The Bookshelf
The Bookshelf
ABC Australia
A simmering summer in Greece, rare snails, dystopia with a twist: new fiction by Amy Taylor, Leif Enger and Maria Reva
54 minutes Posted Aug 21, 2025 at 7:00 am.
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Show notes
The Bookshelf continues to explore new fiction, beginning in this episode with Ruins by Amy Taylor, a plunge into holiday chaos during a simmering summer in Greece. Maria Reva’s Endling takes us to Ukraine, where an eccentric scientist is breeding rare snails. And, Leif Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse...dystopia with a twist.
BOOKS 
Amy Taylor, Ruins, Allen & Unwin 
Maria Reva, Endling, Virago 
Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse, Grove Press 
GUESTS 
Mark Mordue, music writer, journalist, and poet – whose books include Boy On Fire: The Young Nick Cave 
Robert Goodman, critic who writes regularly for the Newtown Review of Books and on his website, Pile by the Bed
OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
Louise Erdrich, works
Lanny, Max Porter
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, Shehan Karunatilaka
By Night in Chile; 2666, Roberto Bolaño
Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey 
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Chronicles, Bob Dylan 
Just Kids, Patti Smith 
Road Series, Hugo Race 
Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, Will Hermes 
Perdido Street Station, China Mieville 
Babel; Yellowface; Katabasis, R.F. Kuang
The Animals in That Country, Laura Jean McKay 
The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation, Charlotte Beradt
The White Hotel, D.M. Thomas
Salvage, Jennifer Mills
Juice, Tim Winton
Arborescence; Hovering, Rhett Davis
Deaf Republic, Ilya Kaminsky
CREDITS
Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
Sound engineer, John Jacobs and Tegan Nicholls
Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown