Cassie McCullagh

James Jeffrey, also who works at The Australian, he wrote just recently a reflection, an autobiographical memoir called My Family and Other Animus.

Amazingly moving story about a divorce in his family and the kind of madness that goes with that, as well as all the hurt.

Previously, we saw also Tom Ducevic from the Australian write Whole Wild World, which was about his parents and his growing up with his parents who were Croatian refugees.

Now, that was just a year or two ago.

And the Fairfax writer, Tim Elliott, he wrote Farewell to the Father in that same period, too, about his father's mental illness and the extraordinary, beautiful recollection of that time.

And in a week or two, we're going to get another one of these.

Rick Morton, the journalist for The Australian, is releasing 100 Years of Dirt, which is a memoir of his very, very tough childhood, which was spurred by a moment where Mark Latham attacked him on Twitter as being a delusional elite.

And so he was invited by Melbourne University Press to write the story of his upbringing, which will certainly shatter that illusion of Mark Latham's.

So, yeah, just five books all in a row with these newspaper people writing very movingly about their childhood.

I'm calling it, it's a trend.

We might have a rather large difference of opinion next week, I think, Kate.

So make sure you join us next week for The Bookshelf.

I'm Cassie McCullough.

This is an ABC podcast.

And I'm Cassie McCullough.

And we're surrounded by books and, of course, readers.

Eclectic, messy readers whose passions range far and wide.

Who doesn't?

Well, also, American writer Barbara Kingsolver panics if she doesn't have a book with her and will even open one when sitting in her car at a red light.

I'm not sure that's legal.