Cassie McCullough

Hello.

Oh, thanks a lot.

Always, Kate.

I mean, no jokes.

Of course we are.

Now, congratulations to Douglas Stewart for his novel Shaggy Bane, which won the Booker Prize last week, set in Glasgow, with a strong Glaswegian accent.

A young boy watching his proud, difficult mum drink herself stupid wine.

Yeah, we're talking about three books, one from Japan, one from America and one from England.

Also, a highly autobiographical novel from Ayad Akhtar about the state of America.

A lot of chat about this one.

It's called Homeland Elegies.

Yeah, I loved it.

I thought it was really great because it was this experience of a woman's growing up and becoming an adult while working in this convenience store.

And when someone walked in, for example, she'd know whether they were going to pay with real money or by card or she'd know what they'd choose, whether they'd have a little bit of lunch from the specials shelves.

And it

She obviously was on the spectrum, but she lived her entire life through observing and being part of the way this store ran.

Yeah, her sister's a bit of a rat, actually.

But it had me from hollow because the first few sentences of this are beautiful as they are heading up to Arkashina.

Deep in the mountains of Arkashina where Granny and Grandpa live, fragments of night linger even at midday.

As we wound our way up steep hairpin bends, I gazed out the window at the swaying trees, at the undersides of the leaves, so swollen they looked as though they could burst.