Julia looks back on 2024
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There's nothing better than sitting with a real book and being able to crack the spine of a new book. And I hate people who dog ear pages, so I have lots of Aussie bookmarks and really enjoy using that for marking where I'm reading. There's nothing better than a book.

Hello and welcome to this year's final episode of a podcast of one's own. It's been a big year for us. As always, we have had an incredible raft of guests, from sports people to politicians, from authors to advocates, and we introduced our book club, which has been so much fun.

I've loved delving into some fantastic books with my fabulous co-hosts, Cathy Lett and Sarah Holland-Batt. And I want to take this opportunity to say a very big thank you to both of them for joining me this season and bringing such intelligence, warmth and humour to our conversations. I'm very excited to continue our book club in 2025.

For our last episode of 2024, I'm thrilled to be joined by my dear friend, Josephine Linden.

Before Cathy, Sarah and all of you joined me in our book club, Josephine and I were in a tiny book club of two. We have been friends for many years and we manage to catch up quite regularly, even though she lives in New York where she is a leader in financial services and she flies the Aussie flag high, especially by supporting young Aussie women who make the move to that incredible city.

Josephine is also a voracious reader. She certainly outpaces me and at the end of each year she shares her list of top fiction and non-fiction reads and you may have seen me put it in my social media in years gone by. But this year we're going one step further and sitting down together to talk about our top books of 2024 and the books we can't wait to read in 2025.

So Josephine, thank you so much for joining me from New York City. My first question, of course, is going to be, what are you reading now? Well, I've just finished reading the most exciting books this afternoon. It's Sunday here in New York.

But before I tell you that, let me just of all thank you so much for having me on this. I have been watching and listening to a podcast of one's own until you first started. And every single one of the sessions that you have done with so many different speakers has been interesting and articulate. And I've always learned so much from each one of those. So thank you on behalf of all your listeners for doing this podcast. And thanks for having me on today. That's very kind of you. Thank you, Josephine.

So what have I finished reading? I have decided that since we are almost into the holiday season, it is time to switch off. And I am into what I would call escapism, page turners, beach books. Some people will call it trash, but I will call it mystery novels. And so I have been really involved in reading books by Joel Dicker. And today was The Enigma of Room 222. And

which was written a couple of years ago. And it is a fascinating story of a hotel and a murder mystery. And until three quarters of the way through the book, we don't even know who is murdered. And so if anybody wants that kind of book, read that and also read The Affair of Harry Kibber.

I've read that one, The Affair of Harry Cuber, but I haven't read the one you've just referred to. So that's going on the summertime reading list. You've got to have some, you know, beach easy reads this time of year in Australia. I've just finished Robert Harris's new book, Precipice. He, of course, writes historical fiction and that name might be

ringing a bell in people's ears because he's being referred to all the time at the moment because his blockbuster book Conclave has now been made into a big new movie with all the stars in it and maybe this one will be at some point too. It's the story of Prime Minister Henry Asquith who

to and has a relationship with a socialite and aristocrat, a woman called Venetia Stanley. And, of course, Asquith was leader of the UK in the years leading up to World War I and the first couple of years of the war itself. And the letters that Robert Harris uses, the letters from the Prime Minister to the young woman, to Venetia, are

These are real letters. He's turned them up in a historical archive and they really tell a story of obsession and quite cavalier attitudes to secret information. So I found it a good read. You would have read Robert Harris in the past, Josephine? Yes.

I have. I loved Conclave. I loved Pompeii. And I love The Officer and the Spy. I mean, he really gets into historical novels, which I think is intriguing and really makes us always learn. If you can't learn something from a book, then there's not worth reading it. But I'll give you another book that I thought was really intriguing and totally different. And that is a murder mystery that occurred in, of all places, Macau.

And it's a book written by a man called Pete Rose. And it is, again, historical fiction, but it is actual factual. And it's all about the months before the start of the Pacific War, where John Reeves, who was sent as a British consul in Macau, and actually by mistake,

It was really started to be in there. And then all of a sudden came the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong and Singapore. And within six months, Japan had occupied, as we both know, most of Southeast Asia. But then the Japanese army got to Macau and they stopped.

and they left it alone. So from 1941 to 1945, Macau was actually an island of neutrality. It was almost like an Asian Casablanca. And this man, John Reeves, found himself the only Allied representative in thousands of miles of Japanese-occupied Asia.

