Andrea Goldsmith's The Buried Life - and a train steaming towards disaster . . .

Kate and Cassie read three new works of fiction, with the help of two guest reviewers: a novel of ideas, death, love and music, in Australian writer Andrea Goldsmith's The Buried Life; a real train derailment from the 1890s hurtles together rail workers, coffee sellers, anarcho-feminism, art and typewriters in Irish-Canadian writer Emma Donoghue's The Paris Express (read with historical novelist Natasha Lester); and rocknroll choices, career crises and friendship in Australian YA author Claire Zorn's first adult novel, Better Days (read with doco maker and academic, Anna Broinowski).

BOOKS

Andrea Goldsmith, The Buried Life, Transit Lounge

Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express, Picador

Claire Zorn, Better Days, Atlantic Books

GUESTS

Natasha Lester, historical novelist whose books include A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald, The Paris Seamstress and The French Photographer. Her latest novel — her ninth — is The Mademoiselle Alliance, and it was published last week

Anna Broinowski is a documentary maker, memoirist and academic at Sydney College of the Arts. Her books include Datsun Angel: A true-story adventure inside the savage heart of 1980s Australia and Please Explain: The rise and fall and rise again of Pauline Hanson. She also works on the films of North Korea and the impact of deep fakes

Other books mentioned in the discussion:

Sarah Wynne-Williams, Careless People

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep

Cameron Stewart, Why do Horses Run

Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk

Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest

CREDITS

•    Presenter: Kate Evans, Cassie McCullagh

•    Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett

•    Sound engineers: Emrys Cronin, Simon Branthwaite

•    Executive producer: Rhiannon Brown