Parties, scandals, sex, love: new novels by Nell Zink, Amy Bloom and the controversial James Frey

Parties, scandals, sex, love, families, friendship, death – these books have, as they say, all the things. Nell Zink’s Sister Europe moves through one night in Berlin, while Amy Bloom’s I’ll Be Right Here sweeps through 80 years of history, and in James Frey’s Next to Heaven, the beautiful and rich fall apart rather spectacularly.

BOOKS 

Nell Zink, Sister Europe, Penguin Viking 

Amy Bloom, I’ll Be Right Here, Granta 

James Frey, Next to Heaven, Swift 

GUESTS 

Shannon Burns, writer and member of the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide. His memoir, Childhood, was published in 2022 

Suzanne Leal, writer and literary interviewer. She writes for both adults and children, and her novels include Deceptions, The Watchful Wife and The Teacher’s Secret. Her latest, The Year We Escaped, was published last month

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• James Frey, works
• Raynor Winn, The Salt Path
• Colette, works
• Yuan Yang, Private Revolutions
• Lenora Thaker, The Pearl of Tagai Town
• Peter Grose, A Good Place to Hide
• Pablo Neruda, The Captain's Verses
• Robert Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
• Brian Castro, Chinese Postman

JANE AUSTEN EVENT

Still Turning Heads at 250: Jane Austen’s Enduring Charm

ABC Radio National's The Bookshelf & The Minefield join forces with a literary scholar & the State Library of NSW on Austen the professional. Book your spot here 

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Tegan Nicholls and Emrys Cronin
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown