Wunderkind...literary it-girl...what's the verdict on Sally Rooney's new novel?

The Bookshelf

Many people have been awaiting the release of the latest book by Irish writer Sally Rooney (Intermezzo): what’s the verdict? Love, grief, growing up, playing chess, understanding and misunderstanding family: Kate and Cassie begin the show with this one, with additional input from millennial author Madeleine Gray (Green Dot). Also: under the sea with Richard Powers’ Playground; and searching the American South with Gayl Jones’ The Unicorn Woman, with guidance from historian Ethan Blue.

BOOKS

Sally Rooney, Intermezzo, Faber

Richard Powers, Playground, Hutchinson Heinemann

Gayl Jones, The Unicorn Woman, Virago

GUESTS

Madeleine Gray, critic and writer whose debut novel, Green Dot, was published in 2023 and is now being adapted for screen. Winner of the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year at the 2024 ABIAs

Ethan Blue, Associate Professor of History at the University of WA – where he specialises in histories of punishment, migration and incarceration. Author of The Deportation Express: A History of America through Forced Removal https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-deportation-express/hardcover

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDBonnie Garmus, Lessons in ChemistryReginald Rose, Twelve Angry MenMiriam Toews, Women TalkingJulia Langbein, American MermaidRosemarie Garland-Thomson, Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body Neil Stephenson, Termination ShockEleanor Catton. Birnam WoodZora Neal Hurston, There Eyes are Watching GodLangston Hughes, worksW.E.B. Du Bois, worksRichard Wright, worksElla Baxter, Woo WooAnne Carson, Eros the BittersweetPercival Everett, JamesIvan Chaar Lopez, The Cybernetic Border: Drones, Technology, and IntrusionFelicity Amaya Schaeffer, Unsettled Borders: The Militarized Science of Surveillance on Sacred Indigenous LandsFrederick Jamieson, The Political UnconsciousMargaret Drabble, worksThomas Hardy, works

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans + Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans + Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Harvey O'Sullivan + Simon Branthwaite
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown