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.
Latest episodes
-
55 min
Beyond the Top 100: The books readers nearly voted in
More than 280,000 readers voted. Now Kate and Cassie reveal the books that just missed Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books countdown.With special guests literary curator and…
-
1 h 11
Australian artists, writers and readers share the Australian books they love most
On this special edition of The Bookshelf, ahead of the Top 100 Australian Books Countdown, Kate Evans speaks with historian Professor Martyn Lyons about the history of reading in A…
-
55 min
Chris Hammer, Jem Calder and Pip Williams reviewed on this week's Bookshelf
Kate and Cassie are joined by rockstar Tim Rogers and novelist Madeleine Gray to discuss some big new releases.Australian crime heavyweight Chris Hammer swaps the outback for the w…
-
1 h 01
New fiction from Barbara Kingsolver, Colm Tóibín and Ayad Akhtar
This week, Kate and Cassie are joined by regulars Hannah Kent and Tom Wright to discuss three books that echo one another across themes of art, beauty, family and transformation.In…
-
1 h 00
Ambition, Rage, Gothic Hunger: New Novels from Min Jin Lee, Louise Kennedy and Catherine Chidgey
In American Hagwon, the bestselling author of Pachinko, Min Jin Lee, explores family, education, ambition and the long shadow of economic upheaval, set between Seoul, Sydney and Ca…
-
1 h 01
Emily St. John Mandel and John Boyne alongside a Booker-longlisted debut
Kate and Cassie take a look at bestselling author Emily St. John Mandel's latest, Exit Party, an epic that follows a doppelgänger and a man who disappears from a Los Angeles party…
-
55 min
New Fiction: Donal Ryan, Emma Cline, Max Easton and Sebastian Barry
We step into Irish bestseller Donal Ryan's world in Where Are the Kings, a tender coming of age story about a boy navigating grief. Inside a fracturing mind in Emma Cline’s Booker…
-
55 min
New Fiction from Melissa Harrison and Malcolm Knox + Mandy Sayer's Top 3
Kate and Cassie with regular reviewer Tom Wright discuss new releases including Melissa Harrison’s The Given World and Malcolm Knox’s The Second Child. Plus, novelist and memoirist…
-
55 min
Top 100 Australian Books from Byron Writers Festival
Voting in Radio National's Top 100 Books countdown is about to open and this year we're celebrating Australian books. As you think about your own Top 10, Kate and Cassie bring toge…
-
1 h 05
Anjet Daanje's extraordinary The Stork and the Dromedary + Liane Moriarty returns with Big Little Truths
Anjet Daanje's The Song of Stork and Dromedary, translated from the Dutch, explores the intimate work of death and care in the eighteenth century. Liane Moriarty returns to the wor…
-
55 min
The Haunting Wild, a Trip to Mars and Dreaming of Escape in 1980's France
We review the latest in fiction for dedicated readers and for those who wish they read more.
-
1 h 05
Miles Franklin winner Omar Musa + Booker-longlisted All Them Dogs and Téa Obreht's Sunrise
Omar Musa joins us after winning the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Plus, Michael Robotham and Madeleine Gray review Djamel White's Booker Prize-longlisted debut All Them Dogs…
-
1 h 03
Meg Mason's new novel + reviews from Hannah Kent, Andy Griffiths, Tom Wright (BONUS: Anna Funder's Top 3)
From the nightclubs of 1930s Berlin to the heartache and awkwardness of high school, and into the green rooms and backstage spaces of writers' festivals.
-
55 min
From Covid-era China to the world of Frida Kahlo and Colson Whitehead's latest
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead’s latest novel Cool Machine is a vivid portrait of Black New York in the 1980s. The book reunites readers with furniture salesman and…
-
1 h 02
Art, apocalypse and country people
Dave Eggers explores the messy intersection of art, friendship and growing up in Contrapposto, while Daniel Mason's Country People follows an academic family into a Vermont landsca…
-
59 min
Laura McPhee Browne, Leïla Slimani, Kris Kneen & Bruce Pascoe's favourite Aus books
This week on The Bookshelf, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh discuss new novels including Laura McPhee-Browne's Worry Doll, a story of desire, obsession and uncertainty; Leïla Slima…
-
54 min
Melbourne Writers' Festival with Hannah Kent and Beejay Silcox
A live recording from the 2025 Melbourne Writers Festival, with guests Hannah Kent and Beejay Silcox.Hannah Kent, Always Home, Always Homesick (Picador)Eimear McBride, The City Cha…
-
54 min
The Bookshelf’s best: Four standout novels from the past year
We review the latest in fiction for dedicated readers and for those who wish they read more.
-
54 min
Zan Rowe and Madeleine Gray review: Chris Ames/Fiona Mozley/Niamh Campbell
Cassie McCullagh is joined by Jonathan Green this time, for a wide-ranging hour of new fiction, from Australia and beyond. First, Fiona Mozley’s unsettling Awake Awake, where a you…
-
55 min
Michael Robotham and Roanna Gonsalves review: Andrew Sean Greer/Ilka Tampke/Michael Pedersen
From a sun-drenched Tuscan reset with a side of style advice (Andrew Sean Greer's Villa Coco via Michael Robotham), to Ilka Tampke’s How To Love the World, a tender take on parenti…