The Bookshelf

• The Best Books of 2025

  The best books of 2025 as selected by Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests - Jason Steger, Jon Page and Robert Goodman. Keep scrolling for a full list...GUESTS Jason Steger, arts journalist. Former book editor of the Age & SMH, and panellist on ABC TV’s Book Club Jon Page, long time bookseller with Pages and Pages bookshop, former General Manager of Dymocks Sydney – and now, book-buyer for W.H. Smith Robert Goodman, reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction; regularly reviews for the Newtown Review of Books. His website is pilebythebed.com Jason Steger's PicksOn-air:Flesh by David SzalayYou Must Remember This by Sean WilsonThe Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran DesaiLong Island by Colm TóibínMy Father Bryce by Adam CourtenayRunt and the Diabolical Dognapping by Craig SilveyExtras:My Sister and Other Lovers by Esther FreudJon Page's PicksOn-air:Buckeye by Patrick RyanUnbury the Dead by Fiona HardyFlashlight by Susan ChoiI Want Everything by Dominic AmarenaOne Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This by Omar El AkkadExtras:A Beautiful Family by Jennifer TrevelyanThe Body Next Door by Zane LovittThe Emperor of Gladness by Ocean VuongThe Rose Field [Book of Dust, Vol. 3] by Philip PullmanThe Names by Florence KnappRobert Goodman's PicksOn-air:Salvage by Jennifer MillsPicks and Shovels by Cory DoctorowWe Do Not Part by Han KangEden by Mark BrandiKing Sorrow by Joe HillShroud by Adrian TchaikovskyExtras:The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno GarciaEsperance by Adam OyebanjiWhere the Axe is Buried by Ray NaylerPerfection by Vincenzo LatronicoLion Hearts by Dan JonesRapture by Emily MaguireUnbury the Dead by Fiona HardyThe Impossible Thing by Belinda BauerThe Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd RobinsonHotel Ukraine by Martin Cruz SmithThe Hollow Girl by Lynn YeowartThe White Crow by Michael RobothamStillwater by Tanya ScottThe Reunion by Bronwyn RiversThe Peak by Sam GuthrieThe Seventh Floor by David McCloskyCasualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-SharmaCassie McCullagh's PicksOn-air:Dream State by Eric PuchnerTheft by Abdulrazak GurnahThe Transformations by Andrew PipposArborescence by Rhett DavisWhat We Can Know by Ian McEwanOn the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej BalleExtras:The Silver Book by Olivia LaingDancing in the Lift by Mandy SayerKate Evans' PicksOn-air:Mother Mary Come to Me by Arundhati RoyAlways Home, Always Homesick by Hannah KentMemorial Days by Geraldine BrooksThe Dream Hotel by Laila LalamiThe Remembered Soldier by Anjet DaanjeTwist by Colum McCannLandfall by James BradleyThe Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham JonesFierceland by Omar MusaChosen Family by Madeleine GrayExtras:On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej BalleWe Do Not Part by Han KangThe Wax Child by Olga RavnTheft by Abdulrazak GurnahWhat We Can Know by Ian McEwanFlashlight by Susan ChoiI Want Everything by Dominic AmarenaCREDITSPresenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullaghProducer, Kate Evans and Sarah CorbettSound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Tegan NichollsArts editor, Rhiannon Brown

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• Superstars of the literary and musical world: Margaret Atwood’s new memoir; Hannah Kent’s critical readings; Stuart Coupe’s musical knowledge; Bob Dylan...

  Superstars of the literary and musical world this week: Margaret Atwood’s new memoir; Hannah Kent’s critical readings; Stuart Coupe’s musical knowledge; Bob Dylan . . . OK, well he’s not exactly on the show, but he’s the subject of MUCH literary speculation in a buzzy new release by New Yorker Sam Sussman. Also – the voice of the wind howls, laughs and taunts its subjects, in an inventive piece of writing from Sarah Hall.BOOKS Sam Sussman, Boy from the North Country, Grove Press Sarah Hall, Helm, Faber Margaret Atwood, Books of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, Chatto & Windus GUESTS Hannah Kent, novelist and memoirist whose books include Burial Rites, The Good People, Devotion and – most recently - Always Home, Always Homesick: A Love Letter to IcelandStuart Coupe, music writer and promoter whose books include Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock’n’ Roll; Shake Some Action: My Life In Music, (and Other Stuff); and – most recently – Saffron Incorporated: The First King Of King Of The Cross And Fifty Years Of Sex, Murder, Music And Mayhem OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDThe Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman, Niko StratisHarley Loco, Rayya EliasHappy Doll series, Jonathan AmesAll the Way to the River, Elizabeth GilbertThe History of Sound, Ben ShattuckLinea Maja Ernst, Waist Deep (translated by Sherilyn Hellberg)Deborah Levy, Hot MilkHeart the Lover, Lily KingBread of Angels, Patti SmithCREDITSPresenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullaghProducer, Kate Evans and Sarah CorbettSound engineer, Roi Hubermann and Harvey O'SullivanArts editor, Rhiannon Brown

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• Salman Rushdie's latest/Scandi noir/Australian crime fiction wrap & more...

  Short story collections reveal the fragile beauty of human experience in Salman Rushdie’s The Eleventh Hour, Liadan Ní Chuinn’s Everyone Still Here, Morgan Talty’s Night of the Living Rez, and Tony Birch’s Pictures of You. Then we shift gears and crank up the suspense with a look at some new crime fiction, including the icy new instalment in the phenomenally successful The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Millennium series, the brainchild of late author Stieg Larsson, and now written by Karin Smirnoff; plus, a sharp round-up of some recent Australian releases.BOOKS Short story collections: Salman Rushdie, The Eleventh Hour, Jonathan Cape Liadan Ní Chuinn, Everyone Still Here, Granta Tony Birch, Pictures of You, UQP Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez, Scribe  Crime: Karin Smirnoff, The Girl with Ice in her Veins (translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death), Maclehose Press Michael Brissenden, Dust, Affirm Press Garry Disher, Mischance Creek, Text Chris Hammer, Legacy, Allen & Unwin Kerry Greenwood, Murder in the Cathedral, Allen & Unwin Jane Harper, Last One Out, Macmillan  Michael Connelly, The Proving Ground, Allen & Unwin Abir Mukherjee, The Burning Grounds, Harvill Secker GUESTSJohan Gabrielsson, Host of the Noir Hear This podcast. Documentary maker. His film Climate Changers is available on the streaming platfrom DocPlay, and has an upcoming screening in SydneyProfessor Sue Turnbull, Crime fiction reviewer, academic, and co-author of Migrants, Television and Australian Stories: A New HistoryOTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDMaj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, worksHenning Mankell, worksJohn Ajvide Lindquist, The Writing in the Water; The Room in the Ground Christian Kracht, Kracht x 3; The Dead  Ulf Kvensler, SarekSam Guthrie, The PeakCREDITSPresenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullaghProducer, Kate Evans and Sarah CorbettSound engineer, Hamish Camilleri and Harvey O'SullivanArts editor, Rhiannon Brown

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• Fiction bending reality in new books by Thomas Pynchon, Olivia Laing and Jeanette Winterson

  This week, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan Green take a look at Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket - a cryptic plunge into paranoia and power, where nothing is quite what it seems. Plus, Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book, a shimmering meditation on the cinema scene in 1970s Italy, and Jeanette Winterson’s One Aladdin Two Lamps, which re-imagines duality and the stories we tell ourselves.BOOKSShadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon (Jonathan Cape) The Silver Book by Olivia Laing (Hamish Hamilton) One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson (Penguin Random House)GUESTSHuw Griffiths — Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School in English and Writing at the University of SydneyClaire Mabey — Founder of New Zealand’s literary festival Verb Wellington, books editor at The Spinoff, and author of the award-winning middle-grade novel The Raven's Eye Runaways. Its sequel, The Raven’s Eye Rebellion, is due in April next year.OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDNaomi Arnold, NorthboundNadine Huder, Slowing the SunThomas Mann, Death in VeniceSeán Hewitt, Open HeavenPhilip Pullman, His Dark Materials trilogy - The Rose FieldRuby Tandoh, All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat NowCREDITSPresenter, Cassie McCullagh and Jonathan GreenProducer, Cassie McCullagh and Sarah CorbettSound engineer, Beth StewartArts editor, Rhiannon Brown 

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• Madeleine Gray's Chosen Family + Chris Kraus and Graeme Macrae Burnet

  Stories of love, friendship, and the ties that bind - with a dash of dirt and darkness in three new works of fiction...Madeleine Gray's Chosen Family, a sharp exploration of friendship, love, and what it means to grow up when life gets messy; Chris Kraus' The Four Spent The Day Together, an autofiction-ish journey through a fractured America; and Graeme Macrae Burnet's Benbecula, where secrets unravel on the windswept shores of the Outer Hebrides.BOOKS Graeme Macrae Burnet, Benbecula, Text Madeleine Gray, Chosen Family, Summit Books Chris Kraus, The Four Spent the Day Together, Scribe GUESTS Nicola Heath, ABC Arts journalist; editor of ABC Online monthly book review columnPatrick Carey, writer and content maker who works at Sydney Theatre Company OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDMary McCarthy, The GroupDylin Hardcastle, A Language of LimbsDavid Owen Kelly, Host CityCharlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark ShoreAndrew Pippos, The TransformationsHelen Whybrow, Salt Stones James Rebanks, The Shepherd's LifeMaggie Mackellar, worksAndrew Miller, A Land in Winter Lisa Tuttle, My Death A.S. Byatt, Possession  Edmund White, The Married ManMuriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington  CREDITSPresenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullaghProducer, Kate Evans and Sarah CorbettSound engineer, Tegan Nicholls, Antonia Gauci and Tim JenkinsArts editor, Rhiannon Brown

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