For the book, The New Torchlight List - In Search of the Best Modern Authors, Otago University Emeritus Professor of Politics Jim Flynn read and rated 400 books, mostly by modern novelists. In this episode of the RNZ podcast series based on his book, Wallace takes on Jim over Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries - too long, says Jim. Not so, says Wallace. Jim says Catton can write but she needs to get her talent under control - "too much good material". He says Janet Frame also could write "but a lot of it is spoiled by schoolgirl emotive prose". Among Australian writers Jim rates Thomas Keneally with Schindler's Ark, Peter Carey, and Hannah Kent - a writer with an impressive first novel, Burial Rites, that has won nine literary awards. "Watch for Kent's next novel."