Alexander McCall Smith

He wrote a book on conservation, No Room in the Ark.

He became very interested in conservation towards the end of his life.

And he was an absolutely superb writer.

He wrote a book called A Late Education, which is exactly one of those books that you refer to

I have several editions on it in my shelves.

I recently got a beautiful new hardback edition which had been reissued.

And it's marvellously written.

He has a wonderful, balanced, quite sparse prose.

Just a magnificent, magnificent writer.

I'm rereading Moorhead in that a couple of months ago I reread A Late Education because this new edition had come out.

So I do go back and read him.

I mean, he's not a writer that one would be able to read to the exclusion of all others, because I forget how many books he wrote.

His novels were awful.

He tried to be a novelist, but he wasn't.

And so I wouldn't suggest that anybody tries to read his novels.

But starting with something like Late Education, he, I think, deserves to be rediscovered.

Certainly he deserves to be rediscovered in Australia because I think he was one of the best Australian writers of the 20th century.

And I think this new biography that Thornton McCamish published will help to get Moorhead re-evaluated.

And that's called Our Man Elsewhere.

Our Man Elsewhere, yes, by Thornton.