The Book Show

Indian writer Deepti Kapoor takes on corruption, wealth and poverty in India in her novel The Age of Vice, Michelle Johnston takes you deep in to the basement of the Perth hospital where she works and writes and American author Kevin Wilson's "book for prudish teens", Now is Not the Time to Panic.

Two very different crime fiction writers, Australian Indigenous author Julie Janson and Scottish writer Stuart MacBride imagine grisly scenarios in their books Madukka: The River Serpent and The Dead of Winter. Also Briony Stewart's re-imagining of Frente's 90s hit song Accidentally Kelly Street as a children's book. 

Bret Easton Ellis and Paul Jennings have been very successful writers for 40 years and although they're very different writers - Bret Easton Ellis is best known for American Psycho and Paul Jennings for his children's books - they both discuss how they've navigated the benefits and pitfalls of fame.

It's been 40 years since Tim Winton published his first novel, An Open Swimmer. Today he is the beloved writer of 29 books, a four-time Miles Franklin winner (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and an incomparable observer of the Western Australian landscape. For the Big Weekend of Books, he joined The Book Show's Claire Nichols and a live audience at the ABC studios in Perth.

Marlon James' African Game of Thrones, Markus Zusak gets your fanmail and Meg Mason's surprise success with Sorrow and Bliss.

Booker winner Douglas Stuart, Indyana Schneider and Omar Sakr explore queer love and identity in their fiction.

Writers (and bookworms) Craig Silvey, Tony Birch, and Dervla McTiernan talk about their reading lives, in this special episode recorded at the Perth Festival Writers Weekend.

Ruth Ozeki, Shehan Karunatilaka and Jennifer Down share the backstory to their award winning books.

Australian novelist Heather Rose lost her brother in a tragic accident when she was just 12 years old. In her memoir Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here, she shares how her grief and curiosity led her on a lifelong search for the extraordinary. Also, Wiradjuri activist-turned-author Yvonne Weldon on her love story Sixty-Seven Days and Thomas Keneally tackles a tricky subject in his historic novel Fanatic Heart.

City-saving superheroes, cheese-bingeing record store employees and a chemist turned TV chef with NK Jemisin, Katharine Pollock and Bonnie Garmus.