Claire Nichols

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.

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

A story of finding family, Bernhard Schlink's latest novel The Granddaughter, examines the lingering impact of a divided Germany and the rise of the far right. Italian author and translator Vincenzo Latronico chronicles an expat couple living in Berlin and their search for authenticity in an age of social media in his novella Perfection. Also, Diana Reid's Signs of Damage, is a gripping psychological study of memory, trauma, and blurred morals, set in idyllic locations in Europe.

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

In 2022, Robert Lukins spent three months traversing the United States in a tiny one-and-a-half-seater aeroplane built by his friend and travel companion. They were on the hunt for ghost towns — a shared obsession — in places like the Sierra Nevada and Death Valley, when they made a pit stop in Yosemite National Park. It was there Lukins befriended a rock climber with a hidden past.

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

American writer Rachel Kushner joins Claire Nichols on the stage at Adelaide Writers Week for a conversation about the Booker-shortlisted Creation Lake, her latest philosophical and darkly funny novel involving French eco-activists, a bold and ruthless infiltrator, and a cave-dwelling idealist.

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

In his latest book Twist, New York-based Irish writer Colum McCann dives into the digital age, travelling deep under the ocean into a tangled world of ruptured fibrous connections, its human cost, and repair. And Robert Lukins' Somebody Down There Likes Me takes an acerbic look at the downfall of a rich Connecticut family. Also, Jane Yang tells a story of female empowerment in her historical novel Lotus Feet, which includes the ancient Chinese practice of binding the feet of young girls.