Bestselling author Lousie O’Neill explains why she decided to set up daily dates around the world, how it inspired her new memoir and her journey to acceptance around addiction.

*Listener/viewer note - this episode contains reference to eating disorders and disordered eating*

Louise grew up in Clonakilty in the heart of the rugged coastline of West Cork in Ireland. After stepping away from a career in the fashion industry, she returned home to dedicate her time to writing her first novel, Only Ever Yours, a dystopian feminist story which went on to win The Bookseller‘s inaugural YA Book Prize in 2015. This success was quickly cemented following the release of her second critically acclaimed YA novel, Asking For It, which was voted Book of the Year at the Irish Books Awards the very same year, and spent 52 consecutive weeks in the Irish top 10 bestseller list. In the decade that followed she’s written three novels for adults and a YA feminist re-imagining of The Little Mermaid, and has not one but two more titles being published this year. Her latest novel, Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone? came out in April, and her first memoir, A Bigger Life, is published this month by HQ.

Louise’s book choices are:
12:43 How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned from Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day
18:28 Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes
25:30 Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
35:14 The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
42:39 The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

You can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org – every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops.

Every week on Bookshelfie, Vick Hope is joined by inspirational women to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world, is run by the Women’s Prize Trust, the charity building a better future by championing women’s writing.

Don’t want to miss the rest of season nine? Follow or subscribe now!

This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

Diana Reid, the writer behind the new Sense and Sensibility adaption, explains to Vick how re-reading Austen taught her something unexpected and why she still cringes at the thought of herself as a writer.

Diana is a screenwriter and the bestselling author of the novels Love & Virtue, Seeing Other People, and Signs of Damage. Her debut Love & Virtue won several prizes including the ABIA Book of the Year Award. She was also named Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelist in 2022. Most recently, she’s written a new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense & Sensibility for Working Title and Universal Pictures, set for release in cinemas on 25 September starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles as the Dashwood sisters.
Diana’s book choices are:
06:00 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
16:23 The Secret History by Donna Tartt
23:51 Middlemarch by George Eliot
31:35 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
27:11 On Beauty by Zadie Smith

You can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org – every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops.

Every week on Bookshelfie, Vick Hope is joined by inspirational women to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world, is run by the Women’s Prize Trust, the charity building a better future by championing women’s writing.

Don’t want to miss the rest of season nine? Follow or subscribe now!

This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

In a first for Bookshelfie, Vick is brought to tears by bestselling author Katherine Rundell’s rousing speech on the importance of teaching children courage and not breaking faith with the beauty and love of the world.

Katherine’s novels for children have won the Waterstones Book of the Year, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Costa Children’s Book Award, among many others. In 2024, she was named the British Book Awards Author of the Year, and Impossible Creatures won the Children’s Fiction Book of the Year. She is a Fellow of St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and her books for adults include Super-Infinite, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize. The third installment of her Impossible Creatures series The Neverfear is out now with Bloomsbury.

Katherine’s book choices are:

06:02 Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
15:00 Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido
21:18 Emma by Jane Austen
30:09 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
37:50 Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood

You can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org – every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops.

Every week on Bookshelfie, Vick Hope is joined by inspirational women to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world, is run by the Women’s Prize Trust, the charity building a better future by championing women’s writing.

Don’t want to miss the rest of season nine? Follow or subscribe now!

This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.