Belinda Castles

Hi, Kate.

Happy to be here.

Well, I think in editing this book, I realised that there were a lot of answers to that question and they were not the same as mine.

But I think the first thing that comes to mind when I think about reading as a writer is a particular attentiveness to method and effect.

I think that you've always got one eye on...

How this book is making you feel and whether there's something there that you want to replicate.

I mean, this is reducing the method, but I think there's something, there can be something quite cold in the eye of a writer reader, a little bit mercenary that holds

hold some kind of respectful awe, but also you're always thinking about whether there's something you can steal.

I chose Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey.

I chose it because in a way it was my introduction to Australian literature.

I think it's clear from my accent that I'm not born and bred here, but I have had a lot of contact with Australia through my childhood because of family history and

And it became clear to me as I got older that I wanted to live in Australia, Sydney specifically.

I was completely in love with Sydney.

And Oscar and Lucinda is a book of 19th century colonial Sydney, and it conjures this city in all its sensory splendor and aggressive moods, as well as in its historical setting.

It seemed so alive to me.

I read it in my early 20s several times, and the textures of the language seemed to conjure just how visceral the experience of being in this city can be, particularly to me, perhaps,

That feeling is strongly evoked to somebody who's grown up in England and you're always used to what you know.

I was used to greenness, gentleness, steady rain.

And this was something wilder and brighter and the light was vivid to me and the smells of the harbour.

And it was a novel that I just...