Jenna
Jenna chatted to Jesse Mulligan to chat exciting upcoming titles that are due later this year.
Kluge by Pip Adam (mid August)
American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee (end of September)
The Starving Bride by Catherine Chidgey (8th October)
On the Calculation of Volume V by Solvej Balle (mid November)
Listen below:
95bFM alumni Noelle McCarthy has published her second memoir. After the success of Grand, we now have Stakes: Dracula and the secret to happiness.: a book of vampires, family and booze, and a search for desire within the gothic. Set between Ireland and Aotearoa, this is a sensory, nostalgic read.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Milly below.
Jenna called from boarding the Waiheke Island ferry for a fill-in review of Douglas Stuart’s John of John. Listen below for boat toots & a chat with Nine to Noon’s Kathryn Ryan.
Jenna phoned into the RNZ studio today to speak with Susie Ferguson about Josh Silver’s Fruit Fly.
Anyone can write a bestseller. Go gay. Go Dark. Go Sad.
Josh’s first novel for adults follows Mallory, an author with severe writer’s block, begins to use the life of a young, drug addicted man as inspiration for her next novel. Silver says this book is about the appropriation of pain, but also questions authenticity and who can tell the story of a life that’s not their own. For fans of Yellowface, this this both fun and dark and completely compelling.
A recent visitor to the Auckland Writers Festival (and to Time Out) we have very limited signed stock on the shelf now. Listen below!
22 year old Cal has returned to the Isle of Harris, after studying on the mainland to live with his father and grandmother. A Scottish tale of returning home, painful secrets and living a truthful life from the author of 2020 Booker winning, Shuggie Bain.
Filled with artfully drawn characters and pure heart, Douglas Stuart’s John of John is sure to be a 2026 favourite.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Rosetta & Milly below.
The Valley is a groundbreaking work of reporting that follows a Hutt Valley defence lawyer and a pair of his defendents over a two year period.
A world where everyone is doing the best with what resources they have - capturing two men’s lifes filled with repetive petty crime and what social and societal factors led them there.
Emanuel’s writing holds humour, care and heartbreak and it won’t be often that a book like this will be published.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Rosetta below.
In preparation for the Auckland Writers Festival, Jenna talked about Lily King’s Heart the Lover & Writers and Lovers. These connected books are for writers, readers and romantics. Capturing the magic of early love in a pre-technoloical dating era - they are nostalgic, uplifting (whilst being sad) and deceptively simple.
You can book tickets to Lily’s session at AWF here.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Rosetta and Milly below.
Jenna reviewed Shana Chandra’s new novel Banjara on this week’s Loose Reads.
Published by Moa Press, the team behind Saraid De Silva’s Amma, this novel captures the tale of an indentured Indian, Avani, who leaves Rajasthan for Fiji in 1988 and her great-granddaughter, Meera, living in Auckland, NZ.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Rosetta and Milly below.
Jenna is in the midst of a stocktake storm, so phoned into the studio to chat John Lanchester’s Look What You Made Me Do.
When upper middle class couple Kate & Jack's private behaviour is displayed on a hit TV show, there seems to only be one answer - Jack must have had an affair.
This is a rip-roaring page-turner about class, privacy and generational differences. Ultimately, this is a great tale of revenge.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Rosetta and Milly below.
Party Boy is a Dunedin-based fever dream delving into the life of Marco, whose nerves are on the slow boil. A story of masculinity, trauma, memory, interruptions, and food.
Read Talia Marshall’s piece on Newsroom’s Reading Room here.
See Breton Dukes in these Auckland Writers Festival events.
Jenna called into the bFM studio to chat to Rosetta and Milly about Party Boy, listen below.
On RNZ’s Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan, Jenna spoke about Daniyal Mueenuddin’s This is Where the Serpent Lives.
Set in Pakistan over 50 years, post-Partitian, Serpent hosts a wide range of characters demonstrating a deeply ingrained feudal class structure that appears not to be able to be shaken.
Vividly told - in descriptions of place, expertly weaved characters and symbols of betrayal and culturally rich, this is an epically told fable, full of corruption, that leads to a truly electrifying final 50 pages. Great for readers who have recently enjoyed Kiran Desai’s Sonia & Sunny or Andrew O’Hagan’s Caledonian Road.
Jenna popped into the 95bFM studio today to chat about Elisabeth AKA Nurse Carla Easther’s debut novel, Seed. A character driven novel full of clever quips, holding humour alongside the heartache whilst capturing the lottery of fertility and the tension this can cause between friends.
Jenna also had a bunch of book news:
The International Booker longlist, specifically mentioning Women Without Men by Shahrnush Pasipur.
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlist being released this Wednesday, 4th March.
The Auckland Writers Festival Programme is being announced next week.
She also should have mentioned that the Women’s Prize longlist is also out this week. Phew!
Listen to the kōrero with Jenna, Milly & Sam below:
Leila Mottley was 19 when her debut novel, Nightcrawling, was longlisted for the Booker Prize. She returns with The Girls Who Grew Big, a story set in Florida following three teen mothers. Visceral and rich language makes for an excellent story.
Jenna phoned into the studio with Rosetta and Milly. Listen below!
Sean is a 48 year old poet, writer and reluctant bookseller, “A flaneur in utopia, with nowhere to flan”, in John Tottenham’s Service.
This is a book that dives into the perils and repetition of customer service, the writing process and the dreary reality of gentrification.
Think of this as Black Books set in LA.
Listen to Jenna, Rosetta and Milly below!
Today on RNZ’s Nine to Noon, Jenna chatted with Kathryn about three of her 2025 highlights: Helen Garner’s How to End a Story: Collected Diaries 1978 - 1998, Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection and The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (And his Mother) by Rabih Alameddine.
Listen below!
Jenna visited the 95bFM studio this morning to talk about Rejection, a book that Jia Tolentino says is “a thrill for the sickos among us.”
A dive into the darkest crevices of the internet and internet culture, this book is self aware, outrageous and outrageously funny.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Milly and Rosetta below. We also mention Bread of Angels by Patti Smith.
Jenna visited the 95bFM studio for the last time in 2025. She plotted together some book recommendations for Christmas with Rosetta and Milly. Listen below!
FOR FANS OF TIM WINTON’S JUICE
Flesh by David Szalay
THE UP-TO-DATE LIT READER
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
Helm by Sarah Hall
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and his Mother) by Rabih Alameddine
ROMANCE READER
Heart the Lover by Lily King
A TRAVEL BOOK
Michael Palin in Venezuela
FOR FANS OF KALIANE BRADLEY’S THE MINISTRY OF TIME
Moderation by Elaine Castillo
MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
Mana by Tāme Iti
Bread of Angels by Patti Smith
Night People by Mark Ronson
Chris Knox - Not Given Lightly by Craig Robertson
Jenna popped into RNZ’s Culture 101 today to chat with Perlina Lau to chat long books of 2025 as well as some category favourites.
Listen below!
Jenna visited the 95bFM studio this morning to talk about Laura Vincent’s (Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāpuhi) debut novel, Hoods Landing.
Four generations gather for Christmas, small-town gossip and tragedy, tarot cards and secrets are revealed in this funny and sharp ensemble tale.
If you’re going to buy any book this Christmas - this is the one! A local author, from indie publisher Āporo Press.
Jenna joined Milly & Rosetta in the studio to talk about Elaine Castillo’s Moderation.
You may have caught Elaine at the Auckland Writer’s Festival in 2019. Her new novel follows Girlie, a Filipnx American social media moderator in a Vegas-based, VR tech empire, Austen-esque romance genre bending novel. This is whip smart, entertaining and timely - for fans of Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time.