I really enjoyed the book because it was historical fiction, but based very closely on a historical record and a huge amount of research and archives all over the world. And despite, I think, the hundreds and thousands of books about Second World War, this is the first time this story has been told. So The Good War of Consul Reeves, written by Peter Rose. Thoroughly recommend it.

That sounds fantastic. And we will make sure all of these get referred to in the show notes so people can pick through and see what they want to read. And I actually think faction is a good word because there are some historical fictions that are so accurate that you are learning the history even as you're following a rollicking story. And that is fantastic. How do you work out what to read next? What makes you pick the next book?

When I hear what you're reading, then I want to go and run and read it. When I see what the New York Times has recommended or the Wall Street Journal, I will get that. I've found that book reading is one of the most wonderful ways for making friends because everybody has read some book sometime, maybe 20 years ago, but it gives me a chance to really enjoy reading and it's an escape

But you escape by talking to people. And the more you talk to one person about a book, then somebody else will come back with another book. And so I just find it an extraordinary way of contacting with people and keeping in touch and with different people telling me their recommendations and then my recommending it. And it goes on and on.

Yeah, I agree with that. Well, obviously, I get a lot of my recommendations from you. I also look at the New York Times. And I find that I get on sort of reading jags. I read one book and then that leads me to a series of related books. This year in particular, I kind of started the year reading books

Hilary Mantel. It was called A Memoir of My Former Self. Of course, Hilary Mantel, a fabulous fiction writer. She famously wrote the Thomas Cromwell trilogy that starts with Wolf Hall and that's gone into many iterations in film. And

and a memoir of my former self was put together by her publisher. And it was all of these essays that she'd written. And she referred to a number of authors in those essays. And so that took me on this sort of spiral of reading authors she read, uh, cause I was such a huge fan of Hilary Mantel. And so I've been reading a lot of UK, um,

women authors from some time back, women like Elizabeth Jane Howard and Jane Gardham, particularly her old Filth trilogy, where Filth stands for Failed in London, Try Hong Kong. And they're all great reads.

And then I got on a French Revolution jag and read Hilary Mantel's A Place of Safety, which is set in the French Revolution. And I reread A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, of course. And then both of us got on a Booker jag. And what I mean by that is the books that were shortlisted for the Booker Prize were

And this year, amazingly, of the six books shortlisted, five were by women. So I said at the start, you outread me. And this is going to prove the point. Of the six books, I've read the five that were written by women. But of course, you've read all six. What did you think about the Booker shortlist? I thought it was terrific. First of all, the fact that it was five women. Secondly, there was an Australian on there.

Thirdly, they were all actually good. I've read previous book

short lists and some of them they're in a different planet now the winner actually literally was on a different planet and we can come to orbital in a minute but the reality is that they're not always enjoyable books and i think they may be good literature but i'm maybe not bright enough to appreciate the literature but in any case i don't really get into them um by the way do you know who next year's judge is going to be

No, I don't. What's the news? Well, this year's judge was one of the main judges with Edmund DeWall. As we know, he wrote The Hair with Amber Eyes, which was a wonderful book that you and I both enjoyed, and then wrote Letters to Commando, which was quite extraordinary. But next year's, for all you Sex and the City fans, is going to be Sarah Jessica Parker. This apparently has been a life dream of hers.

But she will be one of the three judges of next year. Do you think that they are trying to land some more popular fiction choices? Because I agree with you. I mean, I can't say I've always read my way through the shortlist. I most certainly have not.

But each year I've tended to pick a few and to read the winner. And sometimes you would have to say they were, you know, pretty, pretty labour intensive reads. Whereas this year, I like some of them more than others, but all of them very highly readable and

and maybe having, well, Edmund de Waal, of course, you know, The Hair with Amber Eyes is a beautifully written, highly readable book. So he knows what that looks like because he's done it himself. And maybe having Sarah Jessica Parker is about, you know, readability and profile. Yes, I totally agree with you. And each one of these books, actually, I had read

the one by Yale Vanderlode before it had been shortlisted. And I think that the ability to read these books and enjoy them this year was much better than previous years.

