The Hypothetical Bookshelf is a desert island discs for books. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s essay ‘Whom do we write for? Or The Hypothetical Bookshelf’ this is a podcast that asks writers what other works their writing is in conversation with, looking for the ways new work can make connections between different books on a writer’s and reader’s hypothetical shelf.  

Interviewing a different author each time, writers are asked to name five books of fiction or non-fiction that can be put beside their own on that imaginary bookshelf.