The Book Show

Fresh from the Oscars for Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell joins Claire Nichols to discuss her book Land. Plus, Robert Forster of iconic indie band The Go-Betweens shares the musical influences behind his debut novel Songwriters on the Run.Maggie O'Farrell is best known for her novels Hamnet, The Marriage Portrait and her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am. Her new novel Land takes place soon after the 19th century Irish famine and follows an Irish map maker and his son as they take part in the first official mapping of the country. Maggie shares her personal connection to this venture and how she's now obsessed with maps (and identifies as a 'neek') and the Irish tradition of holy wells. She shares some Oscars gossip too.Before Robert Forster's (The Go-Betweens) debut novel Songwriters on the Run was a book, it was a song from his solo album, Songs to Play. The story follows a couple of jailbreaking musicians evading the law. Robert shares the genesis of the song and how it became a story he couldn't let go.

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 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.

What do fate and past lives reveal about who we are? Claire Nichols speaks with Veronica Roth and Amitav Ghosh on Seek the Traitor's Son and Ghost Eye.Award-winning, Indian-born American author Amitav Ghosh explores the mysteries of past lives in his latest novel Ghost Eye. Drawing on international case studies of reported reincarnation, Ghosh brings these stories to life through a narrative set in 1960s Calcutta. When a three-year-old girl from a wealthy, strictly vegetarian family wakes up insisting on eating fish, the question is raised: could she be remembering a previous life as a fisherwoman from a rural community? In conversation with Claire Nichols, Ghosh explains why such accounts of past-life memories shouldn't be dismissed outright as they say something profound about what it means to be human.Amitav Ghosh is visiting Australia in May and will be a guest at the Sydney Writers Festival, Saturday 23 May and the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne, Wednesday 27 May.Bestselling author Veronica Roth speaks with Claire Nichols about writing her debut novel Divergent while still a university student and how the book and series went on to sell more than 35 million copies worldwide. Now, Roth turns to adult speculative fiction with her new novel Seek the Traitor's Son, the first in an epic series set in a divided world. The story follows a young woman destined to save her people in a society fractured between those who worship the mysterious force known as the "fever" and those who reject it.

British poet, performer and novelist Kae Tempest explains why writing his second novel, Having Spent Life Seeking, was so necessary and Michael Winkler tells Claire Nichols why life might be better as a dog.Michael Winkler's second novel, Griefdogg follows his lauded genre-bending debut Grimmish about a boxer and a talking goat. It also made Australian literary history in 2022 as the first self-published novel to ever be shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Griefdogg is about a man who makes the unexpected decision to live as the family pet when the pressures of modern life get too much for him; in the conversation, Michael reflects on the appeal of "a dog's life".Kae Tempest is a British musician, poet, playwright and novelist who - since he was a teenager - has built an international reputation in rap and spoken word poetry. Kae's second novel, Having Spent Life Seeking follows Rothko who's newly released from prison and has returned to the hometown where everything fell apart. Claire also speaks to Kae about the challenges of writing a novel while maintaining a demanding schedule of live performances and musical projects.

Steve Toltz talks to Claire Nichols about his comic novel A Rising of the Lights, and former diplomat Ian Kemish reflects on his tender debut, Two Islands, exploring the long tail of war.Twins separated by the role of a dice, the rise of AI, and a mystery behind lives trying to hold it together in a lonely fractured world. These are just a few of the themes discussed with Claire Nichols about A Rising of the Lights, the latest darkly comic novel from the Booker Prize shortlisted author Steve Toltz.Ian Kemish has used his considerable knowledge as a former Australian diplomat to write a debut that is ultimately about compassion. In Two Islands a young man flees the Balkan conflict to an isolated island on the west coast of Scotland. What does he find there and is he safe?

For this Easter special an opportunity to revisit Yael van der Wouden the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction winner.Her celebrated debut The Safekeep also made the 2024 Booker Prize shortlist. The Safekeep is set in the Netherlands, 15 years after the end of World War II and is about an uptight woman, an unpredictable house guest, loneliness, repression and desire. The novel confronts the prevailing narrative about the Dutch experience of World War II and its treatment of Jewish people.Claire Nichols spoke to Yael at the Sydney Writers Festival in 2025This conversation was first broadcast 23 June 2025

Irish author of Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín shares with Claire Nichols the stories that have shaped his latest collection that travels continents and times, and Patmeena Sabit tests assumptions about the death of a young woman in her inventive novel, Good People. Who do you believe?Colm Tóibín's collection of short stories, The News from Dublin is a glimpse into people living a life away from their homeland, from sisters wanting to return to Catalonia, the undocumented worker facing a decision, a mother receiving shocking news of the death of a son or the haunted Irishman seeking anonymity in Spain.Using the noise and commentary around the death of a young woman, Afghan-born, Canadian based author Patmeena Sabit speaks with Claire Nichols on the ways she draws on her family roots and academic research to not just tell a story, but test assumptions around migrant communities. Good People is about an Afghan family living the American dream, but cultural tensions, gossip, envy and conjecture swirl around following the death of their daughter.

Howard Jacobson joins Claire Nichols to unpack Howl, and Australian authors Eva Hornung and Omar Musa discuss their latest novels.Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson has long written about Jewish identity, but only recently has he begun describing himself as a Jewish writer. He says the shift was prompted by the protests in England after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. His darkly comic novel, Howl, explores the Gaza conflict from a Jewish perspective and he reflects on the promise of fiction to foster debate about this long running conflict.Award‑winning Australian author Eva Hornung continues her exploration of our fragile bond with nature in her new novel, The Minstrels, where a dramatic landscape becomes the site of tragedy for siblings, Gem and Will. Eva tells Claire how learning an Indigenous language shaped the book and how her love of farm machinery also found its way into the narrative.Poet, visual artist, hip-hop musician and author Omar Musa finds magic in Italian beads, vengeful ghosts and the sound of the Borneo forest in his second novel. Fierceland exposes the dark side of Malay politics and the palm oil trade but is also a story of family and love. It also won the 2026 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for fiction. First broadcast 12 October 2025

Tayari Jones, author of the Women's Prize-winning An American Marriage, returns with Kin, a work of historical fiction that illuminates the inner lives of two motherless girls growing up in the American South during the Jim Crow era. And former Survivor contestant Steven Fishbach reveals the hidden world of reality television in his debut novel, Escape.In her new novel Kin, award‑winning American author Tayari Jones unpacks her parents' experiences living under segregation in the American South. The book follows two motherless girls whose tightly bound childhood eventually gives way to very different futures. Tayari also reflects on growing up in the post-Jim Crow American South and how reproductive rights have fundamentally changed women's lives.Former Survivor contestant, Stephen Fishbach was the self-declared nerd and fan favourite during his 2009 and 2015 appearances on the American series. But he always wanted to be a writer and now he's released his first novel Escape. Unsurprisingly, it's about a reality show on an island but in this game, the stakes are higher and the producers will go to any lengths to create groundbreaking TV.

American author George Saunders reflects on why death is such fertile ground for fiction and how it shapes his haunting new novel Vigil. Plus, Australian writer Michael Mohammed Ahmad discusses writing through childhood trauma in his courageous and confronting novel Bugger.Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders (Lincoln in the Bardo) talks about his haunting new novel Vigil. Beginning with an angel's fall to Earth to usher an oil tycoon toward death, the book continues Saunders' exploration of mortality and the strange spaces between worlds. Saunders explains the challenge of writing this novel and why he enjoys getting stuck.Michael Mohammed Ahmad is a fearless Australian writer known for placing his own life at the centre of his work. He is best known for his acclaimed autobiographical trilogy — The Tribe, The Lebs, and The Other Half of You — and as the founder of the Sweatshop Literacy Movement in Western Sydney. Ahmad discusses his unflinching new novel, Bugger, a confronting exploration of child sexual abuse that draws on his own lived experience.

Bestselling author Trent Dalton reveals how The Wizard of Oz appears in every book he's written — from Boy Swallows Universe to his latest novel, Gravity Let Me Go. Plus, Wicked author Gregory Maguire revisits the inspiration behind his iconic series with the release of Elphie: A Wicked Childhood.Australia's favourite novelist, Trent Dalton joins Claire Nichols in front of a Perth crowd to discuss why his personal story is such a rich source of inspiration in his storytelling and also how imagination became a form of escape during a difficult childhood growing up in crime‑affected 1980s Brisbane. His latest novel, Gravity Let Me Go is about a middle-aged crime journalist and the incredible murder mystery that lands in his letterbox. Wicked author Gregory Maguire revisits the inspiration behind his landmark 1995 novel Wicked, which re‑imagined The Wizard of Oz through the eyes of the so‑called Wicked Witch of the West, exploring her childhood and life before Dorothy arrived in Oz. Thirty years on, and with the Wicked film adaptation continuing its global success, Maguire speaks to Claire Nichols about returning to the world of Oz with the release of Elphie: A Wicked Childhood. This interview was first broadcast 14 April 2025, listen to the full interview here.