It was one, as you know, by Samantha Harvey, who wrote Orbital, which was extraordinary. It was basically following the lives of six international astronauts who were aboard a space station and orbiting Earth for a day during their nine-month mission. And the themes were very beautiful. There was connection, there was beauty, the fragility of life from the perspective of each of these astronauts.

I liked the fact that it was really a clear and intriguing viewpoint on different experiences and emotions. There were themes of connections, as you saw the exploration of human connection and isolation in space, and that resonated very deeply with me. And just the style of writing was glorious. And so I understand why she won it. It was beautifully written. It was an interesting story. And it was contained, and the emotions that came out of it were very deep and profound.

Yeah, and we should say to people, I think, I agree with all of that. And I think it's a book that very much responds to the current zeitgeist where we're all so anxious about what's happening in our world and politics and geopolitics and conflict and war. And to get the perspective of these astronauts looking, you know, from many countries on Earth, looking back on this one fragile globe where they're

about all of the connections of humanity because, of course, when you're up there in space, you don't see anything that looks like a national border. It, I think, sort of captured the mood of the moment. And we should say to people too, it is a slim volume. It's beautifully written, but it's a short book. So if you're looking for something to really escape into, if you can...

Lose the Relatives for just a few hours in an afternoon, you'll read your way through it. I, of the list, I actually enjoyed Creation Lake the best, which is a story about

about a woman who's a private spy, a mercenary in that sense, and her job is to go undercover into various organisations for private sector clients. And she goes undercover into a group in France which...

If you wanted to take the benign view, which is people who are interested in the environment and want to live an alternate lifestyle, if you took the more harsh view, which she and her employer takes, are potentially eco-terrorists.

And this group has a guru who lives in a cave and because she's intercepting all the correspondence, a lot of the book is actually the letters of this guru who's really asking some deep questions, particularly the question about what does it mean to be human? It's by Rachel Kushner. Did you like Creation Lake?

I did. I like the intrigue, as you say, following this woman, Sadie Smith, who was very clearly an American secret agent.

And it took me a while to get into, I will say. The first three chapters, I didn't know where I was going or what was happening. And then all of a sudden it went boom as she starts this sort of mysterious figure, Bruno, and she gets to know him and start talking about the different charismatic leaders. And then when it goes back in time to Bruno's family and how he came from and some of the descriptions, particularly I'm thinking of the description of when...

There was this German killing and they had to take the hat off. He took the helmet off and there were lice in there. And just the image of these lice wandering around this man's head was so graphic and so...

intriguing, as you sort of think it through. But I thought they really the themes of morality, the community, environmentalism, and particularly today's world was just beautifully done, very vivid writing, very descriptive style. And the plot was just fascinating.

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And of course, we should come to the Aussie because to have an Aussie woman on the shortlist is something to be incredibly proud of. And the book is Stoneyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. And I think I'm right in saying it's on its way to being a Netflix series or something like that. It's a very different book.

style of book in many ways. It struck me as particularly towards the end more a series of vignettes from life but the life that is being told is an extraordinary one of a woman who decides even though she is not devout, she is not a believer in God to go and live in a nunnery, a remote

country nunnery and, you know, to reflect back on her life and who she is. And a lot of the imagery of it is built around this hideous mouse plague and

that sweeps across the countryside, including through where they live and the mice eating everything. And there are very vivid descriptions of how it's not a few mice, it's thousands and thousands of mice are sort of eating everything in their path.

And it brings into it a fractured relationship from her past, a school relationship where there were some instances of bullying where she was unfortunately on the side of the bullies and she deeply regrets those moments. So it's a lot about the relationship between women and how women work those moments of tension through.

It took me a while to get into it. And once I got into it, I really got into it. The scenes with the mice were nightmarish. And I think she really dug deep into some of these very, again, very big issues of environmental and sort of the pandemic without making it feel preachy and forced. And so I enjoyed the way she did. I will say it took me time. It was what I would call a slow burn experience.

