Cassie McCullagh

It's a beautiful show.

Thank you very much both of you for being our guests.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Now, just before we go to what we're talking about next week, right at the top of the book stack is Amanata Forma's Happiness.

And exciting, the latest winner of the Vogel Prize for Fiction, Emily O'Grady, will be joining us as a reader.

Oh, that's right.

The Finnish weirdness, I do remember.

Yeah, I'm Cassie McCullough and thanks for letting us help you out with your shelf esteem.

Look, I tend to read a lot of nonfiction.

And when I read fiction, it tends to be by American writers.

And I have a real love of

of short stories.

The most recent book I read was on a plane coming back from the States, and it was written by Nicky Meredith.

It was called The Manson Women and Me, and it was an examination of this woman's 25-year relationship with Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krinkwekel, if I pronounce that right, who were members of Charles Manson's family.

And so she consistently visited them in jail and observed their parole hearings and everything, and she was trying to

to come to terms with what causes your quote-unquote normal average person to commit such horrible acts of violence.

And it's partly successful, but the giveaway in that book is, you know, the Manson women and me.

There's a bit too much of Nicky Meredith.

and not enough of the Manson women for my liking.