Cassie McCullagh

It's really fascinating and it does actually drive the plot.

I thought that worked.

Margot Lennigan, does this pique your interest?

Audrey Shulman's Theory of Bastards is published by Europa Editions.

And what about your to-be-read pile from each of you?

What are you either partway through or you want to read next?

Margot Lanigan.

Well, that is an unexpected third on that list.

Felicity Castagna, what are you planning to read next?

And of course, he shares the shortlist with you for the Miles Franklin Awards, which will be announced, I think, on the 26th of August.

Yes, that's right.

Very soon.

Let's meet one more reader here on the bookshelf.

Khalid Wasami is a Melbourne writer and arts producer who was fiction editor for the Lifted Brow and co-director of the National Young Writers Festival.

He's currently working at the Fitzroy Community Arts Centre, which has a truly astonishing number of arts and writing projects.

Well, I asked him about the books that had shaped him, and I should add that I spoke to him before the recent death of V.S.

Naipaul, who comes up in the conversation.

Khalid, let's take a step back from the work that you're doing now, because what I want to ask you about is the role of books and reading in your life.

How have they shaped you?

Can you remember particular books that really had a huge impact on you as a kid?