But the intensity started to build up and really got under your skin. And then this is what's so exciting about reading. It made me want to go back and learn more about Charlotte Wood. So I read The Weekend, which I enjoyed, and then The Natural Way of Things. And she won the Stella Prize for that. She's a wonderful writer. And I think this got a long way to go. So I'm excited to see what her next book would be. Hmm.

And we should whiz through the final three. So there was the safe keep, which is a story which is propelled by the events of World War II and the taking over of a home that was owned by a Jewish family by a

Another family and the children of that family really never been told the story about how it was that they came to live in a beautiful home with all of the things still there, the books, the crockery, the toys, everything. So this sense of how they had dispossessed that family grows through the book and sort of holds the storyline together.

Then there's Held by Anne Michaels, which is, I found it the most difficult one to read. It is a sort of spiral through history where characters have some connections, but you're learning about their lives. And I found it a more difficult read.

And then the last on the list, James by Percival Everett. I haven't read it all and you have, but it's really the other side of the Huckleberry Finn story, isn't it? It is. And I really enjoyed it. I was expecting not to because I did not realise, I didn't like Huckleberry Finn. I didn't like Tom Sawyer. And I've

I guess I didn't really understand them being Australian. They are clearly American classics, but they weren't my kind of classics. And so I didn't expect to enjoy James, but I loved it. It was innovative. The narrative was brilliant. He basically takes Jim, who was in Huckleberry Finn, and makes him James. And so you're basically following a man who was a slave and his journey to freedom as he tries to escape with Huck.

And it turns out, and this is a spoiler alert, but it turns out that he is actually related to Huck.

And so they're fighting against systemic oppression and they're trying to reunite and protect the family just before the Civil War. I thought by giving Jim becoming James a voice, it was sophisticated, was incredibly bitingly satirical. And the transformation really turned to me a character who has been seen through a very narrow lens into a much more realised individual with very strong thoughts and philosophical depth.

So I really thought that we were challenging what was a literary stereotype of looking at historical representations of black characters in previous American literature to sort of reconsider and turn it upside down. Think of it from the black person's life rather than the white person's life.

It was very good and it's worth reading, so I encourage you to read it maybe over the Christmas break. On that note, I would also encourage people, just in terms of the lives that people live, obviously James is a fiction but a true life story. I had the great privilege of interviewing June Oscar this year and her story of the start of her life and the family she comes from and her father, Ben.

being the station owner, a white man who has his own family and then effectively has a family with her mother, including June. But June and her mother and her brother are turned out of the station when the station owner's wife works all of this out and is angry about it. So just a real life story about...

race and the things that it shapes. So I definitely refer people to that. What did you think of the others? What did you think of the safe keep and of held?

I really enjoyed The Safekeep. It was a story, as you said, set just in World War II, but there are a lot of relationships. Who really was the two characters? Who was Isabel? Who was Eva? Isabel had a very emotional journey. She navigated a very lonely life, and then all of a sudden Eva arrives, and they didn't get on so well.

As time gets on, they both start to appreciate each other much more than they had in the past. And so you started to get a narrative which really was full of tension and symbolism from the house. And then, of course, the real story comes out.

I really enjoyed The Safekeep. I had read it actually before it got onto the Booker shortlist. I found the atmospheric writing and the complexity of the characters brilliant. I enjoyed understanding what Isabel was trying to do. She had a very lonely life, and then all of a sudden her brother finds a...

somebody to have a relationship with Eva, and that has disrupted poor Isabel's routine and starts to awaken suppressed feelings. And at the end of it, Eva and Isabel have a very strong relationship. And so this intricate portrayal of that relationship set against this very richly described backdrop of this house.

and then they find out what the house really is and the keeper of secrets and that's where you get the title of the safekeep. So I strongly encourage people to read that book. And The Held, that was my least liked. Okay, I think we're united in that then. I mean, I didn't get it. There's like, they go from French battlefields to Suffolk to Finland. Yes, it's a great poetry book, but I didn't get it. No.

Okay, well, I think we're agreed on that. So plenty to pick out of the booker list. The holidays are all about sharing with family. Meals, couches, stories, grandma's secret pecan pie recipe. And now you can also share a cart with Instacart's Family Carts.

