Stephen Ramay

He is a remarkably gifted writer and also a nice bloke.

And it's also, David, prescient because in the headlines in only recent weeks we've been reading about the Tasmanian government and China and deals being knocked on the head, which is probably a good thing for the characters in the novel who don't want the deals to go ahead.

Well, looking to 2020, the book that a lot of people are going to be looking forward to is Hilary Mantel's long-awaited conclusion to the Wolf Hall series.

It's called The Mirror and the Light.

It's been a long time coming.

You know, she doesn't have great health and it is supposed to come out in the middle of next year.

As always with Hilary Mantel's novels, the challenge, which we know she will meet, is to get you interested in a book when you know what happens at the end.

We all know that Cromwell got beheaded, okay?

That's the end of the book.

But I bet you keep reading it to find out what happens and I bet as you're reading it you hope that he doesn't get beheaded.

The other one that I think will be hugely anticipated by people who go into places like Glee Books is Trent Dalton's second novel, which is called All Our Shimmering Skies.

Now, his first novel, Boy Swallows Universe, is one of the biggest selling literary novels in recent times in Australia.

and it's being made into a TV series and it's going to go on stage next year.

And Trent, being a journalist, an old-fashioned profession, didn't have to wait nine or ten years to write a second novel.

He just sat down and wrote a second novel.

And it's a completely different novel to Boy Swallows Universe.

I haven't had a look, but I know Trent.

And broadly speaking, it's about two women who go on an odyssey throughout Australia, I suppose mostly in the outback.

But given that Boy Swallows Universe came out, I think about 18 months to two years ago, to have the second novel...

out, and I believe it'll be out in June, well, whether the novel is good or not is going to be for readers to decide.