Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn sequel

The Book Show

One of Colm Toibin's most beloved books is Brooklyn and now he's written a sequel, Long Island.

Brooklyn was first published in 2009 and it's about Eilis, a young woman who leaves Ireland for America in the 1950s. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize, won the Costa Novel Award and was adapted to the screen in 2015. Now there's a sequel, called Long Island, (Picador) set years later in the 1970s when Eilis is again faced with a family dilemma.

Australian author Michelle Johnston takes you deep into the basement of the Perth hospital where she works and writes and which was the inspiration for the setting of her novel, Tiny Uncertain Miracles (first broadcast 6 February 2023).

And in the final episode of Banned Books, the focus is again on Iran but there's an Australian connection. Iran's Kafka like book censorship is causing authors to flee, including writer Shokoofeh Azar who now lives in Australia and is the author of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree which is banned in Iran.