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And I would hope we can say plenty to pick out of the book club titles and your fiction list, which you've put out this year. And they've got quite a few in common. So the books that we've talked about on the book club and which also appear on your list include, we've got, let me make sure we've got this right. You've put on the list,

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Alif Shafak, who, of course, I not only interviewed in the podcast, but we talked about her book. Blue Hour is one where I've had the opportunity to interview Paula Hawkins, and that's a podcast too. We...

Also discussed, you know, these are not on your list, but I know that you've read them, Wifedom, The Fraud. You did put The Sun Walks Down on your list, I think. The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane, yes. Yes. There's also The Wren, The Wren, Blue Sisters. You've read all of these. Talk about why you picked the ones that you picked as the best. Oh.

Well, before I do that, why don't I go to the books that I didn't include on there that you have mentioned. Wifedom was actually on my book list last year. I think Anna Funder, I love everything that she has ever written. I would just wish that she would write more. And Anna, if you're listening to this, write another book. Okay.

That's an instruction. But I thought it was wonderful. I mean, she really took a life that most people hadn't heard of with Eileen O'Shaughnessy, George Orwell's wife, and using newly discovered letters to explore her contributions to his work and the complexities of being a woman. I mean, it was just beautifully, beautifully written. So well done, Anna. Let's talk about The Wren, The Wren.

Okay. And let's talk about why I didn't include it. I have a true confession. I do not like Irish literature. I don't understand Irish literature. I'm Scottish, you're Welsh, we're both Australian. But let me tell you, I mean, I have tried. I read this year, I read Paul Murray's The Beasting. I read Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You? I read Intermezzo.

It's challenging. It's introspective. It's pessimistic. It's so depressing. Every Irish book talks about a family's struggles with economic ruin, personal crisis, and to me, it's emotionally taxing. I enjoy reading, but I don't want to get depressed. So I find that Irish works really romanticize suffering. I find it frustrating. And if you want to talk about The Wren, The Wren, go ahead, but it's never going to be my pick.

That's hilarious. And I think in many ways insightful. I know what you mean.

about a lot of Irish literature. But I think there are, you know, let me put it this way. You wouldn't want to read too much of it in a row, particularly over your summer holidays in Australia. I think that could put a depressing pall over what should be a beautiful blue Aussie sky. But I think to dip into it again,

the way I did with The Wren, The Wren. There's, you know, beautiful writing. Obviously, in that book, there's poetry. I thought there were some laugh out loud lines, particularly when they were musing about Australian animals and things that can kill you. And there are some truths there too. But I get why you've come to that decision.

So in our shared reading, I think we've had some different views. I know you were not particularly fond of Zadie Smith's The Fraud, whereas I really liked that book.

And interestingly, Cathy Lett, when we talked about it in the book club, was more sceptical of it than I was. And yet we're in furious agreement about some things like Rivers in the Sky, the Alif Shafak I know you loved as much as I loved. Well, let's start with the fraud. The first books that Zadie Smith wrote I thought were remarkable.

This one, there was just too much ambiguity and focus. I thought there was nuanced storytelling, but there were so many moments when the narrative just lost focus and I didn't understand what Eliza's journey. I mean, this was a story of a woman called Eliza Touché, who was a Scottish housekeeper.

and a cousin to a novelist, William Ainsworth. And what she's trying to do is understand the complexity of 19th century society and identity against the backdrop of a sensational Tishborne trial, which is actually factual. And that sort of questions the whole nature of truth and deception.

So I liked how Zadie Smith did focus on Touché, but what I couldn't really get was the connection between her personal story and the overarching themes of fraud and authenticity. She reminds me in so much of her writing like Dickens, but I think Dickens has a stronger paintbrush and she just seems to take that brush off too often without fully penetrating the

if I might just continue that metaphor. It's interesting you should mention Dickens. We did discuss him during the book club episode where we discussed wifedom because I went from wifedom, getting on one of my reading jags, to read a non-fiction book about Dickens

It was called Parallel Lives, and it certainly recounted how Dickens mistreated his wife. So there's a book to be written there. Maybe Anna Funder could write one from her point of view. That could be the next Anna Funder book. Anna, if you're listening, there's a suggestion there.

