Summer reading with Tim Winton, Kaliane Bradley and Siang Lu

Tim Winton explains his urgency for writing about climate change in his new novel Juice, Kaliane Bradley on her bestseller The Ministry of Time which has attracted Barack Obama's attention and Siang Lu's ambitious and complicated novel Ghost Cities.

Tim Winton shares the anger and frustration that compelled him to write his latest novel Juice. It's set in a future north-Australia where resources are scarce and people are scarred by the sun and spend months living underground to escape the heat. Winton reflects on the sense of urgency he feels around climate change and the role of fiction to address big topics. First broadcast 21 August 2024.

The Ministry of Time by British-Cambodian author Kaliane Bradley is listed on former US president Barack Obama annual summer reading list this year. It's a time travel novel in which a handful of (mostly) fictional historical characters who've been transplanted from their time period to a near future England. It's about love, refugees, bureaucracy and the doomed Franklin Arctic expedition. First broadcast 9 September 2024.

Siang Lu is the author of the silly but serious novel The Whitewash which was a satire, presented as an oral history, about the making of a disastrous movie. Siang's second novel Ghost Cities is equally ambitious, complicated and fun as it weaves between a storyline set in the modern day and another set in ancient China. First broadcast 24 June 2024.