This is stupid, I know, but when I first sent in an unsolicited book review to ABC Radio National’s Book Show I didn’t realise I’d have to read on air. I almost pulled out when the producer told me over the phone that they liked the review and wanted to use it, then asked what day I was free to record. I swear I thought ABC staff read the copy, not amateurs like me. ‘Can’t I just write reviews and leave it at that?’ I asked the producer. ‘This is radio,’ she sighed. ‘We need sound.’

So in I went. And the producer turned out to be kind, skilled and smart. She taught me to slow down my speech, annunciate, sit up straight, project, and to keep my pecker up at the end of a sentence rather than letting it trail off. She told me to have fun while I read, and explained that banging the microphone and rustling pages in the background wouldn’t in any way amp-up the fun we could have. I know this sounds very mother-to-child, but it didn’t seem that way at all. Here are a few of the reviews I’ve done for ABC’s Book Show, without sound.