Ocean Vuong's dazzling follow up to his debut On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Charlotte McConaghy's urgent Wild Dark Shore and David Malouf reflects on a life of writing.

The Emperor of Gladness is the latest novel from the Vietnam born, American-based writer Ocean Vuong who made his name with his 2019 novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. His new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, takes you to a forgotten, rundown town in Connecticut called East Gladness which is a place of overgrown lawns and trampled weeds, of potholes and roadkill. Ocean shares why he thinks his latest book is self-indulgent (and that's ok), how he came to writing from business school and why his mother never knew that he dropped out of college to study literature.

A small family lives on a remote island, the father a caretaker for the world's seeds. Then in the rising seas, a woman is washed up to shore. Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore is a mystery, a story of love, and a warning.

Now at 91, David Malouf tells Claire Nichols about the place of fiction in his life and what it means to reissue three collections of poetry: An Open Book, Earth Hour and Typewriter Music.