Keridwyn Dovey

So you know how a musician can, someone who has perfect pitch can...

immediately know or recall a note.

He had the same thing but through his sense of smell.

So he could store smell and memory of smell and then recreate it afterwards in a way that was quite unusual.

But he, yeah, he was just wonderful.

Playful and joyful in what he did, but also very serious.

You know, he took it very seriously.

So one of the essays is actually about two bibliotherapists who work out of the School of Life in London.

They were the first people to kind of come up with the idea of

They knew Alain de Botton, who started the School of Life.

I think they knew him back in uni.

And they came up with this idea.

They had been sort of self-medicating with books their whole lives, like you and I do as well.

And they came up with this idea of actually doing reading prescriptions for people.

So one-on-one counselling sessions where somebody could tell them where they were at in their life, or maybe they stuck in a reading rush and then wanting to change what they read.

And then they would actually give them a prescription and they would come away with a whole new set of books to read.

They ended up coming out to the Sydney Writers Festival a few years ago and they did some beautiful sessions here, bibliotherapy sessions.

How do you feel though about somebody else giving you a prescription for reading?

Initially I was quite put off by it because I think I was too proud to take something like that on board.

I've always believed in sort of serendipity of how you find the next book that you read and actually Virginia Woolf was very evangelical about that.