Cassie McCullough

And I'm Cassie McCullough.

And fantasy colleagues, Kate, do I fit in that category?

Of course you do.

Although, Kate, over on our ABC Book Club Facebook group, my favourite name ever, one listener, Jennifer, said, I don't want to read about work.

I read to forget work.

It's been very successful.

I'm surprised that the doors to the ABC haven't been jammed shut by all the letters of complaint about that, but maybe that's one benefit of email.

Look, these two books that we're going to talk about, the contemporary Japanese one in translation, There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job, and this Australian one, which was written in 1993 but set in the 1950s in Sydney, The Women in Black, I think these are just two delightful books.

But before we get to the first one, which is Samara's novel, There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job, let's meet today's readers.

Richard Aidey is with us.

He's a Radio National colleague, no stranger to Radio National listeners, and also a presenter of The Money.

Richard, hello.

Now, as the presenter of The Money and previously Best Practice, you think about employment all the time, which is part of what these books are all concerned with.

Could you figure out why we invited you, dragged you into this program today?

This burnout with surgeons like yourself is quite a common experience.

Can you kind of give us just a little idea of what are the causes?

I mean, is it overwork?

Is it the culture of the colleagues or what?

Since then really you've been kind of rebuilding yourself how have you been doing that?

OK, well, let's get to this book.