Cassie McCullagh

What is it?

Well, toddler wins.

You're listening to The Bookshelf on RN or maybe via ABC Listen or some other kind of podcast catching device or mechanism or platform or app.

I'm here with Kate Evans.

I'm Cassie McCullough.

And also with us, guests Bernard Cohen and Liz Burski.

Now, a book by Rick Joukowsky.

I seem to remember that he was involved in that first ever International Man Booker Prize, which is not the standard one, but the one that can go to any writer anywhere.

really for any work that they've done over a period of time.

It was announced at the Sydney Writers Festival back in 2011 and the result was so controversial that one of the judges, Carmen Khalil, resigned in protest and it was because the other two males on this panel had chosen Philip Roth.

Yeah, and he also wrote that biblio memoir, Outside of a Dog.

You know, Kate, that happened to me.

I was on the back of a motorcycle on a trip one year.

We went down from Sydney to Tasmania and the whole way on the back of that motorcycle I had, you are my sunshine in my head.

So what I'm hearing from you both is that this book of Richard Kosky's is filled with quite unlikable characters.

That can be a very fine line for an author.

Sometimes you pull it off, sometimes you don't.

Is it possible he's written a very bad comedy?

Out the window, straight to the bin.

I can't bear it.