Nicole Abadie

And, of course, then life imitated art in October when we had the great brouhaha this year about the government's decision to allow Racing NSW to advertise a $13 million horse race on the sails of the Opera House.

Now, that was all happening just as Christina's book was released, which gave it

a particular timeliness.

But leaving that to one side, what struck me about this book was the sheer beauty of the writing and the beauty of her conception of the opera house and this hymn or prayer to artistic endeavour.

It's an absolutely beautiful book and I'll be giving it to quite a few people this year.

I did.

It was one of my favourite books of the year as well.

And what really got me was the moral dilemma at the heart of it.

If you knew that your husband was

was in jail for a crime that you knew he hadn't committed, but you knew that he would be in jail for 12 years, would you wait for him or would you start a relationship with someone else?

And I thought that the portrayal of each of the three characters and their perspectives was very strong.

No, it dropped off the short list, which was a surprise, particularly given that this year Michael Ondaatje won that prize, the Golden Booker.

for the booker of all bookers.

There are two books that I'm really looking forward to reading next year.

One is called Adele, and it's by the French-Moroccan writer Lely Slimani.

I loved her book, which came out this year, Lullaby, published in the US as The Perfect Nanny, about the nanny that kills the two children.

I gather this one's completely different, but I loved the writing in Lullaby, so I'm looking forward to that.

The other one that I'm looking forward to speaking about science fiction is Ian McEwan's latest.

It's called Machines Like Me.

It's coming out in April and it's about a couple who get involved in a love triangle with an artificial human that they have created.