Claire Nichols

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Claire Nichols |Anita Barraud |David Le May |Rhiannon Brown

A small family lives on a remote island, the father a caretaker for the world's seeds. Then in the rising seas, a woman is washed up to shore. Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore is a mystery, a story of love, and a warning. Melbourne-based writer Sean Wilson offers an empathetic glimpse into the fractured mind of an elderly woman with dementia in his novella, You Must Remember This.

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Claire Nichols |Anita Barraud |David Le May |Rhiannon Brown

A mother escapes a controlling husband. But that is just the beginning. Nesting, the debut novel from award-winning Irish writer Roisin O'Donnell takes us to the next step, finding a safe home. Also, English Ghanaian author Maame Blue, who now lives in Melbourne, on the struggles of uncovering memories in her novel The Rest of You, and in Love Unedited Australian author Caro Llewellyn explores a passionate romance between an editor and a writer.

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Kate Evans |Claire Nichols |Nicola Heath |Declan Fry |Rosie Ward

Welcome to ABC Arts' monthly book column: a shortlist of new releases read and recommended by The Bookshelf's Kate Evans, The Book Show's Claire Nichols, ABC Arts' Nicola Heath and critics Declan Fry and Rosie Ofori Ward. All five read voraciously and their only guidelines for a recommendation here: make it a new release and make it something you think is great.

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Claire Nichols |Anita Barraud |David Le May |Rhiannon Brown

Award-winning Moroccan American author Laila Lalami imagines a world where the most intimate aspects of life are mined for data in her speculative fiction novel, The Dream Hotel. Australian Chinese writer Steve MinOn goes on a generational discovery tour with a corpse in his debut novel First Name Second Name. And Madeleine Ryan's The Knowing reflects on the anxieties of modern life and ambition.

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Nicola Heath |Claire Nichols

A few years ago, Diana Reid began to see a trend emerge: the trauma plot. It was everywhere in books, films and television series. "You get introduced to a character who's a bit odd or self-destructive — like Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character in Fleabag — and there are these flashbacks that penetrate the narrative that suggest something terrible happened," the author tells ABC Radio National's The Book Show.