My Own Sweet Time was a memoir said to be written by Wanda Koolmatrie, a member of the Aboriginal stolen generation. But it was a hoax and this final episode of Fakes and Frauds explores its long lasting impacts. Plus, American author Don Winslow explains why he's stepping away from writing fiction. 

Richard Powers, Hannah Kent, Elif Shafak and Michael Christie all use trees in their fiction to touch on themes of roots and connections, growth and rebirth, the family tree. But as our climate changes, is the way novelists use trees also changing to make the natural world the star of the story? 

The latest episode in our Fakes and Frauds series is about the biggest recent book scandal of all, the Helen Demidenko affair. Also Shirley Le discusses her debut Funny Ethnics.

Cannibalism, telepathy and celibacy are just some of the false claims Marlo Morgan made in her 1990s new age hit, Mutant Message Down Under, meet the Indigenous activists who campaigned against the book in the latest episode of Fakes and Frauds. And Eleanor Catton on her Macbeth inspired satire, Birnam Wood. 

Find out how to catch a con-artist in this episode of Fakes and Frauds that delves into the fake memoir of Norma Khouri. And American author Curtis Sittenfeld on the Saturday Night Live inspiration for her latest novel, Romantic Comedy.

Find out how to catch a plagiarist in the first of our series Fakes and Frauds - the book scandals that rocked Australia. And Australian prize winning author, Alexis Wright on her new novel Praiseworthy, an epic Aboriginal fable. 

Australian authors Chloe Hooper, Alice Pung and Larissa Behrendt reveal the complex and complicated mums in their lives and on the page.

British Booker winner Julian Barnes's latest novel, Elizabeth Finch, is about a life-changing teacher and he tells the audience at the Sydney Writers Festival that "you become a writer by not being the child of a writer".

The smell of books and Italian cooking are celebrated in the latest novels by bestselling Australian authors Pip Williams and Dominic Smith. Pip Williams' follow up to The Dictionary of Lost Words revisits Oxford as the setting for her wartime drama, The Bookbinder of Jericho. And Dominic Smith's Return to Valetto explores the people who choose to stay in crumbling Italian ghost towns.

Indian author Anindita Ghose on life after Vogue, her friendship with Jonathan Franzen, and the joy of killing the patriarch on page one.

Literary titan, Margaret Atwood on the death of her beloved husband, the influence of George Orwell and the pleasures of ageing. Her latest book is a collection of short stories, Old Babes in the Wood. Also, another Canadian writer Jessica Johns on her debut, Bad Cree.

American writer Sequoia Nagamatsu shares stories from his childhood growing up in Hawaii, his love of Star Trek, how environmentalism fuels his writing and how being Japanese American has shaped him. His debut novel is How High We Go in the Dark and he was a guest of the Perth Festival Writers Weekend.

 Bestselling British author Samantha Shannon celebrates women, love and desire in her latest fantasy novel, A Day of Fallen Night, Cate Kennedy takes a deep dive into the short story and Ronnie Scott on why he persisted with his second novel Shirley.

For Sydney WorldPride, we celebrate queer writers telling queer stories – the funny, the heartbreaking and the spooky. We’ve searched The Book Show archive to bring you highlights from Andrew Sean Greer, Val McDermid, Alan Hollinghurst, Jennifer Mills, S.J Norman, S.L Lim and Holden Sheppard.

A trio of books by women about bodies, ballet, grief and working mothers. Meg Howrey on They're Going to Love You, Inga Simpson on Kath O'Connor's posthumous debut novel Inheritance, and Dinuka McKenzie on the physical pain of being a breastfeeding mother returning to the police force. 

Indian writer Deepti Kapoor takes on corruption, wealth and poverty in India in her novel The Age of Vice, Michelle Johnston takes you deep in to the basement of the Perth hospital where she works and writes and American author Kevin Wilson's "book for prudish teens", Now is Not the Time to Panic.

Two very different crime fiction writers, Australian Indigenous author Julie Janson and Scottish writer Stuart MacBride imagine grisly scenarios in their books Madukka: The River Serpent and The Dead of Winter. Also Briony Stewart's re-imagining of Frente's 90s hit song Accidentally Kelly Street as a children's book. 

