The Book Show
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The Book Show
Your favourite fiction authors share the story behind their latest books.
Последни епизоди
265 епизода
Ben Elton and the case for popular fiction
British comic Ben Elton on the Aussie inspiration for writing fiction, and Miles Franklin winner Sofie Laguna on the collision of puberty and Roman my...
02 | Dear Jane — the perfectly plotted Pride and Prejudice
In a Jane Austen novel, what does it mean if a character is in the Navy? What role do aunts and silly characters play? And what's the significance of...
Pod extra: David Szalay wins the Booker Prize
The British-Hungarian author David Szalay restrained novel Flesh has won the 2025 Booker Prize.
The prize was presented to Szalay by Samantha H...
Patricia Lockwood on Dolly the sheep and long covid
Patricia Lockwood's latest book is the third exploring her inner state, just don't call it a trilogy. A call to all Jane Austen lovers with the beginn...
01 | Dear Jane — the wild, not mild, Jane Austen
We're celebrating Jane Austen's 250th birthday with Dear Jane, a brand-new series about her life, her books and her legacy.
In the first insta...
01 | Dear Jane — the wild, not mild, Jane Austen
We're celebrating Jane Austen's 250th birthday with Dear Jane, a brand-new series about her life, her books and her legacy.
In the first insta...
Who will win the Booker Prize?
Become a Booker Prize expert and meet the shortlisted authors before the winner is announced in a ceremony featuring classic British pomp and fanfare....
An American elegy with Eric Puchner and Jane Harper on grief and the disappeared
The American elegy, Dream State by American author Eric Puchner is one of Claire's favourite books of the year, Australian crime novelist Jane Harper...
Celebrating Australia's favourite reads with Trent Dalton, Hannah Kent and Barbara Kingsolver
The Top 100 Books of the 21st Century countdown is complete and now it's time to find out the inspiration behind some of Australia's favourite books w...
Heather Rose, Omar Musa and Natalia Figueroa Barroso on champagne, ghosts and the disappeared
Heather Rose found writing her latest novel challenging because it's partly based on some murky family secrets. The author of The Museum of Modern Lov...
Peter Carey on not writing fiction anymore
It's 25 years since True History of the Kelly Gang came out and while Peter Carey might not be writing fiction anymore he says he's proud of his books...
Trent Dalton and David Malouf — Brisbane's favourite sons
Trent Dalton's new novel Gravity Let Me Go is about a middle aged journalist who can't let go of a good story, and David Malouf reflects on a life of...
How Ian McEwan is using the future to explore the present
Ian McEwan's futuristic novel What We Can Know is about rising sea levels and a lost poem. Plus, Randa Abdel-Fattah's response to the crisis in Gaza i...
Arundhati Roy and Mick Herron on monstrous mothers and Slow Horses
God of Small Things author Arundhati Roy remembers her difficult mother and how she was shaped as a writer, and Mick Herron on the success of Slow Hor...
Toni Jordan, Richard Osman and Gail Jones on greyhounds, murder and mystery
Australian author of Addition, Toni Jordan, goes gambling with greyhounds in Tenderfoot, Richard Osman digs up the background to The Thursday Murder C...
Top 100 Books with Colum McCann, Kate Grenville and Kaliane Bradley
Discover the favourite books from the 21st century of Colum McCann, Kate Grenville and Kaliane Bradley who share their best reads for ABC Radio Nation...
R.F. Kuang goes to hell with Katabasis
Yellowface author R.F. Kuang returns to speculative fiction with her latest novel Katabasis, a campus novel set in hell. Plus Australian author Moreno...
Gary Shteyngart, Jennifer Mills and Rhett Davis ask what's next
Russian born US writer Gary Shteyngart imagines a future America with strong parallels to Russia in Vera, or Faith, Adelaide based author Jennifer Mil...
Florence Knapp and Brandon Jack on the power of a name
Florence Knapp's debut novel The Names is a sliding doors story about the naming of a child and has been a surprise success (for her). Plus Brandon Ja...
Amy Bloom, Ben Markovits and Barbara Truelove on love, basketball and monsters
Amy Bloom on her latest novel I'll Be Right Here about an unconventional chosen family, Ben Markovits goes on the road with his Booker Prize longliste...
