The Bookshelf

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 Barbara Kingsolver's Partita, a young woman longs to escape her small town and difficult mother through music (and there are dogs and an accident); Ayad Akhtar's The Radiance follows a man whose vivid, radiant life is shaped by music and ambition (and there’s a terrible accident); And in Colm Tóibín's The Bridge, a son and father navigate change, possibility and belonging in a new world (accompanied by a whole pack of dogs).
Plus, voting may have closed for The Bookshelf's Top 100 Australian Books, but we're still taking inspiration from readers' recommendations. Actor, writer and trans activist Zoe Terakes joins us to share their three favourite Australian books.
Featured books
Barbara Kingsolver, Partita, Faber
Colm Toíbín, The Bridge, Picador
Ayad Akhtar, The Radiance, Summit
Zoe Terakes' Top 3
Christos Tsiolkas , Loaded
Chelsea Watego, Another Day in the Colony
Timothy Conigrave, Holding the Man 
Other Books mentioned
Stephanie Alexander, The Cook's Companion
Alison Lester, Magic Beach
Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
Hannah Moloney, The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World
Christina Stead, Seven Poor Men of Sydney

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 California. Louise Kennedy's Stations offers a tough and deeply felt Irish family story, while Catherine Chidgey's The Starving Bride turns hunger into a strange gothic performance. Kate and Cassie are joined this time by regulars, novelist and academic Professor Tony Birch and critic and literary judge Beejay Silcox. And, as we count down to the Top 100 Australian Books, Frank Moorhouse's biographer Matthew Lamb reveals his top three.
Books featured
Min Jin Lee, American Hagwon, Fourth Estate
Louise Kennedy, Stations, Bloomsbury Circus
Catherine Chidgey, The Starving Bride, Penguin 
Matthew Lamb's Top 100 picks
Forty-Seventeen (1988) by Frank Moorhouse
Tourmaline (1963) by Randolph Stow
Writer Reader Critic (1992) by Dorothy Green 
Other books mentioned
Janet McCalman, Struggletown
Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History
The Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book
Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs and Djawa Burarrwanga, A Piece of Red Cloth
Gretchen Shirm, Out of the Woods
Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

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 in 2031, leading to a journey across parallel worlds and fractured timelines. Internationally-bestselling crime writer Michael Robotham is in to discuss The Weight of Angels by John Boyne; and Graham Akhurst, novelist, academic and Director of Indigenous Studies at the University of Technology  on Turkish writer Kenan Orhan's Booker Longlisted novel The Renovation; and historian and author Anna Clark is in to share her Top 100 picks.
Books featured
Emily St John Mandel, Exit Party, Picador
John Boyne, The Weight of Angels, Doubleday
Kenan Orhan, The Renovation, Hamish Hamilton
Anna Clark's Top 100 picks
Raimond Gaita, Romulus, My Father
Gay'wu Group of Women, Songspirals: Sharing Women’s Wisdom of Country through Songlines
Billy Griffiths, Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia
The Macquarie Dictionary, first edition published 1981
Ken Simpson and Nicolas Day, Field Guide to the Birds of Australia, first edition published in 1984
Other books mentioned
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
James Joyce, Ulysses
Alexis Wright, PraiseworthyChina Miéville, The City & the City
Claire G. Coleman, works
Curtis Sittenfeld, Rodham
Peter Carey, Illywhacker
Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole
Alexis Wright, Carpentaria
Kim Scott, Benang: From the Heart
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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 Longlisted novel Switzy, read with novelist Madeleine Gray. A chronicle of DIY activism, collectives and autonomous living in Sydney's west in Australian writer Max Easton’s Now, Autonomy, read for us by singer-songwriter Tim Rogers, and a newer world emerges in the wake of the American Civil War in Sebastian Barry’s new novel, The Newer World, read by author Hannah Kent.
BOOKS FEATURED
Donal Ryan, Where Are the Kings, Doubleday
Emma Cline, Switzy, Chatto & Windus
Max Easton, Now, Autonomy, Giramondo
Sebastian Barry, The Newer World, Faber
OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through
Meg Howrey, Body Language
Colum McCann, Apeirogon
Melina Marchetta, Looking for Alibrandi
Abigal Ulman, Hot Little Hands
Patrick White, The Tree of Man
Heather Rose, The Museum of Modern Love
Elizabeth Jolley, The Well
We want to know what you think of Radio National's book podcasts (The Book Show and The Bookshelf). Help us understand what's working, what's not, and how we can make our book programs even more useful, relevant and unmissable. Please take this quick survey.

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 Mandy Sayer on her Top 3 Australian books ahead of Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books Countdown.
Mandy Sayer's Top 3 Australian Books
Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
Robin Dalton, Aunts up the Cross (1965)
David Malouf, Johnno (1975) 
Other books mentioned
A.B. Facey, A Fortunate Life
George Johnston, My Brother Jack
Eric C. Rolls, They All Ran Wild
Emily St John Mandel, Exit Party
Colm Toibin, The Bridge
Barbara Kingsolver, Partita
John Boyne, The Weight of Angels
Marlon James, The Disappearers
Max Porter, works
Patrick Gale, works
Sarah Moss, works
Joseph Furphy, Such is Life
Peter Carey, Illywhacker
Gerald Munane, The Plains