The Bookshelf

• James Bradley's Landfall reveals a flooded, baked and dilapidated city

  Cities that are both flooded and on alert for the next storm in James Bradley’s Landfall. The body of a saint, dreamily and weirdly listening to everyone around her in Western Australia, in Josephine Rowe’s Little World. And from Malaysia, Tash Aw's The South, in which a family has left the city to head to a failing orchard, a story of longing, promise, generations, and misunderstandings  BOOKS James Bradley, Landfall, Penguin Josephine Rowe, Little World, Black Inc Tash Aw, The South, Fourth Estate GUESTS Tegan Bennett-Daylight, novelist, teacher, and essayist, whose books include Bombora, What Falls Away, and The Details. Her latest, How to Survive 1985, is a YA novel that will be published in May  Rosa Ellen, producer and presenter with Radio National’s Arts team OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDWilla Cather, worksDavid Szalay, FleshGretchen Shirm, Out of the Woods  Yuko Tsushima, Territory of Light  Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Kappa Kazuo Ishiguro, A Pale View of HillsCREDITSPresenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullaghProducer, Kate Evans and Sarah CorbettSound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Isabella TropianoExecutive producer, Rhiannon Brown

  --------  

  54:06
• The Bookshelf Easter Special: Irish writer Niall Williams

  Irish writer Niall Williams with Kate Evans at the 2025 Adelaide Writers Week — with a focus on his Faha novels, History of the Rain, This is Happiness and (his latest) Time of the Child.Williams is also a screenwriter, playwright and travel writer — and his first novel, Four Letters of Love, has just been released as a film.He also appeared onstage at AWW with Kate and Cassie, for a special edition of the Bookshelf on books, reading, and influences, with English writer Charlotte Mendelsohn and Australian writer Brian Castro.

  --------  

  54:00
• A love triangle set against the beauty of Montana in Eric Puchner's Dream State

  Families, secrets, mysteries, war...Kate and Cassie read Eric Puchner’s Dream State, an American saga that spans fifty years and is set against the expansive beauty of Montana; mysterious encounters and marital strife between an actor and an art critic in New York in Katie Kitamura’s Audition, and a World War II story set in an apartment block in Brussels in Alice Austen’s 33 Place Brugmann.BOOKSEric Puchner, Dream State, SceptreKatie Kitamura, Audition, Fern PressAlice Austen, 33 Place Brugmann, BloomsburyGUESTSMark Mordue, music writer, journalist, poet – whose books include Boy on Fire: The Young Nick Cave. He’s also director of the Addi Road Writers Festival – a community festival in Sydney’s Marrickville – coming up on Saturday 17 MayGretchen Shirm, novelist and literary critic – whose books include Having Cried Wolf, The Crying Room and her latest (published this month), Out of the WoodsOTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDJohn Irving, The World According to GarpSvetlana Alexievich, worksT.S. Eliot, GerontionLucy Sante, I Heard Her Call My NameHan Kang, We Do Not PartJames Bradley, LandfallClinton Heylin, Behind the Shades RevisitedPatrick Holland, OblivionBret Easton Ellis, Less than ZeroCREDITSPresenter, Kate Evans + Cassie McCullaghProducer, Kate Evans + Sarah CorbettSound engineer, John Jacobs + Dylan PrinsExecutive producer, Rhiannon Brown

  --------  

  54:07
• Folk horror, dreams under surveillance, lonely in Guatemala

  Cassie McCullagh is on leave this week, so Kate Evans and guests read Lucy Rose’s The Lamb, Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel, and Rachel Morton’s The Sun was Electric Light (with interview extracts from Lucy Rose on body horror and Cumbrian folk traditions, and from Rachel Morton on her move from poetry to prose).BOOKS Rachel Morton, The Sun was Electric Light, UQP Lucy Rose, The Lamb, Weidenfeld & Nicolson Laila Lalami, The Dream Hotel, Bloomsbury GUESTS Roanna Gonsalves, writer, academic, teacher of creative writing. Her collection of short stories, The Permanent Resident, was published in India and South Asia as, Sunita De Souza Goes To SydneyAnnie Coulthard has worked in radio and publishing – and is a dedicated reader OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDMargaret Atwood, The Handmaid's TalePhilip K. Dick, The Minority ReportFranz Kafka, worksMichelle de Krester, Questions of Travel; Theory and PracticeChristopher Isherwood, worksMelanie Cheng, The BurrowAndrew Michael Hurley, Starve AcreElizabeth Jane Howard, We Are For the DarkSanya Rushdi, HospitalJessie Tu, The HoneyeaterFiona McFarlane, Highway 13; The Sun Walks DownEileen Chong, We Speak of FlowersCREDITSPresenter: Kate Evans Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah CorbettSound engineer: Simon BranthwaiteExecutive producer: Rhiannon Brown

  --------  

  1:13:09
• Andrea Goldsmith's The Buried Life - and a train steaming towards disaster . . .

  Kate and Cassie read three new works of fiction, with the help of two guest reviewers: a novel of ideas, death, love and music, in Australian writer Andrea Goldsmith's The Buried Life; a real train derailment from the 1890s hurtles together rail workers, coffee sellers, anarcho-feminism, art and typewriters in Irish-Canadian writer Emma Donoghue's The Paris Express (read with historical novelist Natasha Lester); and rocknroll choices, career crises and friendship in Australian YA author Claire Zorn's first adult novel, Better Days (read with doco maker and academic, Anna Broinowski).BOOKSAndrea Goldsmith, The Buried Life, Transit LoungeEmma Donoghue, The Paris Express, PicadorClaire Zorn, Better Days, Atlantic BooksGUESTSNatasha Lester, historical novelist whose books include A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald, The Paris Seamstress and The French Photographer. Her latest novel — her ninth — is The Mademoiselle Alliance, and it was published last weekAnna Broinowski is a documentary maker, memoirist and academic at Sydney College of the Arts. Her books include Datsun Angel: A true-story adventure inside the savage heart of 1980s Australia and Please Explain: The rise and fall and rise again of Pauline Hanson. She also works on the films of North Korea and the impact of deep fakesOther books mentioned in the discussion:Sarah Wynne-Williams, Careless PeopleMargaret Atwood, The Blind AssassinYael van der Wouden, The SafekeepCameron Stewart, Why do Horses RunWalter Isaacson, Elon MuskDouglas Rushkoff, Survival of the RichestCREDITS•    Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh•    Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett•    Sound engineers: Emrys Cronin, Simon Branthwaite•    Executive producer: Rhiannon Brown

  --------  

  54:06

More Arts podcasts

Trending Arts podcasts

About The Bookshelf

The Bookshelf: Podcasts in Family