Hear This 1st August 2025

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:25):
Inside the book.

S2 (00:33):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Keeland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia Library show, where we
talk about books in the Vision Australia collection. Today we've
got a sample of shortlisted and award winning books, so
I hope you enjoy the show. Let's begin today's show

(00:55):
with the winner of the Miles Franklin Award for 2025.
The book's title is Ghost Cities and it's by Sang Lu.
Ghost cities, inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China,
follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man
named Zhang is fired from his job as a translator

(01:15):
at Sydney's Chinese consulate after it is discovered he doesn't
speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely
on Google Translate for his work. How is his relocation
to one such ghost city, connected to a parallel odyssey
in which an ancient emperor creates a thousand doubles of himself?
Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess

(01:39):
playing automaton hides a deadly secret. Or a tale in
which every book in the known empire is destroyed, then recreated,
page by page and book by book, all in the
name of love and art. Let's hear a sample of
this winning novel. Ghost Cities by Liu Zhang. It's narrated
by Keith Brockett.

S3 (02:00):
He wanted no story of simple ascension. Wanted nothing of
the truth. Of how he had won that slippery throne.
For the youth. Knew himself to be exceptional and exceptional
men such as he had exceptional stories. They came to
be emperors through cunning, ruthless strategy and force of will.

(02:22):
They certainly did not do it by gawping, as their
purple faced fathers clawed and sputtered on what would later
be determined to be an awkwardly lodged chicken bone. Exceptional
men did not watch frozen, unable or unwilling to help.
Exceptional men did not wait in lacklustre fealty for that

(02:44):
final breathless minute to expire. Word travelled fast. By the
time of his coronation, rumour was already circulating the courts
that young Liu Huang had conspired to usurp his father's throne. Well,
he certainly had not planned it this way, but he
was nothing if not an opportunist.

S2 (03:04):
And that was a sample of Ghost Cities by Zhang.
Liu Sang is S.i.n.g. That's S.i.n.g. Lu is Lu. That's Lu.
And that book goes for ten hours. It comes under
the categories of Australian fiction, psychological fiction, 21st century literature.

(03:25):
A little bit about the author. Through the week I
was listening to ABC radio, and there was an interview
with the manager of the Avenue bookshop, and she had
done a bit of research into books that have been rejected.
And this book, Ghost Cities, was rejected 200 times before
it was accepted for publication. And I'm reading here from

(03:47):
The Guardian in an article that was published on the
24th of July by Giselle O Nian Nguyen. The reviewer
interviewed Zhang Lu and he said, I used to print
my rejections, and blue tacked them onto the glass pane
between my office and my bedroom. My youngest child had
just been born and she is nine now, and she

(04:09):
would nap on that big bed while I worked and
kept an eye on her, and the rejections kept piling up. Eventually,
they grew so numerous that I could no longer see
through the glass into the bedroom where my daughter slept.
So he put the book away and thought, well, that's it,
and then bought it out. Didn't make any changes to
it and decided to just put it through to publishers again,

(04:30):
he says about the book. I think people are responding
to a combination of the humor, which I care very
deeply about, but also the idea that we should venerate art,
storytellers and storytelling. We also have whitewash, which was Lou's
first novel published in 2022, which is a madcap satirical
oral history blending real and fictional stories of Hollywood's race problem.

(04:54):
And a big congratulations to Sanlu there for the 2025
Miles Franklin Award. A novelist that was on the short list,
novelist and playwright Julie Johnson. Julie Jensen was shortlisted for
her book compassion, which was the short which was the
shortlists only real realist historical novel set between the years

(05:17):
1836 and 1854. Compassion follows on from benevolence and continues
Julie Jensen's emotional and intense literary exploration of the complex
and dangerous lives of Aboriginal women during the 1800s in
colonial New South Wales. The traumatised life story of one
of Julie Jan Jansen's ancestors, who went on trial for

(05:39):
stealing livestock in New South Wales. Compassion follows the life
of Turanga, also known as Nell James, the outlaw daughter
of the Darug hero of benevolence. Emerging a gripping fictive
account of Aboriginal life in the 1800s. We Do Also
Have Benevolence, which is the first book in this series,

(06:01):
but compassion was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award this year,
so I'm just going to play a short sample of
Compassion by Julie Jensen. It's narrated by Tamala Shelton.

S4 (06:13):
Spring was a bit cool, but the sun shone warm
on our backs. Waratah flowers grew red and juicy. The
flying foxes came to eat. Soft rains fell. I saw
a glittering billabong with a hundred swimming black swans. I
thought they are Margot, whispering my mother's language. One white

(06:40):
swan drifted in their midst. My heart cried out to
the bird, asking how it came to be amongst the others.
So alone and wildly strange, I counted mother swans with
fluffy cygnets. While my master loaded his gun to shoot
and eat those birds baked with potatoes in beef dripping.

(07:01):
I wondered if the meat would be white or All black.
The dawn mist slipped into my lean to and I
heard heavy breathing. I shifted on my straw pallet bed
and felt a heavy weight on the blanket. I sat up.
A dead black swan lay on the blanket, its red
beak open and neck oozing crimson blood.

S2 (07:24):
And that was a sample of Compassion by Julie Jensen.
And that book goes for 11 hours. Julie is j
u l I j u l I e. Jansen is
j a n s o n j a n s
o n. The book goes for 11 hours. Julie Jansen

(07:44):
is a woman of the Darug Aboriginal nation in New
South Wales. She's a novelist, playwright and poet. Her career
as a playwright resulted in ten productions at various theatres
such as Sydney Street Theatre, Belvoir Street Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre,
Sydney Opera House Brewhouse studio, and there was an earlier novel.

(08:05):
In 2022, Julie Jensen was longlisted for the Miles Franklin
Award for her indigenous crime novel the River Servant Serpent,
and also nominated for the David Award. But we don't
have that one in the library, but certainly compassion and benevolence,
the first one in that series are available, and I'm

(08:27):
going to veer across to the Davitt Awards now. The
25th Davitt Awards shortlist was announced on July the 14th.
For those who don't know, the David Awards started back
in 2001 and this was for women, and it was
named after Ellen Davitt, the author of Australia's first mystery novel,
Force and Fraud, that was published in 1865, and an

(08:51):
e-book of force and fraud was published by Clandestine Press
in 2015 to mark its 150th anniversary. So back in 2001,
women barely got a look in with the Ned Kelly Awards,
which are all around are open to anybody. Um, for
crime writing while women now regularly are shortlisted for and

(09:13):
win a Nettie, they are still underrepresented generally when it
comes to awards, reviews and opportunities. So The davits were about, um,
highlighting women authors in crime fiction and non-fiction, and the
winner will be announced. Or the winners because there's multiple
awards will be announced on the 5th of September at
an awards ceremony in Melbourne. We have a couple of

(09:34):
those books to highlight today in adult fiction. In the
shortlist there is, uh, Shankari Chandran and their book Safe Haven.
It was a beautiful evening. The wind gathered speed, lifting
the frangipanis from the grove behind him, pink and yellow
petals defying gravity beyond the trees, hidden by the foliage

(09:55):
and rows of towering palm trees. The detention centre slept
fitfully in the heavy summer heat, the palms blocked the
ocean gusts that swirled around him, filling his lungs with
a taste of temple flowers and salt. It reminded him
of home. He took a deep breath, stepped off the
escarpment and felt the red sand rush up towards him.

(10:18):
Arriving in Australia seeking asylum. Fina dedicates herself to aiding
the refugees who were held in Port Camden, a remote
island outpost. Over time, she settles into a life within
a community of like minded people, finding a new family
far away from her original home. After she speaks out
for those being detained, Fina becomes the focus of a

(10:40):
media storm that leads to her arrest and the threat
of deportation. When a security officer dies under suspicious circumstances. Lucky,
a special investigator, arrives to uncover the truth. The mystery
is tied to Fina's fate, and the secrets she reveals
will divide the town and the nation. Safe haven is

(11:01):
about displacement and seeking refuge, but ultimately it is a
story about finding home and the lengths you'll go to
find safety and love. Let's hear a sample of Safe
Haven by Shankari Chandran. It's narrated by Shabana Aziz.

S5 (11:18):
Veena opens the laptop she had been given for her
work at the detention centre, and instinctively looked over her
shoulder before checking her emails. There were security cameras everywhere
at Port Camden except the med unit on Finas pastoral
care visits to the detention centre. She was allocated a
small room at the headquarters where the wifi was better,

(11:40):
but she felt exposed and on edge. Three doors down
from the commanding officer, Napier. Since the guard's suicide the
previous week, she had felt even more anxious. She refreshed
her inbox. There was nothing from Magnus yet. This was
not unusual for the Norwegian captain. His internet connection was
sporadic when his ship was at sea. In the four

(12:02):
years since the galaxy had rescued her boat, they had
emailed each other regularly, exchanging updates on their lives and
those of the other survivors. Fena knew Magnus's schedule. He
stopped at Port Camden three times a year to refuel
en route to Singapore.

S2 (12:18):
And that was a sample of Safe Haven by Shankari Chandran.
Shankari is s k I s k a r I.
Chandran is c h a n c h a n d.

(12:38):
That book goes for eight hours and 15 minutes. Comes
under Australian fiction and detective and mystery fiction and also
perceptive fiction. There are two other books by this author
in the library collection. There is Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens.
Cinnamon gardens is a nursing home nestled in the quiet
suburb of West Grove. And there's also song of the

(13:01):
Sun God Nala and Rajan. A young couple begin their
married life in 1946, on the eve of Ceylon's independence
from Britain. Oh, and there's another one. Sorry about that.
There's another one. Unfinished business. Sri Lanka, 2009. Decades of
civil war and bloodshed are being brought to an end
at last, by any means necessary. Shankari Chandran is an

(13:23):
Australian Tamil lawyer and author of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens.
I'm on her website now and there's a list of
her books. Chai time was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin
Literary Award in 2003. Song of the Sun God was
long listed for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2019.
Shankar has spent two decades working as a lawyer in

(13:46):
the social justice field on national and international program design
and delivery. She continues her work in social impact for
an Australian national retailer. She's based in Sydney, where she
lives with her husband and four children, and explores dispossession
and the creation of community through her fiction. Another book
shortlisted on the Davitt Awards and that Davitt is spelt D,

(14:09):
is highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane. In 1998, an apparently
ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged with a series
of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both
horror and resolution to the victims families, but its impact
travels even further into the past as the murders rewrite

(14:30):
personal histories and into the future as true crime. Podcasts
and biopics tell the story of the crimes. Highway 13
takes murder as its starting point, but it unfolds to
encompass much more. Through the investigation of the aftermath of
this violence across time and place, from the killer's hometown
in country Australia to the tropical far north and to

(14:53):
Texas and Rome. MacFarlane presents an unforgettable, entrancing exploration of
the way stories are told and spread, and at what cost?
Let's hear a sample of highway 13 by Fiona macfarlane.
It's narrated by Tim Carroll.

S6 (15:10):
Lena Derwent had worked at Mason's for less than a
week when they started making fun of her. Well, hi
there handsome. They said when she was out of sight.
My name is Lena and I come to you from
the 1980s. She looks like an art teacher, said Gemma
from sales. Don't you think? Kind of over the top.
Kind of demented. And Joe from payroll laughed, as he

(15:34):
often did when Gemma spoke because he knew Gemma was unkind. But.
But what if she were to come unfurled? Be private, open,
alone with Joe. What then? So it embarrassed him to
live on the same street as Lena Derwent, and to
have recognised her as soon as he saw her at
Mason's with her large buzzed hair. Her slipped lipstick. Her cleavage.

(15:58):
She was the middle aged woman in number 12 who
was out every Saturday working in her garden, whose large
backside hung above her low front fence like the face
of a sunflower. Sometimes she stood up from her gardening
and said, morning, sweetheart, as he passed with his dog.

S2 (16:16):
And that was highway 13. By Fiona McFarlane. Fiona is Fiona.
Fiona McFarlane. M f a r a m f a
r f a r l a n e. And that
book goes for a seven hours and 20 minutes. And

(16:38):
that is a collection of short stories. So it comes
under Australian fiction, crime fiction, detective and mystery short stories
and 21st century literature. McFarlane grew up in Sydney, Australia,
and now lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where
she teaches at the University of California, and we have
one other novel in the collection, The Night Guest, but

(16:59):
this is only available in Braille, so not available in audio.
The Night Guest that's another book that's available. Congratulations for
making the short list to Fiona macfarlane on the 30th
of August 2020 for Fiona Wright, um, reviewed highway 13
in The Guardian. The murderer in her book highway 13

(17:20):
is based on the backpacker murderer Ivan Milat, but the
murderer himself is never present in these short stories, nor
are his crimes in any direct or detailed way, because
MacFarlane is not interested in the man himself, but in
the ways in which his actions ripple out. The impact
they have indirectly on people at some level of remove.

(17:41):
Fiona Wright continues highway 13 is an accomplished collection, stylish
and lyrical in its prose and deeply sensitive in its characterization.
The stories are richly layered, often turning back on themselves
or in unexpected directions, and MacFarlane's precision and craft are
one of the great pleasures of this book. And despite
the horror of the crimes that link them, and the

(18:02):
sense of dread that this inevitably evokes in many of them,
these are not, by and large, dark stories. They are
as much about resilience, desire, yearning, and love as they
are about grief and danger. So that's high. Wait 13
by Fiona macfarlane. Shortlisted for this year's David Awards. I
still have a couple more from the David List and

(18:24):
they're an interesting bunch this year. They're not just your
pure crime set in an Australian setting where there's a
killer on the loose and one person has to return
to a country town. Oh, you know all the tropes
of Australian mystery and crime at the moment. This one's
title is what I Would do to you, and it's
by Jorja Harper. In a near-future Australia, the death penalty

(18:46):
is reinstated. The catch? The family of the victim must
carry out the sentence. One family member gets 24 hours
in a room with the condemned. No cameras, no microphones.
They can dole out whatever punishment they decide. The only
rule at the end of the 24 hours, the criminal
must be dead. When ten year old Lucy is murdered,

(19:10):
her family is doubled over with grief while her killer
waits them to decide on his fate. Psychologist Octavia Tate
is assigned to guide the family living remotely on their
ethical cattle farm through their decision. But she finds herself
amidst a family at war with different views on what
constitutes justice. Lucy's mother, Stella, a survivor of domestic abuse,

(19:33):
harbors a desire to carry out the sentence and a
burning fantasy of revenge. Her wife Matisse, the creative Earth
mother and calming presence, cannot support her because she harbors
a secret she has taken a life before and is
not willing to do so again. And Sebastian, a vet
with the golden retriever temperament, refuses to participate, but only

(19:55):
for fear of darker inside urges. Meanwhile, bookish teenager Hannah,
too young to be legally allowed to participate, has her
own plans as the execution date nears, and Stella is
adamant that she has to carry out the punishment. Octavia
realizes the truth. If Stella steps into the room, she
will not survive at whole. Let's hear a sample of

(20:18):
this novel, what I Would Do to You by Jorja Harper.
It has a couple of narrators. One of them is
Ainsley Miglin.

S7 (20:26):
I follow Mattis into a light filled hallway with shiny
timber flooring, hats and jackets hang off horseshoe hooks nailed
to the wall, the steel genuinely eroded from being worn
by actual horses. I think of the mass produced versions
sold in country furnishing stores and decide I much prefer
these pink and apricot roses. Give off a delicate fragrance

(20:50):
from a vase on the hall stand. Come through. Matisse,
says Stella. Octavia is here. I follow Matisse into a
lounge room to the left of the hall, and see
a thin woman sitting on a sofa in a baggy
grey tracksuit that pulls around her waist and elbows. Her
blond hair is unbrushed and hangs limply around her face.

(21:15):
Her grey eyes are flat. Her expression is tight, strained
like lightning. The word constipated enters my head. She makes
a slight effort to rise from her position and then
sinks back down as though getting to her feet takes
too much energy.

S2 (21:35):
And that was a sample of What I Would Do
to You by Georgia Harper. Georgia is g o g
a g e o r g I r a harper
is h e r h a r e. And that
book goes for ten hours and it comes under Australian fiction,

(21:56):
psychological fiction and also science fiction because it is set
in the in the future. I've listened to this book.
It's compelling, the characterizations are great, the characters are great. Um,
and the numerous ethical dilemmas, um, are really interesting, but
it does have some really high content of, um, violence,

(22:17):
particularly when the murderer comes to talking about his particular life. Uh,
pretty shocking stuff. So just a bit of a warning there.
Georgia Harper is a psychologist who has worked with both Syrians,
serious violent offenders and victim survivors of crime, and her
career spans correctional forensic, mental health, mental health and rural

(22:38):
psychology roles. She's also passionately involved in animal welfare, which
comes through in this book as well. And there's some
really sad and disturbing scenes. And one of the main
characters in the book does, um, does explain how she
becomes a compassionate farmer, a cattle farmer, through her own

(22:58):
experiences with cruelty to animals. What I Would Do to
You is her first novel, and there will be a
second novel, dove, that will be released in 2026, and
the last book to highlight from the Davitt Awards. This
is quite topical simply because of Trump's indicating that he
may pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. So again, this comes with a warning.

(23:22):
It is about Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein and the the
horrific things that went on. And this is nominated for
the non-fiction um section. It is called Lasting Harm Witnessing
the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. And it's by Lucia Osborne
Crowley Rowley. In December 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of

(23:43):
five counts of sex trafficking of minors and is now
serving 20 years in prison for the role she played
in Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of four girls. The trial was
meticulously covered by journalist and legal reporter Lucia Osborne Crowley,
one of only four reporters allowed into the courtroom every day,
centering the stories of four women and their testimonies, and

(24:07):
supplemented by extra material to which Osborne Crowley has exclusive access.
The lasting harm brings this incendiary trial to life, questions
your age old appetite for crime and punishment, and offers
a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice. Let's hear a
sample of the lasting harm witnessing the trial of Ghislaine

(24:30):
Maxwell by Lucia Osborne Crowley. It's narrated by Eva Seymour.

S7 (24:36):
The Floridian heat.

S8 (24:38):
Overwhelms me as I step out of Miami International Airport
and begin to make my way to the airport hotel.
The air is heavy and full of moisture. The hot
wind carrying an ominous feeling, a sense of dread. My
flight out of Heathrow was delayed by several hours due
to the Queen's death. And so I have missed my

(24:58):
train to West Palm Beach, and instead am staying in
a hotel for the night and finishing my journey in
the morning. Already this trip feels doomed. I am here
because a few weeks ago, I sent an email to
a lawyer named Jack Scarola about his client, who is
known only by her first name, Carolyn. Carolyn, who is

(25:21):
now 36, was sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine
Maxwell beginning when she was just 14 years old. Carolyn
testified at Maxwell's trial using only her first name to
protect herself and her family from the disastrous consequences that
too often come with speaking out. Carolyn has also never

(25:43):
spoken at length to a journalist before.

S2 (25:46):
And that was a sample of the lasting harm witnessing
the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell by Lucia Osborne Crowley Lucia
is spelt l u c I a l Lucia Osborne
Crowley it's a hyphenated surname. Osborne is os b o
r o b o r e hyphen Crowley c o

(26:12):
w e y c o w e y. That book
goes for ten hours and it comes under crime nonfiction.
There is another book in the collection in Daisy. It
is my body Keeps your Secrets. Once more. That's another
book that comes with a warning. It deals with sexual assault.

(26:32):
So my body keeps your secrets. It's Lucia's Lucilla's own
story of something that happened to her. Lucy Osborne Crowley.
Thank you for listening. To hear this today. My name
is Frances Keeland, and this is the Vision Australia Library show.

(26:52):
If you would like any of the books mentioned, if
you have any suggestions, maybe there is a genre of
book that I don't highlight enough. I know I probably
don't do many family stories or westerns, sci fi. Any
types of books that you think I'm neglecting? Romance? Just
let me know. You can always contact the library on 1300 654 656.

(27:17):
That's 13654656. Or you can email library at Australia. That's library. Org.
Have a lovely week and we'll be back next week
with more here this.