Johan Gabrielsen

I mean, it's such an amazingly strange book.

that the fact that it's about a pandemic relating to animals while we're being published at a time when we're in a pandemic relating to animals, that is actually not even the most interesting thing about this book.

That's how amazing the ideas are in it.

I don't think you do.

That was the, yeah, that was the final thing.

So I thought I really have to hook the reader at the beginning to give them something to care about.

I absolutely loved it.

And I'm Cassie McCullough and we're venturing both into the water and up onto the headland for a view of the coast today with Malcolm Knox's new novel, Bluebird, as well as Tim Winton's 2008 novel, Breath, which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award and was made into a film in 2018.

And to take us there, we have two beach dwelling readers.

So let's meet them.

Stu Nettle is a surfer and a surf writer who lives on the New South Wales coast at Thoreau.

He's both a writer and editor for Swellnet and a surfer.

Hi, Stuart.

Good to have you along.

Thanks for the invite.

Hi, Stuart.

Now, what is Swellnet and what makes it swell?

And by whatnot, you mean those pictures of girls in bikinis?

Oh, how times have changed.

I see.