You also make suggestions on nonfiction. Just tell us a little bit about those because you've got an interesting list there and we're definitely putting your list out. I saw that you recommended the Nate Silver book, On the Edge. People probably...

Remember that name after the year that was because Nate is a well-known pollster in the US and he's moved on to being someone who talks in more theoretical, even philosophical terms about the nature of chance.

Well, as we all know, Nate Silver became famous through his FiveThirtyEight blog and correctly predicted two elections, not so much this election. And he's moved on, as you say. But he wrote this book about the art of risking everything. And what that really does is it explores sort of the mindset of risk takers in fields, including gambling and technology and ethics. He spends a whole section on talking about how to play poker.

So if anybody's going to Las Vegas, you should read the book because he talks about the difference between what he calls the Riverian, somebody who plays that river card, with the more cautious villagers, which I happen to be one of those. And he really examines the implications of those decisions on society.

I really enjoyed the insightful analysis and he gave a very good examination, which is what you'd expect from Nate Silver, of talking about risk-taking across so many different domains from playing poker to the financial world. And in my view, his writing style makes it clear, makes it accessible, easy to understand and makes very complex concepts easier to

and engaging for a broader audience. What I really like about him is he uses real live examples from sports to finance and illustrates how risk can lead to both successes and failures. So I would thoroughly recommend reading that book. Again, it's On the Edge, The Art of Risking Everything by Nate Silver. We should just say we are not encouraging people to go to Las Vegas and Campbell, but if you choose to do so, read the book first.

We obviously will put out the full list, but I just want to pick on one more of your non-fiction choices. I haven't read it, but the title certainly drew my attention. When We Cease to Understand the World. That's a title to conjure within the modern age. Can you tell us just a little bit about that book? Sure. This is a book written by a man called Benjamin Laboutit.

and it really explores lives of scientists who have made groundbreaking discoveries and at the same time advancing human knowledge. I found the characterisation of each of those writers and the scientists, how they added and led to sort of moral dilemmas and devastating consequences and took historical facts with fictional narratives and allowed us to reflect on scientific progress.

And with so much going on, and particularly in this country right now, it really did become intriguing. It put scientific development within the historical backdrop very impressively and added a tremendous depth to the narrative and enhanced the understanding of why those discoveries mattered.

Right, that sounds like a must read. I must admit, I didn't read that much nonfiction this year. I need to lift my game next year. But I would do a particular shout out to Claire Wright. Anything Claire Wright has written is worth reading. She tells us so much about Australian history, particularly from a feminist perspective. But her most recent work is about the

bark petitions which are on display in australian parliament house and she canvases the question how the people of yacala who brought the bark petition as a protest movement changed the course of australian democracy so i would certainly shout out to that book

And then looking ahead to 2025, Josephine, what are you looking forward to reading? I know I've got a few nonfiction on my list, having let the ball lapse on nonfiction this year. One's called Patriarchy, Inc. by Cordelia Fine, and she's a remarkable feminist author.

feminist academic and everything she's written about patriarchy, about how we understand masculinity and femininity. It's very science-based but very readable.

A mate of mine called Rebecca Winthrop also has a book coming out, The Disengaged Teen, helping kids learn better, feel better and live better. And all of my friends with teenage children, I think, are going to snatch that book up very quickly.

I'm kind of looking forward to, and I don't know what you think about this on the non-fiction side, I'm looking forward to all of the tell-alls which will inevitably emerge from the campaigns in the 2024 presidential election. I'm sure we're going to get

the inside story of everything. And I'll be keen to read those. Are there non-fictions you're looking forward to? Or have you mainly got fiction on your list for next year at this stage? Well, on my non-fiction, I am looking forward to reading The Elements of Marie Curie by Dave Asobel. I actually attended a session recently by our mutual friend Angela Saini

who interviewed David Sobel. And it's again, a fascinating story, just like we talked about with the science books about what the elements of Marie Curie were. And she really structures a book around the chemical elements that defined Curie's career, which to me seems brilliant. And also talks about what happened after her husband died. And that I think will be very intriguing.

