Ambition, Rage, Gothic Hunger: New Novels from Min Jin Lee, Louise Kennedy and Catherine Chidgey

In American Hagwon, the bestselling author of Pachinko, Min Jin Lee, explores family, education, ambition and the long shadow of economic upheaval, set between Seoul, Sydney and California. Louise Kennedy's Stations offers a tough and deeply felt Irish family story, while Catherine Chidgey's The Starving Bride turns hunger into a strange gothic performance. Kate and Cassie are joined this time by regulars, novelist and academic Professor Tony Birch and critic and literary judge Beejay Silcox. And, as we count down to the Top 100 Australian Books, Frank Moorhouse's biographer Matthew Lamb reveals his top three. Books featured Min Jin Lee, American Hagwon, Fourth Estate Louise Kennedy, Stations, Bloomsbury Circus Catherine Chidgey, The Starving Bride, Penguin Matthew Lamb's Top 100 picks Forty-Seventeen (1988) by Frank Moorhouse Tourmaline (1963) by Randolph Stow Writer Reader Critic (1992) by Dorothy Green Other books mentioned Janet McCalman, Struggletown Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History The Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs and Djawa Burarrwanga, A Piece of Red Cloth Gretchen Shirm, Out of the Woods Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds