We head by rackety ferry to Scotland in John of John, the latest, quietly devastating novel from Shuggie Bain author Douglas Stuart. Henry Lawson reimagined - brawling poets, strange tunnels, time loops, and a warped tussle between city and bush in Wayne Marshall’s Henry Goes Bush, reviewed by You Am I's Tim Rogers. From there, novelist Madeleine Gray turns her eye to Lena Dunham’s sharp, self‑aware memoir Famesick, before moving to Ellena Savage’s The Ruiners, which shifts between a Melbourne lobster shack and a smoke‑wreathed Greek island.

~ OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Norman Lindsay, Bohemians of the Bulletin
• Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow
• Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays
• Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl
• Joan Didion, works
• Eve Babitz, works
• Ellena Savage, Blueberries
• Charles Dickens, works
• Charmian Clift, works
• George Johnston, works
• Michael Winkler, Griefdogg
• Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch
• Colum McCann, Apeirogon
• Steve MinOn, First Name Second Name
• Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
• James Bailey, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark
• Lee Lai, Cannon

~ CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Roi Huberman
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown