In today’s episode, from one of Australia’s most wryly funny writers comes an original and utterly hilarious memoir of reaching for the stars while lying in a ditch.

Robert Skinner arrives in Melbourne, searching for a richer life. Things begin badly and then, surprisingly, get slightly worse. Pretty soon he’s sleeping rough and trying to run a literary magazine out of a dog park. His quest for meaning keeps being thwarted, by endless jobs, beagles, house parties, ill-advised love affairs, camel trips and bureaucratic entanglements.

Sometimes a book catches the spirit of the times, and Skinner’s book I’d Rather Not is about work, escape and that something more we all need.