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In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Irma Gold's novel Shift. Gusty and gripping, tender and deeply compassionate, Shift is a compulsively readable story about the messy process of art-making, and the mess of love and family. It is an unflinching, insightful and immersive novel that takes the reader inside the inner life of one township in South Africa, beyond the hyperbole of newspaper headlines, to offer bold, big-hearted hope. In the year of the 70th anniversary of the Freedom Charter which outlined the principles of democracy and freedom in South Africa comes a novel set in the township where it was signed. Shift asks us to examine both the world around us, and ourselves.

In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of the anthology, Someone Like Me. In the book, edited by Clem Bastow and Jo Case, 25 Autistic gender-diverse and women writers explore their experiences – and explode stereotypes. This groundbreaking anthology ranges from sex, living room dance parties and the natural world to eating disorders, all-encompassing passions and religion. Autistic people of all kinds are invited to find company in these pages – and maybe even see themselves, too. The book was launched by ABC Radio National’s Hilary Harper and the event featured readings from several contributors.

In this episode, a conversation with a Readings favourite, Diana Reid, author of the new novel, Signs of Damage. The Kelly family’s idyllic holiday in the South of France is disturbed when Cass, a thirteen-year-old girl, goes missing. She’s discovered several hours later with no visible signs of injury. Everyone present dismisses the incident as a close brush with tragedy. Sixteen years later, at a funeral for a member of the Kelly family, Cass collapses. The present and the past start to collide as buried secrets come to light and old doubts resurface. What really happened to Cass in the South of France? And what’s wrong with her now? A gripping tale of unravelling memories and moral ambiguities, Signs of Damage wrestles with the difference between understanding other people, and trying to explain them.