Reviews
Sunstruck is a searing read that makes you feel like you’re roasting in a European summer. Starting with a Saltburn-esque premise, Hunter’s characters move beyond a French chateau into London.
Exploring themes of masculinity, desire, power, class and sexuality, Sunstruck is great debut to add to the pile.
Sunstruck is the winner of the #Merky prize, which is Stormy’s imprint with Penguin.
Jenna with guest breakfast host Sam in the studio, listen to the full review below!
Suri delves into Yiyun Li’s memoir of grief after the tragic death of both of her sons. This one is a tear jerker.
She visited Milly and Tuva’a in the studio - listen below!
We Do Not Part, is Nobel Prize winner Han Kang’s latest novel. It starts with a curious premise: A woman, Kyungha, sets on a mission from Seoul to Jeju island on behalf of her artist friend, Inseon, who has badly cut her hand in an accident. The task is to feed her bird Ama before it dies.
A poetic and political novel, We Do Not Part ultimately traverses trauma, loss, reparations and the desperate need not to forget the past.
Jenna buzzed through to breakfast hosts Milly and Tuva'a in the studio to discuss. Listen below.
Suri has been procrastinating from her exams to read Booker shortlisted Elif Shafak’s There are Rivers in the Sky.
Following one drop of water from Mesopotamia to Victorian London to contemporary Turkey, Shafak’s lush writing has made her a favourite amongst our customers.
Listen to Suri’s thoughts on her call to the studio with Milly and Tuva'a below.
On the Calculation of Volume I & II are the first of a seven book series by Danish author Solvej Balle.
Following antiquarian book dealer Tara Selter as her 18th November day is caught in a groundhog time loop. These books are hypnotic, philosophical and we believe it will be a hugely followed series over the next few years.
Jenna joined breakfast hosts Milly and Tuva'a in the studio to discuss. Listen below.
Acclaimed writer, Tina Makereti, has just released her first collection of essays. Spanning 15 years of writing, this collection explores whakapapa, whānau, whenua, whare toanga & connection in the life of a writer.
Published by Te Herenga Waka University Press, This Compulsion in Us is on the shelf now.
Jenna called into the studio this morning, listen below for more.
Suri phoned into the studio this morning to revise a HUGE week at Auckland Writers Festival, including the Ockham Book Awards. Listen below for a great recap!
Jenna phoned into the studio this morning ahead of the biggest week in books for New Zealand.
The Auckland Writers Festival kicks of this week at the Aotea Centre. There are loads of events for the whole whānau, check out the programme here.
It’s also been a big week due to the hugely anticipated release of Catherine Chidgey’s The Book of Guilt, a compelling speculative novel, set in 1979 England. Perfectly plotted, full of twists and moral questions, this is set to be one of the biggest books of 2025 from one of New Zealand’s best authors.
Listen below!
Dominic Hoey's hotly anticipated new novel 1985 tells the story of a family on the brink of losing it all: their home, their lives, their sanity and their loves.
We follow the book's narrator, ten year old Obie who, along with his best friend and loyal sidekick Al, embarks on quests to find treasure and slay digital dragons to keep his family alive. Obie and Al face down dangerous criminals, pimply bullies and the looming threat of gentrification, armed only with their newly-found street smarts and gaming skills. Will
Told with an earnest love for its complicated heroes and their attempts to scrape together the resources to stay alive, 1985 is cinematic story-telling at its finest.
A must-read novel by one of Aotearoa's most beloved artists, 1985 will be launched at Goblin Bar on Thursday 8th May- come along and grab a signed copy!
George visited his old mates at 95bFM this week to talk about When the Going Was Good, the new memoir from former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.
At once a delightful chronicle of an extraordinary career, and a love-letter to the halcyon days of magazine publishing, this memoir neatly blends gossip and history.
Come for Carter’s juicy encounters with celebrities and politicians, stay for his moving reflections on the importance of investigative journalism and the unique beauty of the written word.
Listen at the link below.
Stag Dance is the latest outrageous literary offering by Women’s Prize shortlisted author Torrey Peters. Comprised of three short stories and a novella, Stag Dance writhes through genders and genres, refracting facets of gender through the light of romance, dystopia and classical Westerns.
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones is set in a dystopian future, following dealers in a black market for hormones who hawk their wares to the trans and cis communities alike. The Chaser follows a young teenager at boarding school in his early stages of a crush that warps into a dysmorphic desire. The titular central novella, Stag Dance is a gripping Western centred around an annual courtship ritual amongst timber pirates.
