Summer Reading: at the Brisbane Writers Festival

Kate and Cassie on stage at the 2025 Brisbane Writers Festival with authors Eric Puchner, Toni Jordan, Patrick Holland, and Zeynab Gamieldien, discussing their most recent novels and the books and writers who inspire them. This discussion was recorded in front of a live audience, just ahead of our Top 100 Books of the Century.

It was first broadcast on Friday 17 October 2025

GUESTS

Eric Puchner, novelist, academic, and short story writer, whose books include the collections Last Day on Earth and Music Through the Floor, and the novels Model Home and (his latest) Dream State

Toni Jordan, a writer whose novels include Nine Days, Our Tiny, Useless Hearts, Prettier If She Smiles More, Dinner with the Schnabels . . . and her latest, Tenderfoot

Patrick Holland is a writer and academic, and author of eight books, including the novel The Mary Smokes Boys and — his latest — Oblivion. He lives between Hong Kong and Brisbane

Zeynab Gamieldien is a writer whose first novel, The Scope of Permissibility, won the inaugural WestWords/Ultimo Prize (for emerging writers from Western Sydney); and her second novel, Learned Behaviours, has just been published

BOOKS MENTIONED BY ERIC PUCHNER

•    James Salter, Light Years

•    Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

•    Joy Williams, works

•    Willa Cather, My Ántonia

•    Jhumpa Lahiri, A Temporary Matter

•    Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

•    Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

•    César Aira, An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

BOOKS MENTIONED BY TONI JORDAN

•    Craig Silvey, Jasper Jones

•    Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe

•    Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

•    Zadie Smith, White Teeth

•    Alexis Wright, Carpentaria

•    Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet

•    Richard Ford, Canada

BOOKS MENTIONED BY PATRICK HOLLAND

•    Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country

•    Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

•    Ernest Hemingway, 88 Poems

•    Leah Swann, Bearings

•    Felix Calvino, works

•    Brian Castro, works

•    Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse

•    Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian; All the Pretty Horses

•    Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji

BOOKS MENTIONED BY ZEYNAB GAMIELDIEN

•    Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

•    Tara June Winch, The Yield

•    Hisham Matar, The Return; My Friends

•    Anne Enright, The Gathering

•    Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn; Long Island

•    Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

•    Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

OTHER BOOKS AND WRITERS MENTIONED

•    J.G. Ballard, works

•    Graham Greene, The Quiet American

•    David Malouf, works

•    Patrick White, works

•    Curtis Sittenfeld, Show Don't Tell

•    David Mitchell, works

CREDITS

•    Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh

•    Producer, Kate Evans + Sarah Corbett

•    Sound engineer, Steve Fieldhouse + Harvey O'Sullivan

•    Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown