The Book Show

In Son of Nobody, Yann Martel tells Claire Nichols how he reimagines The Iliad, shifting the epic from heroic legend to life as an ordinary foot soldier.
Twenty-five years after Life of Pi changed his life, he also reflects on the enduring power of myth, storytelling, and why animals continue to resonate in fiction.
Yann spoke to Claire Nichols at the Sydney Writers Festival.

Bestselling author Ann Patchett joins Claire Nichols to discuss her novel Whistler and its unexpected take on step-parents, while Romy Ash unpacks her intimate, sexy and strange new book, Mantle.
American author Ann Patchett is the bestselling author of Commonwealth, Bel Canto and Tom Lake. She tells Claire Nichols how her own experience of growing up in a large, blended family influenced her new novel Whistler which is about a reunion between a woman and her stepfather, 40 years after losing touch. 
Ann Patchett is also a bookseller and shares the books she's excited about this year: John of John by Douglas Stuart and Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li.
Skin, strange rashes, the climate crisis and salmon farming all come together in Romy Ash's follow up to her Miles Franklin shortlisted novel, Floundering. Mantle is about a woman who's travelled to Tasmania to care for her dying mother, meanwhile a bizarre skin rash is spreading through the population. Romy shares her love of geology and why fiction is the perfect avenue to explore this passion.

Why Booker Prize winner David Szalay once thought Flesh was a vulgar title and why he's glad he kept it.
He joined Claire Nichols at the Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival to discuss his award winning novel and its complicated relationship to masculinity.
With the fall of the USSR, the novel charts István's changing fortunes from his humble beginnings in Hungary to a lavish life in the UK.
David also tells Claire about why his first Booker Prize award ceremony for All that Man Is in 2016 was so nerve wracking, but the second time around was much more enjoyable (winning helps).

Why Siri Hustvedt wants Paul Auster to return as a ghost.
American novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt speaks with Claire Nichols about her partner of 43 years, writer and poet Paul Auster. When Auster died in 2024 from complications of lung cancer, Hustvedt began writing in the depths of grief. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, reflects on a life both with and without him, offering rare insight into their creative partnership. It draws on journal entries, correspondence between the two, and letters Auster wrote to his newborn grandson in the final months of his life.
Plus, Lee Lai has won the 2026 Stella Prize for her graphic novel Cannon, marking the first time a graphic novel has been awarded the $60,000 prize. She tells Claire Nichols why she was surprised to win and why the project of growing up is never finished. Listen to the pod extra interview with Lee Lai, the 2026 Stella Prize winner here.

Lee Lai has won the 2026 Stella Prize for her graphic novel Cannon, marking the first time a graphic novel has been awarded the $60,000 prize. She tells Claire Nichols why she was surprised to win and why the project of growing up is never finished.
Running since 2013, the Stella Prize is an Australian award for women and non-binary writers. The judges praised Lai for her "elegant artistry" that "evokes horror and poignancy, shock and delight, and Cannon is an incontestable reminder that — in the hands of a masterful artist and storyteller — the very best graphic novels can do what prose alone cannot. And Cannon is absolutely one of the best."
It's about Luce Cannon who feels her life falling apart as the pressures of being queer, a well behaved second generation Chinese migrant and a carer collide in an epically bad night at work in the kitchen of a Montreal restaurant.