Writer and poet Harold Coutts joins me in a quest to read half of the notable Booker Prize 2025 shortlist. We talk about why literary prizes can feel so intimidating, what we liked about each book, and make some predictions before the award ceremony on 10 November. Books mentioned in this episode: Flashlight, Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape) Audition, Katie Kitamura (Fern Press) The Loneliness of Sonia & Sunny, Kiran Desai (Hamish Hamilton) AUP New Poets 9, Sarah Lawrence, harold coutts and Arielle Walker (Auckland University Press) For My Lady’s Heart, Laura Kinsale – NOT Lorraine Heath, sorry (Berkeley Trade)

Journalist, tramper, and author Naomi Arnold channels the confidence of a white male CEO while discussing her latest memoir, “Northbound,” and reliving the experience of hiking Te Araroa trail and then writing about it. Books mentioned in this episode: Rocco, Sherryl Jordan (Scholastic) Descending Fire: The Story Behind The Stories, Sherryl Jordan (David Bateman Ltd) Feijoa, Kate Evans (Moa Press) No Words for This, Ali Mau (HarperCollins NZ) Surplus Women, Michelle Duff (Te Herenga Waka University Press) High Heels and Gumboots, Rebecca Hayter (HarperCollins NZ) The Book of Guilt, Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Ahead of Bookshop Day on 11 October, Claire is joined by Jo Dippie, proprietor of beloved Nelson independent bookshop Page & Blackmore, to talk book buying, matching the right story to the right person, and penguins. Books mentioned in this episode: An Inconvenience of Penguins: Epic Voyages in Pursuit of the World's Most Beloved Bird, Jamie Lafferty (Headline Publishing Group); Life Cycle of a Moth, Rowe Irvin (A&U Canongate); Hard-Case Heroes, Gerard Hindmarsh (Swamp Press); Up the Lake: The Story of Rotoiti, Annette Walker; The Compound, Aisling Rawle (Hemlock Press GB)