Hear This 19th December 2025

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:18):
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take
a look.

S2 (00:33):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Francis Kelland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia Library radio show, where
we talk about books in the Vision Australia collection. We've
got a good array of books today, and I do
hope you enjoy the show. Let's start off today's show
with the Christian Romance book. This is a treasure concealed

(00:57):
by Tracy Peterson, set in 1890s Montana. Emily Carver wants
a home where she can put down roots instead of
following her gold hungry father from one mining camp to another.
She also longs for tenderness and love, both of which
are missing in her life. Yet when she realizes she's
losing her heart, the intriguing new man in camp, she

(01:18):
fiercely fights her feelings, afraid that love will only result
in disappointment and heartache. Cade and Thibault, a young geologist,
comes to Montana to collect minerals indigenous to the state.
He's a serious and guarded young man trying to escape
the pain of his past. He has avoided all romantic entanglements,

(01:39):
fearing he might become like his abusive father. But something
about Emily Carver has caught his attention, something he never expected.
Will these two broken souls allow God to bring healing
and hope to their hurting hearts? Let's hear a sample
of A treasure Concealed by Tracy Peterson. It's narrated by
Melissa Hurst.

S3 (01:59):
Montana, late August 1895. Mama Emily Carver whispered the word
as she opened the door to her parents bedroom. Her
mother looked peaceful. Her ragged breathing punctuated the otherwise silent house.
Giving Emily confidence that her mother was only sleeping and

(02:23):
hadn't passed on. Closing the door with great care, Emily sighed.
She knew her mother's illness was terminal. The doctor had
told her father it was probably only a matter of
weeks before she would die. But he couldn't tell him why.
Emily felt a tight clenching in her throat. Tears formed,

(02:46):
but she blinked them back. She would have a good
cry later when her work was done, and she could
slip off to be alone. All of her life she'd
had to be strong and now was no different. Her
unconventional upbringing amid the mining towns of the West had
taught her to be tough and fearless. Well, almost fearless.

(03:11):
She feared her mother's death. I don't know what I'll
do without her. How would she ever manage without her mother?
How could she keep her spirits up without mama to
talk to? Throughout the years of her father's dragging them
from one gold strike to another, mama had always been there.

(03:33):
And even though the last few years had proven to
be too much physically for her mother to bear, Emily
cherished her wisdom and comfort. It was impossible to imagine
enduring this life without her, but mama never really wanted
me to continue with this kind of life. The thought

(03:54):
did nothing to comfort Emily. Many had been the time
when her mother had encouraged her to break away from
the family. She had high hopes of Emily marrying and
having a home. And God knew Emily longed for such things.

S2 (04:09):
And that was a sample of a treasure concealed by
Tracie Peterson. Tracy is spelled t a I t a
Peterson is p e t e s p e r s.
And that book goes for ten hours and 15 minutes.

(04:31):
This is part one in the series Sapphire Brides, and
there are many Tracy Peterson books in the collection. And
there are different series. There's love on the Santa Fe again. Um,
historical romance fiction. Heart of the frontier. Uh, heirs of Montana.
So there's so many series that Tracy Peterson has embarked on.

(04:54):
There are 49 of her books in the library collection. Uh,
so a rich source there of lovely romance set in
America and historical and just a bit about Tracy Peterson.
She was born in 1959, and she's the an American
author of Christian fiction, and she's often called the queen
of historical Christian fiction. She writes many historical novels with

(05:16):
romantic and Christian faith based themes in them. And thank you, Jeanette,
once again for requesting some of those religious fiction books.
Now to, um, a recommendation or no, not a recommendation.
It's more just a reminder. Thank you to Janine for
letting me know that it was Jane Austen's 250th birthday

(05:37):
on the 16th of December, just passed. So again, if
you wanted to borrow any of her books, even her rare,
lesser known works, they're available in the library. But I
thought I would play a sample of this particular book.
It is the Jane Austen Memory, and it's by Ruth Wilson.
As she approached the age of 70, Ruth Wilson began

(05:59):
to have recurring dreams about losing her voice. Unable to
dismiss her feelings of unexplainable sadness, she made the radical
decision to retreat from her conventional life with her husband
to a small sunshine yellow cottage in the Southern Highlands,
where she lived alone for the next decade. Ruth had
fostered a life long love of reading, and from the

(06:21):
moment she first encountered Pride and Prejudice in the 1940s,
she had looked to Jane Austen's heroines as her models
for the sort of a woman she wanted to become.
As Ruth settled into her cottage, she resolved to reread
Austen's six novels and rediscover the heroines who had inspired
her to read between the lines of both the novels

(06:42):
and her own life. As she read, she began to
reclaim her voice. This is a beautiful, life affirming memoir
of love, self-acceptance, and the curative power of reading. Let's
hear a sample of The Jane Austen Remedy by Ruth Wilson.
It's narrated by Jenny Seedsman.

S4 (07:00):
I was approaching 60 when questions about what it means
to be happy assumed a special significance in my life,
setting me on a new path that led to a
careful rereading of Jane Austen's Six novels on a crisp
winter day in 1992, I was sitting in my car

(07:20):
waiting impatiently at a traffic light. Without warning, the red
circle started to spin crazily and again without warning, I
was hurtled into a vortex of incomprehension. I managed somehow
to make my way home and climb the stairs to
my apartment, where I lay in a darkened room for

(07:40):
24 hours. The following day, the condition was diagnosed as
many as syndrome. The symptoms include hearing loss, nausea, and vertigo.
The experience was disconcerting and left me shaken. But more
disconcerting still was my experience a few weeks later at

(08:01):
a surprise party that had been arranged for my birthday.
I entered a room to find 60 people covering their
faces with shining silver masks. I realized that behind the
masks there were many good friends and loving members of
my family. But as they clapped and cheered, I was

(08:22):
overcome by a strange antipathy. As the scene dissolved into
a silvery nightmare, I felt like a character in Jean-Paul
Sartre's novel nausea. Overcome by a sensation that was palpably
physical and eerily metaphysical too, I was shifting in and

(08:43):
out of my body as I went through Austenian notions
of civility and courtesy. I greeted guests and made conversation.
I responded to kind words. But I was in some
place else. I was watching myself and wondering who I was.

S2 (09:04):
And that was the Jane Austen Remedy by Ruth Wilson.
Ruth is Ruth. Ruth Wilson w I o. w s
o n, and that book goes for eight hours and
45 minutes. We have another book here. That is another
book of self-discovery and going on a journey. This is

(09:26):
by Australian, um, writer Heather Rose. The title is Nothing
Bad Ever Happens Here. A deeply personal collection filled with
reflections on love, death, creativity and healing from the award
winning author of Bruny and the Museum of Modern Love.
It occurred to me that nothing bad ever happens here.

(09:47):
Every human life is perfect in its own way. We
cannot understand that because it seems like there is so
much suffering. But maybe every life is perfect for we
need to know and learn and see and understand. Even
when we don't understand. Even when the suffering seems unfathomable.
Does some part of us understand? Could that really be true?

(10:07):
I wondered, after a shocking family tragedy transforms Heather Rose's
Tasmanian childhood, she becomes a seeker of life and all
its mysteries. Heather has spent a lifetime testing boundaries and
exploring the connections between love and death, the natural world
and the body. Her questing spirit and her strong affinity
with nature have inspired and driven her throughout her life,

(10:31):
and deeply sustained her in times of darkness. Her words
will bring wonder, light, and comfort to all who read
this astonishing book. Let's hear a sample of Nothing Bad
Ever Happens Here by Heather Rose. It's narrated by Heather Rose.

S5 (10:47):
Here is where memories begin. My mother is on a ladder,
watering the roof of our orange brick house with a hose.
The house is newly built and overlooks a wide blue river.
I live on an island at the end of the world.
Just a week sailing from Antarctica. Though I do not
know this because I am only two and a half

(11:09):
years old. I do know, however, that my mother, standing
on a ladder and watering the roof is not a
normal thing. I hear her gasp. The forested hill behind
us has become a wall of flames. A ridge of
leaping red and amber spiraling up into billowing clouds. It

(11:30):
is the 7th of February, 1967. The wind blowing across Tasmania,
birthed in the lizard heat of central Australia, has become
a firestorm. Travelling at more than 130km an hour, dropping
millions of sparks. There is no Rural Fire service in 1967,

(11:51):
nor a volunteer service. There is a small fire station
over the hill, but it has only limited equipment. I
am delivered to the home of our neighbours down the street,
while my mother retrieves my two older brothers from school.
A goat, a sheep and chickens are in the neighbour's
laundry in their lounge room. I sit beneath a clothes

(12:13):
horse and breathe in the scent of drying linen. As
I eat a delicious oatmeal biscuit. By 3 p.m., the
sky is black and the city of Hobart has emptied.
The temperature is 40 degrees. Across our sylvan state, there
are flames hundreds of feet high, fireballs, exploding gum trees,

(12:34):
roaring winds, melting roads. The power is out and communications
are down. My dad is home early from work. He
and a friend go to fight a fire nearby, using
sax to beat back the flames.

S2 (12:48):
And that was nothing bad ever happens here by Heather Rose.
Heather is h e a t h e h e
a t h e rose is r o r o.
And a couple of books were mentioned there that she
has also written, which are fiction. Bruni, which won the

(13:10):
Best General Fiction award for the in the 2020 Australian
Book Industry Awards, and the Museum of Modern Love won
the 2017 Stella Prize and the Christina Stead Prize, and
both of those books are available in the library collection.
Now to a couple of murder mystery books by Australian authors.
The first one is five found dead and this is

(13:33):
by Solari Gentle. When Meredith pen Vale and her writer
brother Joe step aboard the iconic Orient Express, they're embarking
on a journey steeped in both luxury and mystery. The
train A Literary legend, is a bucket list destination for
detectives and writers alike. But as the train winds through
the Italian Alps, a sinister undercurrent begins to emerge. A

(13:58):
virus has infiltrated the train in Paris, trapping its passengers
and cutting them off from the world. Then a passenger vanishes,
leaving their cabin a bloody crime scene. Suddenly, the idyllic
journey turns deadly. Joe and Meredith find themselves trapped with
a motley crew of detectives, each with their own secrets
and agendas. As the body count rises and the trend

(14:21):
speeds towards its destination, the siblings must unravel the mystery
before they become the killer's next victim. Let's hear a
sample of five found dead by Solari Gentle. It's narrated
by Catherine Luttrell.

S6 (14:35):
It is 9 p.m. at guadalest. The evening is that sharp?
Kind of cold that makes you gasp and then immediately
regret the intake as frigid air cuts into your chest.
The travellers waiting on the platform wear long coats over
evening gowns and dinner suits. Larger bags are carried away
by young men who are unremarkable on the streets of

(14:58):
the city. Smaller cases valises are taken from their owners
by white gloved stewards wearing the conspicuous blue and gold
uniform of the Orient Express, unchanged in style for a century.
Most people remove their face masks so they can take
photographs of themselves, with the midnight blue carriages in the background.

(15:20):
The face mask recommendation has been in force only for
a couple of days in response to a spike in
infections of the latest Covid variant. But of course, it
does not apply inside the train or for a quick photo.
An official party greets excited passengers as they are checked
in at the polished wood lectern, set up for the
purpose and shown to the length of red carpet that

(15:42):
leads to the appropriate coach door. They pose for more
photos in front of the train, bright eyed and smiling.
Most are in couples or larger groups, but there is
one man who appears alone. He walks with a stick,
though he seems too young and stooped to have been
crippled by any of the usual complaints of old age.

(16:04):
His hair is dark and parted precisely on the left
in quiet French. He thanks the steward, who finds his
name on the passenger list and takes his luggage. Behind
him a man and a woman. The man is Publishing's
latest blue eyed boy, a literary sensation.

S2 (16:25):
And that was five found dead by Solari. Gentle Solari
is spelt s u l a r I s u
l a r I is g I g I. And
that book goes for seven hours and 50 minutes. It

(16:46):
was added to our collection very recently, November 2025, and
there are many books by Solari Gentle in the library.
I interviewed her a few years ago now. She was amazing.
She was about to embark on a tour with four
other Australian mystery writers to do some talks in bookshops
and libraries around Australia, and also going to America. Her

(17:09):
earlier books were a series, the Rowland Sinclair series of
books Starting in Australia in the 1930s, featuring Rowland Sinclair,
who is a wealthy part of the Melbourne establishment. He
has interesting and eccentric friends, and he solves mysteries, and

(17:30):
Solari always cleverly um, researches the times in which she
sets her mysteries. So in Australia, 1930s, uh, mounting political
tensions are fuelled by the Great Depression. Australia is on
the brink of revolution. It's a Rowland. Sinclair is sort
of drawn into this world and the current events of

(17:51):
the time, and the series has about nine books in it,
and they're all available in the library. Solari gentle is
a Sri Lankan born Australian author, also known under the
pen name of SD gentle. She initially studied astrophysics before
becoming a corporate lawyer and has since become a writer.
And she says, I began writing on a whim with

(18:11):
no idea what I was doing, just with the feeling
that I should be doing something more. My background is
in the legal profession. I worked in the corporate sector
for large public utilities and to be honest, I thought
I quite liked being a lawyer, but it wasn't quite enough.
The next book is another new release, This is the
Butterfly Women by Madeline Cleary. It's 1863, and Melbourne is

(18:34):
transitioning from a fledgling colony to a thriving, gold fueled metropolis.
But behind its shiny new facade, the real Melbourne can
be found in the notorious red light district of Little Lon,
full of brothels where rich and poor alike can revel
all night. The most glamorous among them is Papillon, home
to the most alluring women in the city. For poor

(18:56):
Irishwoman Joanna Callahan, a job at Papillon could be her
ticket to success. But in a time when women's lives
are cheap, it also brings great danger. Meanwhile, for respectable
women like journalist Harriet Gardiner, Papillon is strictly off limits.
But when a murderer begins stalking the streets of Little Lon.
She becomes determined to visit it and find the truth.

(19:19):
As both women are drawn into the hunt for the killer,
a long hidden side of Old Melbourne is revealed. Lush,
dark and meticulously researched, The Butterfly Women weaves romance and
mystery into an unforgettable tale of Australian history and the
women so often erased from it. Let's hear a sample
of The Butterfly Women by Madeline Cleary. It's narrated by

(19:42):
Joanne Van ESS.

S7 (19:44):
The rats pink nose twitches, its teeth sharp and red
eyes gleaming as it sniffs the prone body of Joanna Callahan.
Her blood mixes with the entrails of pigs recently slaughtered
down an alley south of Little Lonsdale Street. When Joanna startles,
the rat, darts up the side of a crumbling wall

(20:05):
and along the fence that marks the end of the
butchers and the start of the motley lanes of Little Lon,
a hunting ground for rats and men with shaking hands.
She traces the swelling around her cheeks and eyes, running
her tongue along a row of cracked teeth. She presses
her ribs, feeling again the butcher's blows, smiling because she's

(20:29):
sure she shattered the bastard's nose. Her gaze on the
butcher's door. She mouths the well known words of one
of Granny Flannery's curses. Bad cess to you. May you
never prosper. May you fade into nothing like snow in summer.
A southerly moans and little lorn shivers. Closing her eyes,

(20:52):
Joanna succumbs. Dying is not so bad. 19 years old.
One dead babe. Lying. Forgotten in a faraway place. At
least there will be no more pain. When she enters
his heavenly gates. No more shame, no more burning ambition.
How did she fall so far? A distant bell strikes twice.

(21:17):
She opens her eyes. The stars still shine. And shouts
and cries emanate from another raucous night in the back slums.
She should call for help. But then she has become
part of the filthy fabric of this lane. The mud
and entrails, her cushion, the wide sky, her blanket, the stench,

(21:38):
her perfume and the flickering stars. Her entertainment.

S2 (21:42):
And that was a sample of The Butterfly Women by
Madeline Cleary. Or Madeline or Madeline is spelled m a
d e e m e l e I n e.
Cleary is c e a c e a r y.
And that book goes for 11 hours and 20 minutes.

(22:05):
Meticulous research was mentioned, and to tell the stories of
these butterfly women, Cleary drew on the documented accounts of
women who mostly hailed from Ireland and England to create
all her female characters, which, um, adds a lot of
social history knowledge to this book. Let's finish today's show
with a good laugh. And this is Adam Hills and

(22:27):
his memoir, Best Foot Forward. Adam Hills was a quiet
primary school kid with a prosthetic foot who did all
his homework and only spoke when spoken to. But when
he did speak, he made sure he was funny. His
love of comedy started early on, listening to the likes
of Peter Sellers and Mel Brooks with his dad. By
high school, while his mates were listening to Iron Maiden

(22:49):
and AC DC, he was listening to Kenny Everett and
Billy Connolly whilst they snuck off to meet girls. He
snuck off to see a young Jim Carrey perform. His
first stand up open mic night was on his 19th birthday.
Adam shares all these stories from his early gigs with
Steady Eddie and Jim Owen, how he coped the first
time he died on stage, his early morning apprenticeship in

(23:11):
radio to touring the world's comedy festivals. The Magic of
Spicks and Specks, hosting the 2008 Paralympics and his hit
UK TV show The Last Leg. This charming and witty
memoir by one of Australia's biggest comic personalities offers a
lesson in following your heart hard work, staying positive and
discovering that what makes you different also makes you unique.

(23:34):
Let's hear a sample of Best Foot Forward by Adam Hills.
Its narrated by Adam Hills.

S8 (23:40):
When I first told my mum I was going to
try stand up comedy, she simply said, but you're not funny.
It just made me all the more determined to do it.
She hates it when I tell that story, but I
can see why she did it. As the words left
my mouth, I'm sure she had visions of me chucking
in my university degree, forgoing my plans to become a journalist,
and winding up celebrating my 40th birthday, rummaging through a

(24:01):
mini skip for a candle. For the record, I did
finish the degree. My dreams of journalism were put on hold,
and I celebrated my 40th birthday by watching Toy Story
three in 3D with family and friends. Maybe at 19,
comedy was my way of rebelling against my parents. Not alcohol,
nor drugs or even girls, but comedy. The most addictive
vice of them all. It is ironic, really, since comedy

(24:23):
had always been what bound us together as a family.
If you were to ask me when I was at
my happiest as a child, I'd say it was sitting
in the car with my mum, dad and younger brother Brad,
listening and laughing along to comedy tapes. Whenever the school
holidays rolled around, we'd pile into our beige. Although dad
swore the colour was Sahara Tan Ford Fairmont with the

(24:44):
pinstriping up the side and begin the four hour drive
down the coast from the southern suburbs of Sydney to
my grandparents house in the seaside town of Churros Head
in New South Wales, home to around 2000 residents. Churros
head gave the world Eva Mylott, an internationally acclaimed opera
singer of the early 1900s, whose grandson went on to
become an internationally acclaimed actor. You may have heard of

(25:06):
Mel Gibson. There is also a rumour that the parents
of flee from the band. Red Hot Chilli Peppers now
reside in Churros Head, and that occasionally he can be
spotted at the bar of the local golf club. You
can recognise him because he's naked with a three wood
cover over his willy. To Australians, our holidays were nothing
out of the ordinary, but to British people they were
the most Australian thing anyone ever did. Ever. When my

(25:30):
dad's parents retired, they left Sydney for churros and a
four bedroom, two storey brick house built specifically to be
invaded sporadically by their children and grandchildren. If you walked
out the front door, cross the road and followed the
street for ten minutes, you had a choice of beaches
at which to spend your day. There was One Tree Beach,
so named because it was overlooked by a headland with
one tree on it, Rock beach. It had lots of

(25:52):
rocks around it and Whale beach. A whale once died there.

S2 (25:56):
And that was best foot forward. And Adam is Adam
Adam Hills h h I l s and that book
goes for eight hours and ten minutes. Thank you for

(26:20):
joining us on Hear This today. Oh, getting close to Christmas. Um,
if you would like to recommend any books, if you
would like to remind me of an anniversary, as Janine
did about Jane Austen, or if you would like a
particular type of book to be talked about more, you're
always welcome to, uh, ring the library or send in
a request by email or in a letter. The phone

(26:42):
number for Vision Australia Library is 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or
if you would like to email, the email address is
Library at Vision Australia. Library at vision. Have a lovely week. Um,
whatever's happening this week for you, if you're preparing for

(27:03):
a big Christmas or you're just going to spend Christmas quietly,
I hope the week is lovely for you.