Shaun Micallef gets silly

Well, your book, Diath Makes a Holiday, a lot of it is kind of making fun of the whole idea of a book.

So at the start, for those who haven't read Diath Takes a Holiday, it actually takes, I think it's 13 pages to get to the start of the story because we have an author's note, we have a note on type, we have a preface, we have an introduction, and we have a prologue.

So you can't get started too soon.

No, I think you've got to warm the audience up.

I think that on stage and in television and in film, there's got to be some way that you get to know the character, and in this case, get to know the author's voice.

So for those who didn't know me from TV, the book is an opportunity to get a fair idea that, okay, so this guy's... satirising the whole idea of a book.

So that's okay because we've read books before.

I see what you're doing.

That's interesting.

So by the time we get to the start of chapter one, which I don't think, it's probably the introduction actually, by the time we do get to chapter one, I think I might be over 20 pages in.

Then they're ready for that particular, they're ready, they've got an idea of the tone.

Yeah.

You've actually settled us in.

I think so.

And then at the end of the book, it's not really the end.

No.

Because there's another 25, 30 pages of additional reading.

And for no apparent reason, the author description at the end is upside down.

Yeah.

Yeah, they dropped the ball at the end, those publishers.

Can you read the note on type from the start of the book?

I'd be delighted.

I'll read the note on type to you.

That way I'm not giving anything away, you know.

No spoilers in this.