In addition, I'm going to India next week. And so I am reading in my book, although I must say it's over 900 pages, it looks like, reading Mountain Shadow by Gregory David Roberts, which is a sequel to Shantaram, which I thought was a fabulous book.

a real vivid portrayal of Bombay and its rich storytelling. So I'm off there. So I think it's going to give me a sort of heads up of adventure, conflict and sort of the deep emotional journeys that one can see in India. Along with that, I'm also reading, I've got on my book list to read William Dalrymple's The Anarchy. Yeah, he does that podcast too, doesn't he? I think it's called Empire, which is very much worth listening to.

And on your fiction list, what are you really looking forward to? So I must admit, I haven't done that much research yet about what is coming out in 2025. But I am waiting for Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaughey. I read her two books this year. She, she

kind of weaves environmental uh research into her novels they're fiction i enjoyed both of them uh one is about a woman going in pursuit of uh birds uh the last migration of an endangered species of birds and one is the story of a woman when they're reintroducing wolves into scotland uh

And they are, you know, the science in them I think is robust, but they are fiction, but very, very readable. And she is Australian, so I'm really looking forward to that book. But I haven't done too much other research yet. I'm just going to let 2025 break over me and see what it brings, and it will inevitably bring your recommendations. So what do you think should be on the list, fiction-wise, for 2025? Yeah.

Well, I am reading Lola in the Mirror, talking about Australian books, which is written by Trent Dalton. So I just picked that up to also take with me. And then I'm going to read The Wide, Wide Sea by Hampton Sides, which is all about Captain Cook and his discovery of a country called Australia. So that's definitely in my pile of books to take with me. As you can tell, my luggage is going to be quite heavy right now.

And then I've also got a couple of Frederick Backman. Remember, he wrote the book The Man Called Of. So I have some of his short stories that I'm looking forward to reading. And then the one that I'm most looking forward to reading is where I started. And that's the Alaska Sanders affair by Joel Dicker. And that's around another murder mystery and the mysterious death of a man called Alaska Sanders. So that should be very interesting.

divisive last question. You're clearly not a Kindle person if you're lugging books. Actually, I am a Kindle person and I read it on my phone. So here I have all my books, but there's nothing better than sitting with a real book and being able to crack the spine of a new book and

And I hate people who dog ear pages. So I have lots of Aussie bookmarks and really enjoy doing it, using that for marking where I'm reading. There's nothing better than a book, but it's conveniently, you've got to take your Kindle. Yep. Yep. I'm a bit like you. I love a book book.

But life doesn't always enable me to have books with me because I'm travelling so much. And, you know, you want to be able to be in a position that if you finish one, you can download another one without trying to find a bookshop when you're travelling and all of that kind of stuff. And it does get to be a storage issue, the book books too. But there is something about the feel and smell and the artefact of a book that is hard to replace.

It sounds like it's going to be, for me, an intriguing summer of reading. Plenty to go on with out of this podcast. Plenty of Josephine Linden recommendations. And for you, an India voyage and a New York winter of reading.

And then we will see what 2025 brings with the Booker, with the Women's Prize for Literature in the UK, with the Stella Prize here in Australia, with recommendations from the New York Times and others around the world. So it's going to be a great period ahead.

Thank you for coming on the podcast and for this discussion. I definitely wish you and your family a very happy festive season. I wish the same to all of our listeners and I'm really looking forward to joining with all of you again in 2025 for the next season of A Podcast of One's Own. Thanks, Josephine. Thank you, Julia, and happy holidays to you and all your family and all my friends in Australia.

Thank you. A podcast of one's own is created by the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at the Australian National University, Canberra, with support from our sister institute at King's College, London. Earnings from the podcast go back into funding for the institute, which was founded by our host, Julia Gillard, and brings together rigorous research, practice and advocacy as a powerful force to advance gender equality and promote fair and equal access to leadership.

Research and production for this podcast is by Becca Shepard, Alice Higgins and Alina Ecott, with editing by Liz Kean from Headline Productions. If you have feedback or ideas, please email us at giwl at anu.edu.au.

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The team at A Podcast of One's Own acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Thanks for listening and we hope you'll join us next time.

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