The Bookshelf
The Bookshelf
ABC Australia
Yiyun Li's music meditation, Marlon James' Booker-shortlisted epic, Bonnie Garmus' latest
54 minutes Posted Oct 30, 2026 at 4:00 am.
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Show notes
Kate and Cassie discuss Chinese-born American writer Yiyun Li's Music Against the Night, an exquisite exploration of music and time. Plus, with regular guests crime writer Michael Robotham and novelist and university lecturer Roanna Gonsalves, they unpack violence and homophobia in Jamaica in Marlon James' Booker-shortlisted novel The Disappearers; and review Peck & Peck, the latest screwball literary caper from Lessons in Chemistry bestseller Bonnie Garmus.
BOOKS 
Yiyun Li, Music Against the Night, Farrar Straus and Giroux
Marlon James, The Disappearers, Hamish Hamilton
Bonnie Garmus, Peck & Peck, Manilla Press 
GUESTS 
Michael Robotham, crime writer whose latest, and 20th, novel has just been released. It’s called Tell Me Something True
Roanna Gonsalves, writer, university lecturer, and editor of the literary journal Southerly, whose 81st edition has recently been published 
OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
Joyride by Susan Orlean
The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
Black Bag by Luke Kennard
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
John of John by Douglas Stuart
The Second Child by Malcolm Knox