Cassie McCullagh

See ya.

And I'm Cassie McCullough, and it's time for some shelf improvement.

This week, the latest books on offer from Australia, France and England.

Well picked, Kate Evans.

Thank you for putting that on our radar.

Now, prizes aren't everything, of course, but, well, maybe they are.

Lullaby by a French-Moroccan writer, Leila Slimani, has won the Prix Goncourt.

And also today, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gawar.

Now that is on the English Women's Prize for Fiction and it's in our stack of books for today as well.

He won the Miles Franklin Award in 1982 for Just Relations and again in 1994 for The Grizzly Wife.

It starts in Iraq.

In fact, in an American compound there, there's an explosion.

Two men are killed and one, an Australian, is critically injured, suffering dreadful burns.

His name is Adam Griffiths and he is only 19.

That's obviously a reference to Red Gum's song about the Vietnam War.

It has to be, I think.

But that's what he says to the doctor, the field surgeon who's treating him.

I'm 19 and I'm not out.

But although he's only 19, he is already married to Bridget.

And when he's brought back home in this very public way to Australia, we meet Bridget as well.