If there’s one thing that can rival Stephanie Alexander’s enthusiasm for food and cooking, it’s her delight in good conversation.

In fact, conversation has been front and centre in choosing recipes for her book, The Cook’s Table. ‘I want to be away from the table as little as possible, so I have kept last minute stovetop cooking to a minimum,’ Alexander has said. ‘I don’t want to miss the best stories. I am hungry for the latest news and opinions.’

The Cook’s Table is an especially personal collection of recipes and reflections, with Alexander revisiting memorable meals from her own life and travels in each chapter. There’s plenty there to draw from; over the course of 50 years, Alexander’s career has seen her open several celebrated restaurants as owner-chef, write 14 books including the modern-day cooking bible The Cook’s Companion and launch the pioneering Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, which has seen food education take off in school gardens across Australia.

In conversation with writer and food critic Larissa Dubecki, Alexander talks about her food, foundation and five-decade career. 

Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia.

Myths about the lives of pre-colonial Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have proven deeply entrenched. But in his 2014 book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe struck a grievous blow to one of the most widely accepted assumptions of Australian pre-settlement history. He argued, and presented robust evidence drawn from the journals of European explorers, that Indigenous people were not hunter-gatherers at the time of colonisation.

‘The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag,’ he has said.

Dark Emu, which won Book of the Year at the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, also challenges existing narratives around housing construction, cooking and clothing prior to European settlement.

In conversation with Tony Birch, Pascoe discusses the writing, research and reception of his groundbreaking book. What does challenging the past of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people mean for the present?

Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia.

Since 2013, with the international success of her debut novel, Burial Rites, Hannah Kent’s name is often mentioned in the same breath as that of Hilary Mantel or Geraldine Brooks; masters of literary historical fiction. Burial Rites, about a woman executed for murder in Iceland in 1830, was translated into 20 languages and won a swag of prestigious awards, including the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelist Award.

As the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal, Kill Your Darlings, Kent has worked hard to champion the work of new literary voices and continues to do so. Geraldine Brooks mentored Kent through the development of the Burial Rites manuscript; now Kent mentors emerging writers herself.

In her second book, The Good People, Kent returns to the 1800s, and to the northern hemisphere. The action is set in south-western Ireland and is again inspired by a true story.

In conversation with Kate Forsyth, Hannah discusses the revival of historical fiction, Australia’s literary landscape and her fascination with troubled women in cold climes.

Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia.