Take Home Reading is a new short-form audio series for readers and writers – shining a spotlight on Australian writers with recently released books. In each instalment, you’ll be introduced to a writer, learn a little about what they’ve been reading lately, and hear a short reading from their latest work.

In this episode we’re talking to Chris Flynn about his novel Mammoth, a playfully original and thought-provoking story about how a fossil collection of prehistoric creatures came to be on sale at a natural history auction in New York in 2007 (narrated by a 13,000-year-old extinct mammoth).

‘I do struggle with books that are deadly serious. And when I realised this book was going to be partially about climate change, and mankind's early influence on the climate at the end of the Ice Age, and how that has affected us ever since, I got a bit worried that it was all going to be very, very preachy … And so I wanted [Mammoth] to be a little bit lighter, a bit more humorous. I think it's a nice way to [engage people with] a serious topic – by making people smile about it.’

Mammoth is out now through UQP.

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