The Book Show

You voted, we counted and now we know: Tim Winton's Cloudstreet is our favourite-ever Australian book. In this Top 100 Australian Books afterparty we relive the highs, the lows and the controversies of the countdown.
Claire Nichols and Hilary Harper take a deep dive into conversations from The Book Show with your favourite Top 100 Books authors. Tim Winton reflects on how Cloudstreet saved him, Markus Zusak shares the stories that made The Book Thief and we hear from other favourites: Melissa Lucashenko on Too Much Lip and Charlotte McConaghy on Wild Dark Shore. 
We also dig into the ABC archives for a 1987 interview with Sally Morgan on her seminal memoir, My Place.
Download a printable Top 100 Australian Books 1-100 ranked.
Relive your favourite moments of the weekend countdown.
Tune into our sister show, The Bookshelf, for the ones that got away (and the 101-200 list).
Donate to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, our Top 100 Australian Books partner.

Before Knives Out, escape rooms and true-crime podcasts, there was Agatha Christie. The 'Queen of Crime' perfected the murder-mystery format and, 50 years after her death, we still can't get enough of her trailblazing take on cosy crime.
Each episode we solve a case together. What made her mysteries so propulsive? What happened when she was the star of her own missing-persons case? And would The Thursday Murder Club, or Only Murders in the Building exist, without Agatha Christie?
Plus, each episode we'll put your little grey cells to work with a cryptic puzzle brought to you by David Astle, the ABC's resident Puzzle Master.

The surprising Australian links in Min Jin Lee's latest novel American Hagwon. And Bonnie Garmus stresses the importance of poetry in Peck and Peck, the follow up to Lessons in Chemistry.  
Why did it take ten years to write American Hagwon, the third novel exploring the Korean diaspora after Pachinko? Find out as Korean American author Min Jin Lee describes to Claire Nichols the ideas behind this family saga set just after the Asian financial crisis. The novel which centres on the sacrifices parents make to educate their children, but is also about expectations, class, migration and ultimately a celebration of family unity. While tackling the endemic Korean private cram academies called Hagwon, the story takes us to Korea, Sydney and California. And as a regular visitor to these shores, Min Jin Lee has some interesting conclusions about Australia's education and health systems.
And while Bonnie Garmus tells Claire Nichols the themes in her latest novel are very different from Lessons in Chemistry, the idea for Peck and Peck also came to her after a bad day at work. This time though it was a poem on the radio that sparked a story about a young man with an ear for identifying good poetry. And the complexities of twins.

Conservative politician and bestselling author, Jeffrey Archer has died at 86. In one of the final interviews of his life, he recounts how his changing financial, personal and political fortunes propelled his writing career.
Jeffery Archer's own life story was just as colourful as those in the pages of his books. He was a British MP until he went bankrupt, then in 1976 he published the novel Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less which began his 50 year career as a novelist. He was made a British Lord, worked for Margaret Thatcher and went to jail for perjury.
With his days in politics long behind him, Jeffrey Archer was in a reflective mood for this interview. He told Claire Nichols that his new novel, Adam and Eve, was the best thing he'd written and it would be his last.

Why Shaun Micallef's latest novel DeAth Takes a Holiday features a cast of gothic characters including a vampire suffering from ennui, zombie slaves and the resurrection of the skeletal remains of Queen Victoria's husband.
What happens when you have to step in to a gig at the last minute?  With almost zero preparation Claire Nichols had to draw on all her skills to fill in as host at the Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival. But with a guest like comedian, author, TV presenter Shaun Micallef perhaps even the most rigorous research can never prepare you for what's about to unfold.  Thank goodness Claire had actually read and interviewed him about his new book DeAth Takes a Holiday, a unique perspective on the Gothic romance horror where the harbinger of Dracula attempts mortality. You can hear that interview here.   From his hilarious description of the font used, to the inspiration for the book; the 19th century satirical utopian novel Erewhon, Shaun pokes affectionate fun at the format of books, reprises his favourite historical figures and ponders more serious questions about the current state of the world. And is that Trump making an appearance?