The Book Show

"Everyday could be a day of unthinkable richness if we just keep still, attend and be present to what the place that we live in wants to do." Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers talks about the power of wilderness to centre his characters in Bewilderment, his Booker Prize-shortlisted novel.Also, two time winner of the Miles Franklin, Michelle de Kretser, on her new book, Scary Monsters which is a book in two parts, with two front covers, and is an exploration of the migrant experience.

"The journey is the oldest story known to humanity", says bestselling American author Amor Towles, whose third book is based on this archetypal narrative and takes a group of lost boys on an unpredictable road trip in The Lincoln Highway.Also, Booker Prize shortlisted author Anuk Arudpragasam with A Passage North and Vietnamese American Monique Truong's exploration of Lafcadio Hearn, the 19th century Creole cookbook author and Japanese folktale collector, in The Sweetest Fruits.

Liane Moriarty's latest novel is Apples Never Fall and as another TV adaptation of her work wraps us, she is adamant she will never write books with a view to adaptation. Also, British-Turkish Elif Shafak's inventive The Island of Missing Trees set in a divided Cyprus and Booker shortlisted author Damon Galgut's equally inventive, The Promise.

In 1952, Somali seaman Mahmood Mattan, convicted of the murder of a local shopkeeper, became the last man to be hanged in Cardiff. Forty-five years later, his conviction was quashed. In The Fortune Men, the British-Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed takes this true story and gives it a novel treatment. Amongst the bustling, multiracial town of Tiger Bay, we meet Mattan, a man of quiet dignity and anger, and the corrupt and racist police who frame him for murder. Mohamed also paints a sympathetic portrait of the murder victim, here renamed Violet Volacki. Nadifa Mohamed is speaking to Claire Nichols.

American travel writer Maggie Shipstead's third novel Great Circle, is about a fictional aviatrix, Marian Graves, who goes missing in her quest to circumnavigate the globe in 1950. It's also about a troubled Hollywood actor who attempts to resurrect her reputation by taking the lead role in a Marian Graves biopic. The novel explores questions of death and disappearance, as well as the unknowability of the past. Maggie Shipstead speaks to Sarah L'Estrange.

American author Patricia Lockwood's debut novel is a work of two distinct parts. In the first half, we meet a woman addicted to the “portal”, or internet, where she has crafted a unique online presence. In the second half, the protagonist is dragged back in to the real world, after her sister gives birth to a very sick baby. The book is inspired by Patricia’s own life, and her experiences as an aunt to her niece, Lena. It’s a book as funny as it is heartbreaking, and in this interview Patricia talks about her extreme physical reaction to the book, and her quest for a perfect dress to wear to the Women’s Prize for Fiction ceremony. Patricia Lockwood speaks to Claire Nichols. Listen here for a longer interview about the book.

A Passage North is the second novel by Sri Lankan, Anuk Arudpragasam. It's about a young Tamil man, Krishan, as he travels from Colombo to north Sri Lanka for the funeral of his grandmother's carer. It is an introspective story that follows Krishan's meandering ruminations about the Sri Lankan civil war, trauma, desire and Sanskrit poetry. Anuk Arudpragasam is speaking to Sarah L'Estrange.

South African writer Damon Galgut has now been shortlisted for the Booker three times, and the latest is for his ninth book, The Promise. It is a family saga that begins in 1986 apartheid South Africa and follows one Afrikaner family through to the present. At its heart, is a broken promise that serves as an allegory for modern South Africa. But as Damon tells Sarah L'Estrange, it's also about a dysfunctional family.

Richard Powers is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Overstory. His latest novel, Bewilderment, is about a recently widowed father trying to raise and protect his troubled son, as the planet’s ecology implodes. This novel does not give itself to easy one liners, as its scope is mythical and crosses into the terrain of science fiction while still exploring parental love. Richard Powers is speaking to Claire Nichols.

In 2019, John Boyne faced huge online backlash for a book he wrote about a trans teenager and he's channelled that experience in to his new comic novel, The Echo Chamber.Also, Booker Prize shortlisted author Nadifa Mohamed on The Fortune Men and Emily Bitto’s Wild Abandon, about men, booze, tigers and America.