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2 weeks ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Heath |Claire Nichols
Australian author Charlotte McConaghy's third novel, Wild Dark Shore, opens with a woman washing up on a remote island halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. Who she is and why she's there is the mystery that propels the narrative. Claire Nichols, host of ABC Radio National's The Book Show, says it's a great read — but McConaghy found Wild Dark Shore her hardest novel to write. "I wrote the first 25,000 words four times and deleted them four times.
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3 weeks ago | 
abc.net.au | Katherine Smyrk |Nicola Heath |Fiona Pepper |Dan Condon
Court is, almost invariably, mind-numbingly boring. While dealing with incredibly important matters, on what could be the worst day of someone's life, the sheer scale of admin, stuffy language and lengthy protocol can make even the juiciest case a real snooze-fest. And when it comes to the case of Erin Patterson, accused of murdering three people by serving them death cap mushrooms, there's an overflow of both interest and information.
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1 month ago | 
abc.net.au | Claire Nichols |Kate Evans |Nicola Heath |Declan Fry
Consider that unpleasant feeling of not knowing what to read next fully remedied: in this month's Best Books column, ABC Arts critics recommend their favourite April reads — and there are some rippers. You'll find a love story with a twist, new works from Australian literary heavyweights, a gruesome thriller, and a crime novel where climate change plays a leading role. Black IncThe colony will fall. Have you heard this phrase recently?
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2 months ago | 
abc.net.au | Katherine Smyrk |Bhakthi Puvanenthiran |Dan Condon |Nicola Heath
It could be argued that true crime is the genre that keeps podcasting alive. The countless mysteries unearthed, turned over and sometimes solved keeps audiences hooked to their headphones and coming back for more. Amanda Knox's conviction and subsequent acquittal is a different kind of crime story. The world looked on open-mouthed as the 22-year-old was convicted of murder in an Italian court in 2009.
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2 months 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.
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2 months ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Heath |Daniel Browning
An exhibition at Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) in Melbourne featuring Lebanese Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi's work has been postponed indefinitely. Sabsabi, who is based in Western Sydney, was thrown into the national spotlight when he and curator Michael Dagostino were announced on February 7 as Australia's representatives at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
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2 months 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.
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2 months 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.
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Feb 27, 2025 | 
abc.net.au | Kate Evans |Claire Nichols |Nicola Heath |Declan Fry |Rosie Ward
The pages of February's best books promise a lot: a queer love story full of incisive observation about life, a fiction-memoir blend about a body in love and in pain, and a character convinced they're being hunted by snipers. Two are the work of Nobel Prize winners while others are penned by debut authors. One writer learns her father might've been a secret spy, another just where grief can take you. ABC Arts reviewers offer up all this and more in reading recommendations from this month.
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Feb 18, 2025 | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Heath |Claire Nichols
British writer Hanif Kureishi had just opened a beer and sat down to watch football on TV when he suddenly blacked out. It was 2022, and he was at the Rome apartment of his partner, Isabella d'Amico. "I don't really know what happened next, but I think I stood up, and then I just fell flat on my face — bang — and I broke my neck," he tells Radio National's The Book Show.
