Our tiny house is full of books. One wall of the hallway is lined with classics, plays and my great-grandfather’s dusty, old leather-bound books; along the other side are children’s books. The shelf next to my desk is filled with reference, writing and editing books. Favourites and newer titles live in the dining and lounge rooms. Then there’s a small, high shelf for special books, like my signed, first edition, hardback Richard Flanagan novels. We also have library books scattered around, and I’m always receiving overdue fines because I’m not very good at returning them.

I have three To Be Read piles on the table next to my spot on the couch. The first pile is a precarious tower of books that are ‘helping’ me write my novel in progress—lots of non-fiction and memoirs dealing with mental health and schizophrenia, and, for reasons not entirely clear to me, older books and poetry by authors including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath and Lewis Carroll. The second pile contains titles I’ve chosen for enjoyment—on the top are Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar, Hope Farm by Peggy Frew and Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold by Margaret Atwood. And the third pile is of books I’ve been lucky enough to receive as gifts from writer friends and publishers.