Ben Okri, Jana Wendt and Thomas Vowles on heartbreak, new beginnings and queer Melbourne
Booker Prize-winning Nigerian author Ben Okri on his novella Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted, Australian journalist Jana Wend...
"Shimmering" and "strikingly new" — Siang Lu wins Miles Franklin Literary Award
“Shimmering” and “strikingly new”—Siang Lu takes out the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award with Ghost Cities, his razor-sharp satire of the film worl...
John Boyne, Maggie Stiefvater and Laura Elvery on hope, enemy diplomats and Florence Nightingale
John Boyne concludes his challenging series The Elements with Air, US writer Maggie Stiefvater takes you to a luxury hotel for enemy diplomats in The...
From a debut to two-time winner — the Miles Franklin shortlist is here
From Miles Franklin prize veteran Michelle de Kretster to debut novelist Winnie Dunn, we bring you all six of the shortlisted authors in this round-up...
Ocean Vuong and Fleur McDonald reimagine Connecticut and Kalgoorlie
US poet, Ocean Vuong says when he was growing up "being a writer was like being a unicorn" but now he's published his second novel The Emperor of Glad...
Esther Freud has a lot to say about sisters
Esther Freud mines her family story to discover new truths in My Sister and Other Lovers, Dominic Amerena asks what is the price of ambition in I Want...
Yael van der Wouden on sex, history and an incredible year
Fresh off her 2025 Women’s Prize win, Yael van der Wouden talks The Safekeep—the novel that’s got everyone buzzing. It caps a stellar run for Yael, wh...
Catherine Chidgey, Kevin Wilson and Josephine Rowe on history, travel and an almost saint
New Zealand author Catherine Chidgey asks, what if World War II had ended differently in her latest novel The Book of Guilt. Plus Kevin Wilson sends h...
Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey loosens the reins
Samantha Harvey didn’t mean to write a space novel—but Orbital won the Booker. At the 2025 Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival, she talks drea...
Alan Hollinghurst and Charlotte Wood on gay lives and celebrity nuns
Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst reflects on writing about gay lives and Booker Prize shortlisted author Charlotte Wood explains what it's like t...
Liane Moriaty and David Nicholls on small screen success
From Sydney Writers Festival, two bestselling writers, David Nicholls and Liane Moriarty, reveal what it's like to see their stories go from the page...
Kaliane Bradley, Rumaan Alam, success and 'sexy dead guys'
Kaliane Bradley shares the serious side to her obsession with muttonchops and time travel, with her book The Ministry of Time, and Rumaan Alam reflect...
Marian Keyes — "I have lived many lives"
Irish writer Marian Keyes on family, wisdom, and writing through the chaos. At Margaret River, she chats with Claire Nichols about her 16th novel, My...
Eimear McBride, Tasma Walton and James Bradley on stormy weather and broken families
Irish writer Eimear McBride revisits favourite characters on a rainy night, actor-turned-writer Tasma Walton dredges up a family story of abduction an...
Mother fault lines with Betty Shamieh, Debra Oswald and Naima Brown
Palestinian American playwright Betty Shamieh turns to fiction in Too Soon, a nuanced and lusty story of three generations of Palestinian women and th...
Chigozie Obioma on kindness, big families and the Biafran War
Booker Prize shortlisted Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma joined Claire Nichols at Byron Writers Festival to discuss his latest novel The Road to the C...
Gregory Maguire has another Wicked tale to tell
American writer Gregory Maguire joins Claire Nichols in a rare and revealing conversation about the evolution of his Wicked series that inspired the p...
Charlotte McConaghy on The Wild Dark Shore
A small family lives on a remote island, the father a caretaker for the world's seeds. Then in the rising seas, a woman is washed up to shore. Charlot...
Roisin O'Donnell and a woman on the run
A mother escapes a controlling husband. But that is just the beginning. Nesting, the debut novel from award-winning Irish writer Roisin O'Donnell take...
Laila Lalami, Steven MinOn and Madeleine Ryan on mining dreams, a walking corpse and a very bad day
Award-winning Moroccan American author Laila Lalami imagines a world where the most intimate aspects of life are mined for data in her speculative fic...