novik
Dec 08, 2020
Podcast Extra: Garth Nix
Dec 07, 2020
The Book Club No 8: Mining the past
Dec 04, 2020
Podcast Extra: Susanna Clarke
Nov 30, 2020
Maybe they're all aliens?
Nov 27, 2020
Podcast Extra: Lev Grossman
Nov 23, 2020
A film set, a glass heart, and the unclaimed dead
Nov 20, 2020
Podcast Extra: Graham Swift and the rough glittering world
Nov 16, 2020
A cafe, a shiver, a chase
Nov 13, 2020
Fictionalised lives, old friends and empty streets
Nov 06, 2020
The Book Club No 7: On the Coast and in the Water
Oct 30, 2020
Tragedies, Sagas and Infinite Splendours
Oct 23, 2020
Vanishing body parts and toxic relationships
Oct 16, 2020
Podcast Extra: Andrew O'Hagan
Oct 13, 2020
A mythic quest and star-crossed love
Oct 09, 2020
Podcast Extra: Chris Riddell sharpens his pencil
Oct 06, 2020
The Book Club No 6: Italy in translation
Oct 02, 2020
Podcast Extra: Sue Miller
Sep 29, 2020
Standing on the bridge, wrong side of the rail
Sep 25, 2020
Podcast Extra: Maria Lewis
Sep 22, 2020
Slipping between worlds and cities, in history, fiction and fantasy
Sep 18, 2020
Podcast Extra: Meg Rosoff
Sep 15, 2020
Podcast Extra: Christopher Paolini
Sep 14, 2020