This irreverent, pulsing collection of short stories explores the messy underbelly of gender identity and queer desire with shocking nuance and no easy answers.
The best short story collection I’ve read in ages!
We have a book from the International Booker Prize longlist, the big prize for both authors and translators.
Perfection was written in Italian, but is set in Berlin. Following creatives Anna & Tom as they navigate life & search for meaning as Millennials in a changing city.
Other books mentioned on today’s episode:
No Words for This by Ali Mau
A Life Less Punishing by Matt Heath
See How they Fall by Rachel Paris
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Listen to Jenna’s review with Jonny, in the bFM studio, below.
Gregory Kan is an Ockham shortlisted author living in Poneke who has released two acclaimed poetry collections; This Paper Boat in 2016 and Under Glass in 2019. He's also a coder who's created an incredible text manipulator called leaves.glass.
Clay Eaters is an eagerly-awaited release by Kan. This is a book of fragments- strands that tenuously link the past, present and future.
Clay Eaters explores the ephemeral nature of our corporeal bodies; spectres springing forty from decaying ends. As all turns to ash and returns to soil, new life awaits birth in the subterranean.
This is an incredible collection of poetry spanning Singapore, Poneke and the US- a perfect morsel when a novel’s too long.
Over a decade since Time Out favourite, Swamplandia!, Karen Russell’s new novel The Antidote is here. Set in 1930’s Nebraska, in the time of The Dust Bowl, Russell weaves together history and magic to tell a tale full of rich characters, stunning writing and gives context to the effects of colonisation and the climate crisis. Highly, highly recommended.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Jonny, in the bFM studio below.
Told with caustic wit, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's long-awaited fourth novel, Dream Count, follows the lives and complex relationships between four Nigerian women.
Fans of Americanah will love Adichie's most recent return to fiction- a witty, funny and clever excision of womanhood and migration.
Adichie explores the moulding of desire, love and friendship and the cracks of tension that emerge via the stratas of race, class and geography.
Clever, poignant and deliciously readable Dream Count cements Adichie as a generational talent akin to Anne Tyler and Sally Rooney.
Jenna has so much book news, that we’ve dedicated this week’s segment to it.
First, the shortlist for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards has been announced. See the list of finalists here. The ceremony will be held on May 14th.
Secondly, a preview of names have been announced for the Auckland Writers Festival, with the full programme being release this Wednesday 12th March. Kaliane Bradley, Gavin Bishop, Yael van der Wouden, Ben Macintyre and Asako Yuzuki are just the start of an amazing programme.
Finally, New Zealand author Saraid de Silva’s Amma has been longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Listen to all the news & more below.
Fundamentally is a debut novel by peace-keeping specialist Nussaibah Younis.
Younis writes about a UN peace-keeping contingent based in Iraq and tells the story through the perspective of a criminologist specializing in deradicalization programmes.
A hilarious piece of auto-fictional satire, Fundamentally skewers the saviour industrial complex and contends with the tangled politics of international relations.
Told with caustic wit, Fundamentally is a funny, highly readable story sure to help any reader out of their summer rut!
Listen to Suri’s call with Jonny in the studio below.
Jenna & Jonny are in the studio this morning talking literary horror. Old Soul is a mysterious & unsettling tale traversing many countries on the hunt for a mysterious, dangerous woman.
For fans of David Mitchell, Stephen King and Mariana Enriquez, Susan Barker is the author of Time Out favourite, The Incarnations.
First released in the 1960’s, a new Daunt Books edition of Celia Dale’s A Spring of Love has been newly republished.
Esther, a 30 year old ‘spinster’, lives with her Gran and has little reprieve from her mundane routine. She soon meets & starts a courtship with Raymond, a man of artificial charm who weasels his way into her life.
Reminiscent of Mary Gatskill and Shirley Jackson, A Spring of Love is a gripping and hilarious psychological thriller which explores the loneliness and desire of women and the men who prey on them.
You can also listen to Suri’s review of Celia Dale’s previous book, Sheep’s Clothing here.
Abby gives you the low down on Star Gazers by Duncan Sarkies, a local read due for release this Thursday! If you're looking for a piece of fun and satirical fiction, Star Gazers is highly recommended. For fans of political intrigue, comedy and alpacas.
