Cassie McCullough

And Chris Flynn, I think it's Silver Spandex.

Yeah, that's right, Chris, is a novelist and critic whose latest book, Mammoth, is published by UQP and it combines climate fiction and talking fossils with very long memories.

So get reading and the bookshelf will be back next week where we're reading Andrew O'Hagan's Mayflies, for starters.

Bye.

Welcome back.

Thank you very much for that.

And I'm excited about next week's book club, which is going to be, Kate?

Yeah, so get reading if you haven't already.

There's a load of fantasy writers making cameo appearances in next week's program.

Raymond E. Feist.

Wow, that's a big name.

Christopher Paolini and Maria Lewis.

Kate?

OK, well, that's what we're doing next week.

This week, though, we have a lot of realist fiction around, including Sarah Moss's Summer Water, which is set in a rainy holiday camp in Scotland.

But let's start with Australian fiction and Jock Sorong's new book, The Burning Island.

Yeah, I've actually sailed just one fraction of the voyage that is the concern of this novel.

Now, it's set in 1830 and the central character is Eliza Grayling.

She's a 32-year-old sailor.

spinster she's too old she's too tall she's too stern she's sort of missed the boat sorry for the pun uh in the sydney colony marriage scene but not because she was really trying very hard in fact her life has been spent looking after her father joshua or lieutenant joshua grayling as he once was