Bret Easton Ellis and Paul Jennings have been very successful writers for 40 years and although they're very different writers - Bret Easton Ellis is best known for American Psycho and Paul Jennings for his children's books - they both discuss how they've navigated the benefits and pitfalls of fame.

It's been 40 years since Tim Winton published his first novel, An Open Swimmer. Today he is the beloved writer of 29 books, a four-time Miles Franklin winner (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and an incomparable observer of the Western Australian landscape. For the Big Weekend of Books, he joined The Book Show's Claire Nichols and a live audience at the ABC studios in Perth.

Marlon James' African Game of Thrones, Markus Zusak gets your fanmail and Meg Mason's surprise success with Sorrow and Bliss.

Booker winner Douglas Stuart, Indyana Schneider and Omar Sakr explore queer love and identity in their fiction.

Writers (and bookworms) Craig Silvey, Tony Birch, and Dervla McTiernan talk about their reading lives, in this special episode recorded at the Perth Festival Writers Weekend.

Ruth Ozeki, Shehan Karunatilaka and Jennifer Down share the backstory to their award winning books.

Australian novelist Heather Rose lost her brother in a tragic accident when she was just 12 years old. In her memoir Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here, she shares how her grief and curiosity led her on a lifelong search for the extraordinary. Also, Wiradjuri activist-turned-author Yvonne Weldon on her love story Sixty-Seven Days and Thomas Keneally tackles a tricky subject in his historic novel Fanatic Heart.

City-saving superheroes, cheese-bingeing record store employees and a chemist turned TV chef with NK Jemisin, Katharine Pollock and Bonnie Garmus.

Booker winner George Saunders on his short story addiction, Inga Simpson on the great Australian cricket novel and pandemic fiction for kids.

Alex Miller and Patricia Cornwell talk about ageing and fiction and their novels A Brief Affair and Livid, and we explore the line between fact and fiction with historical novelists Jock Serong, Eleanor Limprecht and Sienna Brown.

Actor Joseph Paterson shines a spotlight on Black British history, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk's Ottoman Empire saga and Australian Fiona McFarlane goes in search of a lost boy in 1883.

Graham Norton, Diana Reid and Holly Throsby discuss why they enjoy writing about women in fiction. Graham Norton's fourth novel Forever Home is about a woman saying a slow goodbye to her partner (and wondering about a weird smell in the basement). Diana Reid's second novel Seeing Other People unapologetically explores the anxieties of young, educated women in Sydney and musician Holly Throsby's novel Clarke is partly inspired by the case of Lynette Dawson, who famously went missing from her family home in the 1980s.

Ian Rankin's detective John Rebus has been part of the literary world for 35 years and now his 24th Rebus novel has just landed, A Heart Full of Headstones. Discover the hard centre of Victoria Hannan's new novel Marshmallow and find out what an ear prostitute is with Singaporean writer Clarissa Goenawan's Watersong.

Barbara Kingsolver explains her connection to Charles Dickens and why her latest Demon Copperhead is set in Appalachia, USA. Sophie Cunningham's almost 20 year grapple with her latest book This Devastating Fever and apples, orchards and rabbits in Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott's third novel, Limberlost.

Shehan Karunatilaka is the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize for his book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. He spoke to The Book Show about setting the novel during the Sri Lankan Civil War and the importance of bearing witness to its horrors. 

Three literary superstars share the inspiration for their books and how to give a character a good ending: Holly Ringland, Elizabeth Strout and Jane Harper. They discuss their books The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, Oh William! and Exiles.

Former winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction Kamila Shamsie and Booker Prize-shortlisted author NoViolet Bulawayo reflect on the demise of dictators in their respective countries Pakistan and Zimbabwe and the impact this has had on their lives. Shamsie's new novel is Best of Friends, while Bulawayo has been shortlisted for her book Glory. Also, Australian author Chris Womersley revisits 90s haunts in inner city Melbourne for his gritty novel The Diplomat.

