The Book Show

At Adelaide Writers' Week, Booker-winner Anne Enright speaks about the contradictions at the heart of families.

RF Kuang speaks about her bestseller Yellowface and Nam Le, Australian author of The Boat, explains why his latest is a book of poetry.

Award-winning literary translator Jennifer Croft imagines what happens when translators get together in a primeval forest, Imbi Neeme's exploration of misophonia and Mykaela Saunders' love-hate relationship with Mad Max.

Jasper Fforde's sequel to Shades of Grey, Amy Brown introduces us to Miles Franklin's sister and Leo Vardiashvili's missing persons quest through the forests of Georgia.

Bestselling American author Kristin Hannah digs into the little known stories of US nurses during the Vietnam War, Jodi McAlister's comic take on The Bachelor and Sharlene Allsopp reckons with Australia's history.

Pulitzer Prize winning Libyan author Hisham Matar on friendship in political exile and British author Ela Lee on the power of friendship at times of personal crisis.

Kiley Reid's follow up to Such a Fun Age in a campus novel that she says isn't a campus novel, Rachael Johns' love story about a woman called Bridget Jones and Iain Ryan's hardboiled take on Gold Coast corruption in the 1980s.

Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham's latest novel Day explores a bromance, Madeleine Gray on writing a funny "sad girl novel" and Jessica Zhan Mei Yu on Sylvia Plath and up-ending the coming of age story.

My Own Sweet Time was a memoir said to be written by Wanda Koolmatrie, a member of the Aboriginal stolen generations. But it was a hoax and this episode of Fakes and Frauds explores the long lasting impacts of the hoax particularly on Aboriginal Australian writers.

Pip Williams' follow up to her bestselling novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, Josh Kemp on how bushwalking helps his writing and the 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner, Shankari Chandran.

The Helen Demidenko scandal tore the Australian literary community apart in the 1990s. This episode of Fakes and Frauds charts the rise and downfall of Helen Demidenko and the impacts on the book world.  

Is there such thing as an Irish voice in fiction? 

Cannibalism, telepathy and celibacy are just some of the false claims about Australian Aboriginal people that Marlo Morgan made in her 1990s new age hit, Mutant Message Down Under, and this episode of Fakes and Frauds exposes the lies. 

Booker winner Ian McEwan explores his 1960s childhood in his latest novel and reigning Booker winner Paul Lynch on his unflinching dystopian novel set in Ireland.

Find out how to catch a con-artist in this episode of Fakes and Frauds that delves into the fake memoir Forbidden Love by Norma Khouri 20 years after the book was first published. 

The two winners of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction are both about money but at opposite ends of the spectrum — Barbara Kingsolver's is about poverty while Hernán Diaz's is about astronomical wealth. 

Fakes and Frauds is a new series that unpacks famous Australian literary scandals. The first and most recent controversy was the discovery of plagiarism in the work of award winning Australian writer John Hughes. Find out how the plagiarism was uncovered and why it matters.

Australian writers Anna Funder and Paul Jennings on what it takes to be a writer.

Naomi Alderman takes on tech giants and survivalists in a novel that imagines the end of the world, and an atheist joins a monastery in Charlotte Wood's meditative new book.

Miles Franklin winner Amanda Lohrey asks where we find community in our secular world, Matthew Reilly's latest adventure and the restorative power of the pool with Katherine Brabon.