Read This

We're off this Thursday, but we'll be back next week. Email us: readthis@schwartzmedia.com.au Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter

Morris Gleitzman is an Australian institution. A beloved author of novels for young people, Morris is known for his ability to be funny and warm without shying away from the realities of life. He has been writing for almost half a century now and has delighted generations of readers with his more than 40 books of fiction. This week, Michael and Morris sit down to reflect on Morris’s multi-generational impact and to discuss his latest novel, Tweet. Reading list: Two Weeks with the Queen, Morris Gleitzman, 1989 Misery Guts, Morris Gleitzman, 1991 Worry Warts, Morris Gleitzman, 1992 Blabber Mouth, Morris Gleitzman, 1993 Sticky Beak, Morris Gleitzman, 1994 Now, Morris Gleitzman, 2010 Tweet, Morris Gleitzman, 2024 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Morris Gleitzman

Patrick deWitt has made a career out of creating eccentric, unforgettable characters. From his gun-slinging duo in the darkly comic The Sisters Brothers, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize to the severely unsympathetic down-at-heel aristocrats in The French Exit. But in his fifth novel, The Librarianist, Patrick employs his signature verve and wit to reveal the extraordinary in the otherwise ordinary life of retired librarian Bob Comet. This week, Patrick joins Michael in the studio for a conversation about the joys of being an introvert, making friends at 40, and writing his latest novel. Reading list: The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt, 2011 Undermajordomo Minor, Patrick deWitt, 2015 French Exit, Patrick deWitt, 2018 The Librarianist, Patrick deWitt, 2023 Deep Blue: The World in the Ocean, James Bradley, 2024 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Patrick deWitt

Star investigative journalist Louise Milligan has spent her career working on some of the most high-profile criminal cases in Australia. This incredible breadth of experience informs her first novel Pheasant’s Nest, which follows the abduction of a young journalist and provides a unique insight into the media, policing and politics that surround a crime like this. This week, Michael sits down with Louise to discuss the leap from reporting to fiction and why writing this book was a kind of therapy.  Reading list: Cardinal, Louise Milligan, 2017 Witness, Louise Milligan, 2020 Pheasant’s Nest, Louise Milligan, 2024 A Year of Last Things, Michael Ondaatje, 2024 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Louise Milligan

Even if you’re not an obsessive Ancient Rome aficionado, you may have heard of Mary Beard. With more than 20 books to her name, including the wildly successful SPQR, Mary might be most famous for her work as a BBC host for shows such as Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town and Julius Caesar Revealed. Her latest book is Emperor of Rome and this week on the show she sits down with Michael to discuss her life sentence — the half dozen words that set her on the path to becoming Britain’s best-known classicist — and why the Roman Empire is so misunderstood. Reading list: SPQR, Mary Beard, 2015 Twelve Caesars, Mary Beard, 2021 Emperor of Rome, Mary Beard, 2023 Meditations, Marcus Aurealius, 167 A.C.E.. Tidelines, Sarah Sasson, 2024 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Mary Beard

Jonathan Lethem made his name with his 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn, but it was his next book, a semi-autobiographical re-telling of his childhood in Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, that solidified his reputation as one of America's most celebrated authors. In Brooklyn Crime Novel, Jonathan returns to the Brooklyn of his childhood, but this time with a very different perspective. This week, Michael and Jonathan discuss making and unmaking the past in his latest book. Reading list: Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem, 1999 The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem, 2003 Brooklyn Crime Novel, Jonathan Lethem, 2023 Edenglassie, Melissa Lucashenko, 2023 The Restless Dolly Maunder, Kate Grenville, 2023 Wifedom, Anna Funder, 2023 The Wren, The Wren, Anne Enright, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Jonathan Lethem

Anne Enright has been publishing books for more than two decades, winning numerous awards, including the Booker Prize for her 2007 novel, The Gathering. This week, Michael sits down with Anne for a wide-ranging conversation about the changing cultural context she is writing into, how a multiplicity of perspectives shape her work, and her latest book The Wren, The Wren. Reading list: The Gathering, Anne Enright, 2007 The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright, 2011 The Green Road, Anne Enright, 2015 Actress, Anne Enright, 2020 The Wren, the Wren, Anne Enright, 2023 Orbital, Samantha Harvey, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Anne Enright

When Nam Le’s debut book of short stories, The Boat, came out in 2008, it was met with unanimous praise and scooped up awards from around the world. Now, 16 years later, Nam has produced his follow up called 36 Ways to Write A Vietnamese Poem. This week, Michael sits down with Nam to discuss his latest work and the importance of violence in his conception of poetry and language. Reading list: The Boat, Nam Le, 2008 On David Malouf, Nam Le, 2019 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, Nam Le, 2014 What Happened to Nina?, Dervla McTiernan, 2024 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Nam Le

Joseph Conrad only ever captained one ship in his lifetime – the Otago. In a strange turn of events, the wreckage of Joseph Conrad’s ship now lies on the banks of the Derwent River in Hobart. And it's there that novelist Gail Jones took the inspiration for her latest novel, One Another. This week, Michael sits down with Gail for a wide-ranging discussion about desire, hauntings, and the life and work of Joseph Conrad. Reading list: Black Mirror, Gail Jones, 2002 Sixty Lights, Gail Jones, 2004 Dreams of Speaking, Gail Jones, 2006 Sorry, Gail Jones, 2007 Five Bells, Gail Jones, 2011 A Guide to Berlin, Gail Jones, 2015 The Death of Noah Glass, Gail Jones, 2018 Our Shadows, Gail Jones, 2020 Salonika Burning, Gail Jones, 2022 Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1899 The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad, 1907 Always Will Be, Mykaela Saunders, 2024 The Best Minds, Jonathan Rosen, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Gail Jones

Erik Jensen was just 20 years old when he met Australian author Kate Jennings for the first time, forging a close relationship that continued until Kate’s death in 2021. This week, Michael chats with The Saturday Paper’s editor in chief about Kate’s life and her underappreciated work and Erik shares why her novel, Snake, is the best Australian book he’s ever read. Reading list: Snake, Kate Jennings, 1996 Moral Hazard, Kate Jennings, 2002 Cats, Dogs and Pitchforks, Kate Jennings, 1993 On Kate Jennings, Erik Jensen, 2017 I said the sea was folded: Love poems, Erik Jensen, 2021 Angry at Breakfast, Erik Jensen, 2024 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Erik Jensen

This week, Michael chats with author Briohny Doyle, whose most recent novel Why We Are Here explores the complexities of grief, both individual and collective. They discuss the role of writing during the pandemic and how relationships with non-human others enable us to access repressed parts of ourselves. Reading list: The Island Will Sink, Briohny Doyle, 2013 Adult Fantasy, Briohny Doyle, 2017 Echolalia, Briohny Doyle, 2021 Why We Are Here, Briohny Doyle, 2023 The Great Undoing, Sharlene Allsopp, 2024 Tremor, Teju Cole, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Briohny Doyle

For our first episode of 2024, Michael speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks. She shares her life sentence and reflects on how her upbringing provided the perfect building blocks for a career as a writer. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Reading list: Nine Parts of Desire, Geraldine Brooks, 1994 Foreign Correspondence, Geraldine Brooks, 1997 March, Geraldine Brooks, 2005 Horse, Geraldine Brook, 2022 Dreams of My Russian Summers, Andreï Makine, 1995 We All Lived In Bondi Then, Georgia Blain, 2024 A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Nathan Thrall, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store.  Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Geraldine Brooks

For our last show of the year, Michael heads to Fitzroy Pool to find out what people are reading as the weather warms up. Plus, some of our previous guests offer book recommendations for the summer holidays. Reading list: The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett, 2020 Down and Out In Paris and London, George Orwell, 1933 My Body, Emily Ratajkowski, 2021 Ghosts, Dolly Alderton, 2020 The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, 2023 The Road, Cormac McCarthy, 2006 Working Class Boy, Jimmy Barnes, 2018 Never Never, Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher, 2023 The Spy’s Wife, Fiona McIntosh, 2021 Lioness, Emily Perkins, 2023 And Then She Fell, Alicia Elliott, 2023 The Palestine Laboratory, Anthony Loewenstein, 2023 England’s Green, Zaffar Kunial, 2022 The Sullivanians, Alexander Stille, 2023 Everyone and Everything, Nadine J. Cohen, 2023 Why We Are Here, Briohny Doyle, 2023 The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman, 2020 Middlemarch, George Eliot, 1871 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books. Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter

Max Porter, best known for his debut novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers, has long been inspired by literature – reading it, listening to it, and, most importantly, sharing it with others. This week, Max shares the piece of writing that changed his life and reveals why every single time he thinks about it, its power renews itself like a rechargeable battery. Reading list: Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter, 2015 Lanny, Max Porter, 2019 The Death of Francis Bacon, Max Porter, 2021 Shy, Max Porter, 2023 Memorial, Alice Oswald, 2011 Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit, 2004 Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, ed. Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, 2023 The Complete Poems, Emily Dickinson, 2017 Day, Michael Cunningham, 2023 Roman Stories, Jhumpa Lahiri, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books. Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Max Porter

Michelle de Kretser began reading Shirley Hazzard well before she herself would become a writer, but she felt an early kinship, and two decades later it exploded into a full obsession. This week, Michael speaks with Michelle and Hazzard's biographer Brigitta Olubas about one of Australia's most underrated and underread authors. Reading list: The Evening of the Holiday, Shirley Hazzard, 1966 The Bay of Noon, Shirley Hazzard, 1970 The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard, 1980 Greene on Capri, Shirley Hazzard, 2000 The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard, 2003 On Shirley Hazzard: Writers on Writers, Michelle de Kretser, 2019 Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life, Brigitta Olubas, 2023 Prophet Song, Paul Lynch, 2023 So Close to Home, Mick Cummins, 2023 In Praise of Veg, Alice Zaslavsky, 2020 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books. Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Michelle de Kretser & Brigitta Olubas

Back in 2005, following the publication of her debut novel, Gabrielle Zevin experienced a kind of literary trauma, one that completely fractured her sense of intimacy with the art form that she loved. Since then, she has learned to embrace failure and her latest novel has featured on over thirty “Best Books of the Year” Lists. This week, Michael sits down with Gabrielle for a wide-ranging discussion about collaboration, creativity, ambition and failure in her new book, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.  Reading list: Margarettown, Gabrielle Zevin, 2005 The Hole We're In, Gabrielle Zevin, 2010 The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin, 2014 Young Jane Young, Gabrielle Zevin, 2017 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, 2022 The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro, 1989 The Animators, Kayla Rae Whitaker, 2016 Returning, Kirli Saunders, 2023 Wellness, Nathan Hill, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books. Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Gabrielle Zevin

Described by the Washington Post as "one of our greatest living novelists", Richard Flanagan has been writing for more than three decades. His 2013 novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North won the Booker Prize and his essays have been published across Australia and internationally. This week Michael heads to Tasmania to speak with Richard at his home in Hobart about his latest and most personal novel, Question 7. Reading list: Gould’s Book of Fish, Richard Flanagan, 2001 The Narrow Road to the North, Richard Flanagan, 2013 The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, Richard Flanagan, 2020 Question 7, Richard Flanagan, 2023 The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells, 1898 The World Set Free, H.G. Wells, 1914 Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov, 1951 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books. Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Richard Flanagan

Rebecca Makkai is a master storyteller – her 2018 book, The Great Believers, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. In I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca switches genres with a literary crime story that takes in the #MeToo movement, the American justice system, race, sex, class and murder, all against the backdrop of a prestigious boarding school. This week, Michael sits down with Rebecca to discuss her latest novel, the perils of true crime, and why being surprised when reading a book is so much more satisfying than a jump scare in a movie. Reading list: The Borrower, Rebecca Makkai, 2011 The Hundred-Year House, Rebecca Makkai, 2014 The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai, 2018 I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai, 2023 The Stone of Laughter, Hoda Barakat, 1990 So Late in the Day, Claire Keegan, 2023 The In-Between, Christos Tsiolkas, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books. Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Rebecca Makkai

Charlotte Wood became a mainstay in Australia’s literary firmament in 2015 following the release of her award-winning novel, The Natural Way of Things. Her latest book, Stone Yard Devotional, is her most personal yet. It’s a meditation on grief, solitude, what it means to live a good life, and what we owe one another. This week, Michael sits down with Charlotte to discuss her new book, and she shares the psychic catastrophe that informed its final form. Reading list: The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood, 2015 The Weekend, Charlotte Wood, 2019 The Luminous Solution, Charlotte Wood, 2021 Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood, 2023 Gilead, Marilynne Robinson, 2004 Gilgamesh, Joan London, 2001 The Golden Age, Joan London, 2014 The Wren, The Wren, Anne Enright, 2023 Women and Children, Tony Birch, 2023 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Or if you want to listen to them as audiobooks, you can head to the Read This reading room on Apple Books. Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Charlotte Wood