Finding joy in fiction with Pulitzer winner Andrew Sean Greer whose lovable character Arthur Less returns in Less is Lost and Craig Silvey's Runt, a book for children and adults young at heart. And the joy of being on the Booker Prize shortlist with Shehan Karunatilaka whose satire The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is set in 1989 during the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Can a book predict the future? AM Homes' latest novel The Unfolding follows a group of Republicans who plot to take over the government, but Homes says it was written well before the January 6th Capitol riots. Meanwhile, the oldest-ever Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Alan Garner evokes an enigmatic and mysterious world in his book Treacle Walker, and Tracey Lien's impressive debut All That's Left Unsaid explores the death of star student in Cabramatta's Vietnamese community.

Shortlisted Booker author Percival Everett kicks off our Booker Prize coverage with a discussion of The Trees and former Booker winner Ian McEwan reveals that his latest novel, Lessons, is his most personal work and certainly his longest.  Also, Jay Carmichael explains how he went beyond the archive for his second novel, Marlo, on gay relationships in 1950s Australia.

Maggie O'Farrell says her latest novel The Marriage Portrait came to her in "a lightning bolt moment". The book honours the short life of the 16th century Duchess Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici, who was rumoured to be murdered by her husband. Also, Australian author Robert Drewe's resurrection of the sporting hero you've never heard of in Nimblefoot and Zaheda Ghani's debut Pomegranate and Fig, a book that's been in her mind since childhood.

American humourist Sloane Crosley explores the dating scene in New York City, but with a twist, in her novel Cult Classic. Also, Neela Janakiramanan takes a break from her hospital rounds to tell you about her Australian medical drama The Registrar and Siang Lu takes on kung fu, comedy, and the history of cinema in The Whitewash.

From growing up surrounded by homophobia in a small Tasmanian town to getting married in 2021, award winning comedian and now writer Hannah Gadsby shares what it is like to be queer, autistic and at the top of her game.

Author of Room, Emma Donoghue questions the zealotry of monks in her latest novel, Haven, set on an inhospitable island in 7th century Ireland (Star Wars fans will recognise this island too!). Also, Pirooz Jafari on his gentle novel, Forty Nights, about war and displacement, and Grace Chan imagines a future dominated by virtual reality in Every Version of You.

It's been 40 years since Tim Winton published his first novel, An Open Swimmer. Today he is the beloved writer of 29 books, a four-time Miles Franklin winner (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and an incomparable observer of the Western Australian landscape. For the Big Weekend of Books, he joined The Book Show's Claire Nichols and a live audience at the ABC studios in Perth.

Women's Prize for Fiction winner, Ruth Ozeki, is also a Zen Buddhist priest and explains how this practice shapes her writing. Also, British crime writer, Ann Cleeves sets her tenth Vera novel, The Rising Tide, on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne where Christianity first came to the UK.

For ABC Arts Week, we celebrate literary events at your local bookstore with a couple of conversations with Irish Australian queens of crime. 

Bestselling author of Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, Liane Moriarty, shares stories from her childhood and how growing up in a big family influenced the theme of sibling rivalry in her latest book, Apples Never Fall. This conversation was recorded at the Castlemaine Town Hall, Victoria, for a joint event between the Castlemaine State Festival and The Wheeler Centre.

Jessie Burton wasn't finished with the main characters in her bestselling debut novel The Miniaturist and returns to the 17th century Dutch setting for the sequel, The House of Fortune. Also, we visit Torres Strait Island writer and advocate for the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Thomas Mayor, at his home in Darwin and Sulari Gentill explains the origins of her playful metafictional crime novel, The Woman in the Library.

Ahead of the announcement of the winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia's most prestigious book prize, join the shortlisted authors Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Michelle De Kretser, Jennifer Down, Alice Pung and Michael Winkler to find out about their writing rituals, the importance of place in their fiction and how their novels speak to Australia now.

British author Benjamin Myers says he likes to be on the margins as a writer and his latest novel, The Perfect Golden Circle, is about the crop circles that appeared in 1989 in the English countryside and explores the type of people who created them. Also Ceridwen Dovey and Eliza Bell explain their genre-bending book, Mothertongues and Noongar author, Claire G Coleman's mysterious and unsettling book, Enclave, set in a walled Australian city.