Alan HollinghurstEvery podcast appearance, updated as new ones drop

The Bookshelf's Kate Evans and the Book Show's Claire Nichols joined forces onstage at the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival — with a panel of international writers — to talk favourite and influential books from the 21st century, in the lead up to the inaugural Top 100 Books countdown of the twenty-first century. This live broadcast happened in May 2025 — with Emirati poet Afra Atiq, English chronicler of gay lives, Alan Hollinghurst, Argentinian purveyor of all things dark and surprising, Mariana Enriquez, and New Zealand novelist with a dystopian edge, Catherine Chidgey. This discussion was first broadcast live on Friday 23 May 2025 For more details of the final Top 100 Books of the 21st Century countdown, follow the link here BOOKS MENTIONED in this program ALAN HOLLINGHURST Alice Munro, Runaway David Szalay, All That Man Is Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang Bryan Washington, Lot Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These; Foster MARIANA ENRIQUEZ Cormac McCarthy, The Road Dennis Cooper, The Sluts Jorge Luis Borges, works Horacio Castellanos Moya, Senselessness CATHERINE CHIDGEY Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking John D'Agata and Jim Fingal, The Lifespan of a Fact Melissa Lucashenko, Edenglassie Anna Smaill, The Chime OTHERS Paul Lynch, Prophet Song Kate Grenville, The Secret River Sarah Winman, Still Life Markus Zusak, The Book Thief Melissa Lucashenko, Too Much Lip Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch Ann Patchett, Bel Canto Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words Trent Dalton, Lola in the Mirror Robbie Arnott, Limberlost Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonder Min Jin Lee, Pachinko Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse CREDITS • Presenter: Kate Evans, Claire Nichols • Producer: Kate Evans, Sarah Corbett • Sound engineer: Emrys Cronin, Hamish Camilleri, Harvey O'Sullivan • Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

What books have shaped the 21st century so far? Recorded live at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival, literary heavyweights Catherine Chidgey (NZ), Mariana Enriquez (Argentina), and Alan Hollinghurst (UK) swap favourites, challenge conventions, and dive into the fiction and non-fiction that’s made a mark—and sparked debate.

Best known for his thought-provoking explorations of sexuality and identity across generations, British author Alan Hollinghurst rose to international stardom after his 2004 novel The Line of Beauty was awarded the Booker Prize. In his seventh novel, Our Evenings , Alan adopts the memoir format, offering a delicate meditation on memory, loss, and the passage of time. On this episode of Read This , Alan discusses his life and career and reveals why this book is as close as he will get to writing a memoir. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Best known for his thought-provoking explorations of sexuality and identity across generations, British author Alan Hollinghurst rose to international stardom after his 2004 novel The Line of Beauty was awarded the Booker Prize. In his seventh novel, Our Evenings, Alan adopts the memoir format, offering a delicate meditation on memory, loss, and the passage of time. On this week’s episode, Michael is joined by Alan on Zoom to discuss his life and career and why this book is as close as Alan will get to writing his own memoir. Reading list:The Swimming Pool Library, Alan Hollinghurst, 1988The Folding Start, Alan Hollinghurst, 1994The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst, 2004The Sparsholt Affair, Alan Hollinghurst, 2017Our Evenings, Alan Hollinghurst, 2024 Theory and Practice, Michelle de Kretser, 2024 You can find these books and all the others we mentioned at your favourite independent book store. Socials: Stay in touch with Read This on Instagram and Twitter Guest: Alan Hollinghurst

Check out the Richard Crouse Show on NewsTalk 1010 for March 31, 2018! This week Richard welcomes Alan Hollinghurst, author of the bestselling “The Sparsholt Affair.” From www.penguinrandomhouse.com: “From the winner of the Man Booker Prize, a masterly novel that spans seven transformative decades as it plumbs the complex relationships of a remarkable family. “In 1940, David Sparsholt arrives at Oxford to study engineering, though his sights are set on joining the Royal Air Force. Handsome, athletic, charismatic, he is unaware of his powerful effect on others—especially on Evert Dax, the lonely and romantic son of a celebrated novelist who is destined to become a writer himself. With the world at war, and the Blitz raging in London, Oxford exists at a strange remove: a place of fleeting beauty, of secret liaisons under the cover of blackouts. A friendship develops between David and Evert that will influence their lives for decades to come.”Alan Hollinghurst’s sweeping new novel evokes across three generations the intimate relationships of a group of friends brought together by art, literature, and love. We witness shifts in taste and morality through a series of vividly rendered episodes: a Sparsholt holiday in Cornwall; eccentric gatherings at the Dax family home; the adventures of David’s son Johnny, a painter in 1970s London. Richly observed, emotionally charged, this dazzling novel of fathers and sons, of family and legacy, explores the social and sexual revolutions of the past century, even as it takes us straight to the heart of our current age.”