Kate and Cassie are back for a big year of books, beginning with Booker-Prize winner Julian Barnes' Departures, a novel about looking back, facing the future, and coming to the end of life. Plus, regular reviewers Tony Birch and Beejay Silcox join us for discussions on This, My Second Life by British novelist Patrick Charnley, and Iluka, by Australian author Cassie Stroud.

BOOKS

• Julian Barnes, Departure(s), Jonathan Cape
• Cassie Stroud, Iluka, HQ Books
• Patrick Charnley, This, My Second Life, Hutchinson Heinemann

GUESTS

• Tony Birch, poet, novelist and short story writer whose books include Dark as Last Night, Shadow Boxing, Women and Children and The White Girl. His latest is Pictures of You. He is also a Professor of Australian literature at the University of Melbourne
• Beejay Silcox, critic, writer and regular interviewer at writers festivals.

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Lily King, Heart the Lover
• Anne Enright, Attention
• Melissa Lucashenko, Not Quite White in the Head
• Bryan Washington, Palaver; Family Meal
• Souvankham Thammavongsa, Pick the Colour
• Charlotte Wood, The Weekend
• Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
• Jonathan Tropper, And Then We Came To the End
• Maggie Shipstead, Seating Arrangements
• Emily O'Grady, Feast
• Hayle Felicity, Our Brother Nick and the Tolling Bell
• Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton
• Joe Hill, King Sorrow
• Haldor Laxness, Independent People
• Dani Netherclift The Shape of Absent Bodies
• George Eliot, Middlemarch
• Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
• Eric Puchner, Dream State

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Roi Hubermann and Ann Marie Debettencor
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown