The Book Show

Can a book predict the future? AM Homes' latest novel The Unfolding follows a group of Republicans who plot to take over the government, but Homes says it was written well before the January 6th Capitol riots. Meanwhile, the oldest-ever Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Alan Garner evokes an enigmatic and mysterious world in his book Treacle Walker, and Tracey Lien's impressive debut All That's Left Unsaid explores the death of star student in Cabramatta's Vietnamese community.

Shortlisted Booker author Percival Everett kicks off our Booker Prize coverage with a discussion of The Trees and former Booker winner Ian McEwan reveals that his latest novel, Lessons, is his most personal work and certainly his longest.  Also, Jay Carmichael explains how he went beyond the archive for his second novel, Marlo, on gay relationships in 1950s Australia.

Maggie O'Farrell says her latest novel The Marriage Portrait came to her in "a lightning bolt moment". The book honours the short life of the 16th century Duchess Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici, who was rumoured to be murdered by her husband. Also, Australian author Robert Drewe's resurrection of the sporting hero you've never heard of in Nimblefoot and Zaheda Ghani's debut Pomegranate and Fig, a book that's been in her mind since childhood.

American humourist Sloane Crosley explores the dating scene in New York City, but with a twist, in her novel Cult Classic. Also, Neela Janakiramanan takes a break from her hospital rounds to tell you about her Australian medical drama The Registrar and Siang Lu takes on kung fu, comedy, and the history of cinema in The Whitewash.

From growing up surrounded by homophobia in a small Tasmanian town to getting married in 2021, award winning comedian and now writer Hannah Gadsby shares what it is like to be queer, autistic and at the top of her game.

Author of Room, Emma Donoghue questions the zealotry of monks in her latest novel, Haven, set on an inhospitable island in 7th century Ireland (Star Wars fans will recognise this island too!). Also, Pirooz Jafari on his gentle novel, Forty Nights, about war and displacement, and Grace Chan imagines a future dominated by virtual reality in Every Version of You.

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.

Women's Prize for Fiction winner, Ruth Ozeki, is also a Zen Buddhist priest and explains how this practice shapes her writing. Also, British crime writer, Ann Cleeves sets her tenth Vera novel, The Rising Tide, on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne where Christianity first came to the UK.

Richard Powers, Hannah Kent, Elif Shafak and Michael Christie all use trees in their fiction to touch on themes of roots and connections, growth and rebirth, the family tree. But as our climate changes, is the way novelists use trees also changing to make the natural world the star of the story? 

For ABC Arts Week, we celebrate literary events at your local bookstore with a couple of conversations with Irish Australian queens of crime.