Our New Scientist Book Club has been reading Laline Paull’s Pod, a novel told from the perspective of a dolphin. This week our culture editor Alison Flood got to catch up with the author of the Women’s Prize for Fiction-shortlisted novel, and find out why she decided to write a story that initially felt too daunting, how she put together a scene she pondered calling “oceanic sex rave”, and why we should all care more about the treatment of our oceans.

Pod is the latest pick for New Scientist’s new book club, for which you can sign up here