The Bookshelf Madeline Cash: Lost Lambs + George Saunders: Vigil + new releases by George Kemp and Steven Carroll (REVIEWERS: Michael Robotham & Roanna Gonsalves)
Feb 6, 2026
54:20
Madeline Cash’s buzzy debut Lost Lambs pairs an off‑kilter storytelling sensibility with a sharp exploration of displacement and identity. George Saunders returns with Vigil, offering his moral curiosity in a novel that probes what it means to pay attention to the world. George Kemp’s Soft Serve delivers a charming and quietly affecting debut about growing up in a small town; and Steven Carroll’s The Afterlife of Harry Playford continues his investigations of history and memory.
BOOKS
Madeline Cash, Lost Lambs, Doubleday
George Saunders, Vigil, Bloomsbury
George Kemp, Soft Serve, UQP
Steven Carroll, The Afterlife of Harry Playford, Fourth Estate
GUESTS
- Michael Robotham is an international crime writer and former journalist whose books include The Secrets She Keeps, Good Girl Bad Girl, and his latest, White Crow. His next novel — his first to be set in Australia — will be published in October.
- Roanna Gonsalves is a writer and teacher of creative writing whose short‑story collection The Permanent Resident won wide acclaim. Her novel The Servants will be published later this year.
OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
- Kurt Vonnegut, works
- Joseph Heller, works
- Thomas Pynchon, works
- Jonathan Franzen, works
- Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
- DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
- Shaun Prescott, The Town
- Stephen King, works
- Liz Nugent, The Truth About Ruby Cooper
- Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
- Deborah Adelaide, When I Am Sixty-Four
- Tim Ayliffe, Dark Desert Road
- Katie Kitamura, Audition
CREDITS
- Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
- Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
- Sound engineer, Roi Huberman
- Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown