Hear This 19th September 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 Frances Keeland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia Library radio show, where
we talk about books in the Vision Australia library collection. Uh,
this week we've got a great variety of books, including
a really interesting reader recommended, and I do hope you
enjoy today's show. Let's begin today with a reader recommended

(00:57):
from Bob. Thank you once again, Bob. Um, he's Canberra
book Group has met again, and The Kingdom of Dust
by David Dyer was greatly enjoyed. And discussion questions from
the publishers led us into a very lively discussion, this
epic reimagining of the 1969 lunar landing is highly recommended.

(01:18):
It takes those old enough to have a moment of nostalgia,
memories of sitting before black and white TV screens in
crowded classrooms. And Bob mentions, too, that the reading and
subsequent discussion of 11 books a year means that our
members are well practiced and thoughtful readers. And that's one
of the joys of, um, being part of a book group.

(01:41):
And most libraries run them, um, or community groups. Uh,
if you are interested, you should, um, investigate. And Bob's
been running these bookshops for a long time. Thank you. Bob. Oh,
and I should also mention you can always ring Vision
Australia Library to find out more about the book clubs
that they run as well. So give the library a

(02:02):
call because there's numerous opportunities to join different discussion groups
about the books. And thank you, Bob, for continuing to
enjoy the show and for giving such wonderful feedback in
the Kingdom of Dust by David Lloyd Dyer. The whole
world has just watched Neil and Buzz walk on the moon.
Now they are struck by terror. The lunar module's engine

(02:25):
has failed. There is no backup, no other way off
the surface. If the astronauts can't fix the problem, they'll
slowly run out of oxygen and die. This Kingdom of
Dust explores this harrowing scenario through the intertwined narratives of
three distinct voices buzz on the moon, his wife Joan,
back on Earth, and Aquarius, the journalist compelled to craft

(02:48):
a story he doesn't want to write. Marooned, buzz confronts
his fate with a mix of dread and awe. On Earth,
Joan wrestles with grief and sacrifice against the backdrop of
1960s America, a nation riven by war and seismic social change.
Caught between professional duty and personal turmoil, Aquarius soon discovers

(03:09):
that he will need all his skill to capture this
unfolding drama, and all his courage to follow it through
to its breathtaking conclusion with suspense and emotional heft. This
reimagining of an epic moment in history combines public spectacle
with private despair, reframing what the moon landing has meant
not only for the astronauts and those who loved them,

(03:31):
but for all humankind. Let's hear a sample of This
Kingdom of Dust by David Lloyd Dyer. It's narrated by
Tony Alvarez.

S3 (03:41):
Woman is born free and everywhere she is caged. If
she accepts her confinement, you might see sorrow or resilience
or even wisdom. But if she struggles against it. Ah.
It's then that you'll witness true miracles of strength and cunning.

(04:02):
So Ithought Aquarius, who in a contemplative mood on a
hot July day in 1969, was carefully watching one woman
in particular, her cage, he suspected, was one of the
strangest ever devised by history. For as she leaned against
a doorframe in her living room in Houston, her husband

(04:22):
was a quarter of a million miles away in a
spacecraft descending towards the surface of the moon. The landing
was imminent, and soon the spacecraft would enter the dead
man's zone. That phase of the descent in which it
would be too late to abort. From that point on,
the craft must either land or crash. And the woman

(04:44):
watched by Aquarius, must become either wife to a hero
or a widow. Poor woman. She was trapped in her
cage and the whole world was watching. Before this day,
he knew of her only what all of America knew.
Her name was Joan. She was 38 years old, and
she'd given up her acting career to marry an astronaut.

(05:07):
But during that afternoon he'd quickly learned more. He'd spoken
to her father, her three children, the family reverend, an
eccentric uncle, a group of astro wives, and an astronaut
with red hair. The wives had taught him the most,
for they'd been able to describe how terrifying it was
to have a husband in space, and to tell him

(05:29):
about the ways in which they supported each other whenever
someone's husband was up.

S2 (05:34):
And that was this Kingdom of Dust by David Lloyd Dyer.
And that book goes for 11 hours. David is David,
David Dyer is d y e r. That's d y
e r. We have one other book in the library
collection by David Dyer, and it's the Midnight Watch, which

(05:59):
is all about the Titanic, the sinking of the Titanic.
And that's available in Braille as well as audio, the
Midnight watch. There are many great reviews about this book,
some people calling it a stunning retelling of a part
of history, but using that little quirk of speculative fiction

(06:19):
in which you say, what if they hadn't been able
to leave the moon? How would our retelling of this story,
or our perception of the moon landing be a little
bit about David Dyer? He grew up in a small
coastal town in New South Wales, and after school he
pursued an eclectic career that included studying medicine, travelling the
world in merchant ships and working as a lawyer in

(06:41):
Sydney and London. He became an English teacher and writer.
He published The Midnight Watch about the Titanic in 2016,
and his fascination with space was sparked in early childhood
by a book called you Will go to the moon,
and later by the Wonder and Wisdom of Carl Sagan.
David was lucky enough to meet the Moonwalkers Buzz Aldrin

(07:03):
and Charlie Duke at a gala celebration of the Apollo
11 mission, where he was inspired and new by the
vision and courage of those who dared to leave our
small earth and explore the depths of space. And This
Kingdom of Dust was shortlisted for the Age Book of
the year. The Australian calls it pacey, exciting and often
unexpectedly moving story storytelling, and that book was published in 2024.

(07:28):
Thank you once again, Bob, and your marvellous book club
there in the background. Thank you. And today as I'm
recording this, it is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
So I thought I'd have a little bit of a joke.
What does a pirate pay to get to get a steer?
And the answer is a buccaneer. So, um, that's a

(07:51):
bit of a pun. Some people hate puns and will
groan at any punning joke, so I hope it wasn't
too painful. I love puns myself. I love playing with words,
so I thought I would play a sample of a
book here. The title is Pirata and it is by
Simon Scarrow and T.J. Andrews. It is A.D. 25. Pirate

(08:14):
ships strike terror in the hearts of those who brave
the seas of the Roman Empire. When young Telemachus gets
the chance to join the crew of the merchant ship Cyllene,
he is delighted to escape the rough streets of Piraeus.
He knows little of the dangers of life at sea,
and even past hardship has not prepared him for the
terror on board when a pirate ship appears on the horizon.

(08:37):
The fight is bloody, but the result is never in doubt.
Then the victorious pirate chief Bulla offers the beaten men
a cruel choice. Join us or die! After surviving a
brutal initiation rite, Telemachus impresses his new captain with his
resourcefulness and strength and swiftly rises through the ranks. But

(08:58):
dangerous rivals talk of mutiny and murder, while prefect Canis,
Notorious commander of the Imperial fleet will stop at nothing
to take control. Adriaticum from the Pirate Brotherhood. Could Telemachus
be the man to lead the Pirate Brotherhood and challenge Rome?
Let's hear a sample of Pirata by Simon Scarrow and T.J. Andrews.

(09:21):
It's narrated by Jonathan Keeble.

S4 (09:24):
A sharp gust of wind and rain blasted the Greek
captain as he staggered down the dimly lit street. It
was a foul evening in early spring and the streets
of the port were deserted. Colonists hurried along, occasionally glancing
over his shoulder at the three heavyset figures a short
distance behind him. The seasoned captain of the merchantman Selene
had recently returned from a successful voyage to Salamis, landing

(09:47):
a cargo of garum and salted fish. Although the journey
had provided him with only a small profit, barely enough
to cover the expenses of his crew and ship, colonists
had fared better than most of his fellow seamen. Times
were hard for the merchant captains of Piraeus. After two
years of poor harvests and pirate attacks that had caused

(10:08):
a drop in trade passing through the port, several had
been forced out of business and many of those who
survived were forced to borrow substantial sums from merchants to
cover their losses. Colonists had decided to celebrate a rare,
successful trip with a skinful of Mulsum at one of
the local taverns, and as dusk settled over the port

(10:28):
and the light faded, he left the Jolly Sailor to
return to the warmth of the small cabin aboard his ship.
A short while later he had spotted the men following him.
The rain continued to fall, steadily pattering against the shingled
roof tiles of the surrounding buildings as colonists passed through
the gloomy backstreets of the warehouse district. At this late hour,

(10:51):
the storehouses were usually busy with teams of stevedores unloading
the goods from newly arrived merchantmen. Much of it bound
for Athens, but the streets in this part of the
town were eerily quiet. Now, the threat of attack from
the bands of pirates, who were known to prey on
the main trade routes had unnerved the local merchants and

(11:12):
ship owners, with many of them reluctant to risk transporting
their goods across the empire, and Piraeus had suffered badly
as a result, plunged into a period of economic turmoil
from which she showed no signs of recovering.

S2 (11:26):
And that was a sample of Pirata by Simon Scarrow
and T.J. Andrews. Simon is Simon. Simon Scarrow is s
c w r o w s w o w t
j just the initials t and j surname Andrews a

(11:49):
n d r e w a n d e w.
And that historical fiction book goes for 12.5 hours, and
it's actually five novellas Appears in one edition. So these
are all, uh. Short novels, all added together, all about
the same characters and the same time in history. Simon

(12:10):
Scarrow is a British author. He's been a teacher and lecturer,
and he's best known for his Eagles of the Empire
series of Roman military fiction set in the territories of
the Roman Empire, covering the second invasion of Britain and
the subsequent prolonged campaign undertaken by the Julio-Claudian dynasty. There

(12:31):
are 23 books in the series. The last one, Revenge
of Rome, was published in 2024. The inspiration behind the
Roman era for Scarrow. He is quoted as saying firstly,
great Latin teachers Gordon Rodway and then Reg Nash, who
inspired a love of the language and more enduringly, a
fascination with Roman history and culture. Secondly, when I was

(12:54):
growing up in the 70s, swords and sandals epics seemed
to be on the TV regularly. Not to mention the
brilliant I, Claudius and Pirata or Pirata. P I r
a t was first published in 2019. If you wanted
to begin with Simon Scarrow's Roman Empire series Eagles of

(13:17):
the Empire. The title of the first book in the
series is Under the Eagle. Under the Eagle. Starting in
42 AD, now to a non-fiction memoir by the the
wonderful Australian screen and television star Noni Hazlehurst, this is
her book Dropping the Mask an icon, a household name.

(13:38):
One of our best loved actors, Noni Hazlehurst, is finally
telling a story of her own. A fourth generation performer,
Noni Hazlehurst, has storytelling in her blood. She has graced
our screens, stages and airwaves for 50 years and won
our hearts and respect in the process. She's had a
remarkably diverse career from presenting Play School for more than

(14:00):
two decades, acting in films such as June Again, Ladies
in Black Candy, Little Fish and Monkey Grip, and ten
years hosting and writing for Better Homes and Gardens to
playing lead roles in series like A Place to Call Home,
Nancy Wake and The Shiralee. Recently presenting the SBS documentary
series Every Family Has a Secret and of course, her

(14:23):
numerous theatre roles, including her award winning one woman play mother,
Noni continues to display her incredible versatility, range and incisive
ability to get to the core of a character and script.
Noni is more than an actor, though she is also
a director, writer, teacher, and public speaker, and her time
on playschool has led to decades of committed advocacy for children.

(14:47):
Off screen, she has served on several film and television
industry boards, and acted as a patron and ambassador for
numerous children's welfare organisations. Brave, open, and unafraid to be vulnerable.
Noni is in many ways an ordinary woman, a single
mother of two boys and a freelance worker. She knows
about the challenges of constant juggling and being stretched to

(15:09):
the limit. Yet she is also an extraordinary woman and
a trailblazer. She was only the second woman to be
inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame in 32 years,
and despite opportunities to live and work overseas, she ultimately
chose to pursue her career in Australia. Let's hear a
sample of Dropping the Mask by Noni Hazlehurst, and it's

(15:32):
narrated by Noni Hazlehurst. I never feel alone here.

S5 (15:37):
The village church bells ring out at 7 a.m., noon
and 7 p.m. every day, reminding me that we are
all in this together. There's stentorian chimes are comforting. I
feel grounded when I hear them and connected not only
to my neighbours, but to all the souls who've heard
the same bells for hundreds of years, I pause to

(16:01):
appreciate the collective kinship we share. Grateful for the reminder.
After 50 years living like a gypsy, I've found peace
in this tiny house in a remote village on the
other side of the world, surrounded by kind neighbours, a
rich culture and the beauty of nature. I have all

(16:24):
I need here. I'm simply the Australian woman here I
can be myself. Life is simple. The rhythms are determined
by the seasons. I'm here in the spring and everything
is bursting with energy. In the garden, apple trees are
covered with white and pink blossoms. There will be hundreds

(16:45):
of apples, tulips, daffodils and freesias pop up in random
patches all over the lawn. There's a wild purple orchid,
Orchis mascula, with dozens of tiny flowers on a single
upright stem. The elegant magnolia tree is in full bloom.
Gracefully drooping. Wisteria covers the back fence. Hydrangeas and lilac

(17:10):
trees in shades of white, deep purple and mauve line
the laneway. Bunches of grapes are forming on the vine
around the barn door and the roses. Nearly every front
door in the village is framed by a climbing rose
in colors so vivid they seem fake. Their heady fragrance
is deep and rich.

S2 (17:32):
That was Dropping the Mask by Noni Hazlehurst, and that
book goes for 13 hours and 15 minutes. Noni is
spelt n o I. That's Noni Hazlehurst is h z
h u r h z h u r t Hazelhurst.

(17:56):
And really, I don't think I need to add any
background information about Noni because she's so familiar to so
many of us. So this book would be very interesting
to find out a little bit about her life behind
the the the person we know so well on the screen.
The next book is non-fiction. It comes with a bit
of a warning. It does deal with issues of grief, abandonment, loss,

(18:18):
and forced adoption. The title is prisoner of the state
Unlawfully arrested, illegally detained, a punishment to last a lifetime.
It's by Lily Arthur. At 16 years old, Lily Arthur
was caught between the women's liberation movement of the Swinging
60s and the draconian ideology that young women should be
punished for deviating from society's moral codes for the crime

(18:43):
of being pregnant. Lily was forcibly taken from the man
she planned to marry and incarcerated in the notorious Holy
Cross Home for wayward Girls in Wooloowin, Brisbane as a
prisoner of the state. Lilly spent her entire pregnancy performing
unpaid labor in its infamous Magdalene laundry. On the 1st
of September 1967, the terrified teenager was taken to the

(19:06):
Royal Brisbane Hospital, where she gave birth shackled to a
bed and her newborn son cruelly stolen from her. After
decades of heartache and an emotional reunion with her long
lost son, Lilly remains on a crusade to expose the
truth behind the crimes a country tried to hide and
has taken the fight to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva,

(19:28):
demanding justice for a generation of women who were victims
of one of the worst human rights violations in contemporary
Australian history. Let's hear a sample of prisoner of the
state unlawfully arrested. Illegally detained, a punishment to last a lifetime.
By Lilly Arthur. It's narrated by Ella James.

S6 (19:49):
The first day of spring, 1967, arrived with a cold
snap that nipped at my bare toes as I followed
the procession of shivering girls along the walkway to morning mass.
Our daily ritual began every day at 5 a.m., when
Sister Isabel swept into the dormitory, wringing her bloody school bell,
telling us it was time to get out of bed

(20:10):
and off to church to pray for our sins. It
was still dark when we woke on the 1st of September, 1967.
The draughty old dormitory that had been sweltering during the
Queensland summer, now as cold as a graveyard on this
chilly Friday morning. Groaning, I forced my aching body out
of bed, my hands self-consciously covering my pregnant belly. I'd

(20:33):
spent a sleepless night trying to find a comfortable position
to relieve the dragging ache in my back, and felt
as weary today as I had when I crawled into
bed the previous night. Hurry up, get dressed, snarled Sister Isabel,
pausing at the foot of my bed with her bell
and scowling at me. We mustn't keep the Lord waiting.

(20:53):
Bugger the Lord, I sniffed, hurrying out of my nightdress
and into the flimsy white cotton shift and rubber thongs
that identified us to the Catholic congregation as one of
the inmates from the bad girls home next door, separated
from respectable society by a ten metre high fence, barred
windows and locked doors. The notorious Holy Cross retreat for

(21:16):
wayward girls in Wooloowin was run by the Sisters of Mercy,
who were skilled at correcting the errant ways of juvenile
delinquents like me. Of the 24 young inmates incarcerated behind
the walls of this three story Victorian brick building, most
were teenage runaways who had fled abusive families safer on

(21:37):
the streets than they were at home. Holy cross also
had its share of more troublesome offenders, whose criminal and
antisocial antics had landed them on the wrong side of
the law.

S2 (21:49):
And that was a sample of prisoner of the state
unlawfully arrested, illegally detained, a punishment to last a lifetime
by Lily Arthur. Lily is l I l y l
I l y Arthur is a r t h u
r a r t h u r. Prisoner of the
state was released in February of this year. There's a

(22:13):
lot online. If you do search for Lily Arthur in
Google or whatever search engine you use. There are videos
of Lily speaking on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and my
sympathies to anybody who has ever gone through anything like that.
The last book today is Lyrebird by Australian author Jane Caro.

(22:35):
20 years ago, ornithology student Jessica Weston filmed a lyrebird
mimicking the dying screams of a woman in the Barrington
Tops National Park. Terrified, she took her recordings to the
Maitland police to report a murder. Despite support from newly
minted detective Megan Blaxland, no one was reported missing in

(22:55):
the area and no body found, so Jessica's claims were
mocked and dismissed. Megan Blaxland, now a retired senior sergeant,
is persuaded to return and lead the cold case investigation.
The first thing she does is contact Jessica Weston, now
an associate professor at Newcastle University. Jessica and Megan are

(23:17):
appalled that the dead woman, whose last moments were heard
by only a lyrebird and her killer, has been ignored
and forgotten for so long. They both feel they have
let the victim down and are determined to find the killer,
whatever it takes. What they do not realise is it
is not just their own lives that may be in danger.
Let's hear a sample of Lyrebird by Jane Caro. It's

(23:40):
narrated by Jessica Douglas. Henry.

S7 (23:43):
Thank God the ibuprofen had kicked in the head she'd
woken up with that morning would not have coped with
the dirt road. She hadn't been able to see the
potholes in the dappled light, so she'd bashed and bumped
her way along the crumbling dirt road to the summit.
Forget her head had her compact four wheel drive coped
with it. It had made a horrible crunching noise as

(24:04):
it bottomed out, and there was no mobile phone reception
to call for help once she'd entered the forest. Ibuprofen
or not, she felt like shit. How many hours had
she slept? Three. Four at the most. And how many
drinks had she downed at the bar on the hill
the last couple of hours before she'd staggered home to
her flat were a blur. Note to self Jessica Weston

(24:27):
no more than three drinks in one night. It was
a vow she had made and broken many times. There
was a bloke who had pestered her, she remembered, and
she'd been irritated when he wouldn't take no for an answer.
But he must have done. Eventually, given she'd woken up alone.
She'd been out for the count when the alarm rang
at 6:30 a.m., when she'd collapsed on her bed the

(24:49):
night before, she had forgotten to turn the bloody thing off.
She'd set it yesterday afternoon, so she'd wake up in
time for her field trip into the barringtons. My sober
self getting the jump on my drunk self, she thought.
Bloody birds. I hope they appreciate the efforts I'm making
to aid their survival. The branches of the hide were

(25:10):
digging into her back. She folded her rain jacket into
a cushion and leant against it. It helped a little. Fortunately,
fieldwork wasn't particularly taxing. It could be exciting if she
caught a rare bird in her lens. But in the meantime,
all she had to do was let the camera, positioned
just outside the entrance to the hide, do its job.

(25:31):
She was well prepared for a long wait. She had
a blister pack of painkillers, a packet of sandwiches, lollies,
some chocolate biscuits, a thermos of hot coffee and nothing
to do but wait.

S2 (25:43):
And that was lyrebird by Jane Caro. Jane is j
j caro c a r o c a r. And
that book goes for eight hours. It's a great Australian
detective and mystery fiction. Um, it's the second one for
Jane Caro. We have her earlier book in the collection,

(26:04):
which is called The Mother. Jane has also co-authored The
Stupid Country How Australia Is Dismantling Public Education. And that
was written, um, a little while ago. Um, we got
it into the library in 2013. And, um, she also
wrote Accidental Feminists, uh, talking about women over the age

(26:24):
of 55 are the generation that changed everything we didn't
expect to or intend to. So Accidental Feminists is our story.
Thank you so much for joining us on here this today.

(26:44):
Thank you to our regular reviewer of books and recommender, Bob.
And also thank you to everybody who listens and gives
feedback about the show. If you would like to recommend
a book, or if you would like to recommend an author,
sometimes a whole author is worth recommending for their types
of books. Um, a little bit like Simon Scarrow today. Uh,

(27:06):
people that have a niche interest in a particular area
of history. Anything like that. You're welcome to let us know.
Our number is 130654656. That's 13654656. Or you can email
library at Vision Australia. That's library at Vision Australia. I

(27:29):
hope you have a lovely week and we'll be back
next week with more here. This.