Hear This 4th April 2025

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:09):
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take
a look.

S2 (00:24):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Kelland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia library radio show. Today
we've got a good selection of our book book samples.
We've got a reader recommended, plus an autobiography and a
biography that I think people will be really interested in,
and some other books. So I do hope you enjoy
today's show. Let's start off with a reader recommended from Bob.

(00:52):
Thank you. Bob. Alex Miller, the Australian author. Bob has
just recently discovered him and I had forgotten about him myself.
I remember years ago in the 1990s now we used
to have a an award, the Braille and Talking Book
Award for best audio book. And Alex Miller actually won.
This is probably about, uh, you know, maybe the early 2000.

(01:17):
He won the award from Vision Australia Library for, um,
his book conditions of Faith. And I remember he gave
a lovely speech, and I didn't realize he's in his
late 80s now, but yes, he's he's one of those
understated Australian writers who have written quite a few books.
So thank you for, um, unearthing him. Bob, you've read

(01:38):
the deal, and you said you heard him being interviewed
about this book, and you recommend it for people who
enjoy literary fiction. And the deal, which I have a
sample of is a follow on from the Miles Franklin
Award winning novel, The Ancestor Game. So you have read
the older one first, and both books are to be

(01:59):
recommended to lovers of great Australian fiction. Thank you so much, Bob.
So in the deal, which is the follow on. So
sorry about that. I should have put the first one,
The Ancestor Game, but in the deal by Alex Miller.
It's 1975, and at the threshold of his writing career,
Andy Macpherson is navigating how to be fully present, both

(02:20):
for his partner Joe and their young daughter. When forced
to take part time, part time teaching job, Andy meets
Lang Tzu, a charismatic and intriguing man, and he is
drawn deeper into a dangerous relationship. When Lang asks him
to prove his friendship by brokering a risky deal for
a much desired piece of art, Andy finally consents, despite

(02:42):
Joe's opposition in the process. Andy is in fact negotiating
his own deal with himself as an artist, and is
compelled to face up to the conflict between his conception
of art as a creative gift and the realities of
the art market. Let's share a sample of Alex Miller's
The Deal. It's narrated by Richard Bly.

S3 (03:02):
Many years have passed already since his visit to me,
But still, I think back with a mixture of pleasure
and sadness to that late summer evening before his return
to England, when my brother and I sat together for
the last time in the garden of the small house
in the country where I was then living, across the
lawn from where we were sitting that evening. There was

(03:25):
an old apple tree. It was a tree of great
character and was at that time of the year, and
despite its extreme age, laden with a fine crop of
ripe apples. My brother and I had been silent with
each other for some minutes when he stirred himself, and,
turning to me, reminded me with a kind of innocence

(03:46):
of recollection, that there had been just such an apple
tree as this one in our garden at home in
England when we were children. He went on to remind
me that when we were boys, we would check whether
the apples were ripe by holding one close to our
ear and shaking it. If it was ripe, the seeds rattled.

(04:07):
So saying my brother returned to me this long forgotten
memory of our childhood garden. I was moved to tell
him that I had been prompted in my decision to
buy the house, on account of this handsome apple tree
that stood before us, and which had occasioned his recollection
of our childhood. When I first came with a real

(04:27):
estate agent to view this house as its prospective purchaser.
I said to my brother the town and its location
were not familiar to me. I had come to the
town in the hope of finding relief from my situation
in the city, a situation which had become intolerable to me.
Joe had passed away the previous year and our only

(04:47):
child was contentedly settled in Bordeaux. I hoped new surroundings
and a degree of isolation from everything that had for
so long been familiar to Joe and me would help
restore my sense of purpose and well-being.

S2 (05:02):
And that was the deal by Alex Miller. Alex is Alex.
That's Alex Miller is mi double e, mi double e,
and that book goes for six hours. It comes under
the library categories of 21st Century literature, Australian fiction, and

(05:25):
Perceptive fiction. There is also the book Autumn Lang um.
Autumn Lang has long outlived the legendary circle of artists
she cultivated in the 1930s. Now old and skeleton gaunt,
she reflects on her tumultuous relationship with the abundantly talented
Pat Donlon and the effect it had on her husband,
on Pat's wife and the body of work which launched

(05:47):
Pat's career. There's also a brief affair a Coal Creek, uh,
conditions of faith, which I mentioned before. Journey to the
Stone country and Journey to the Stone country is available
in braille as well as audio, as is, um, Coal
Creek and Autumn Lang. I'm on Alex Miller. Alex Miller

(06:13):
in the introductory page. To who? Alex Miller is it
says Alex Miller deals with ideas, moral choices and the
direction of society. He writes of our interior lives within
the artful carapace of a story. Miller is a storyteller.
Each of his novels draws us into a fully created world,
and each new story is fresh, even when there is

(06:33):
continuity of character. His body of writing is now acknowledged
as one of the great Australian literary achievements of the
past half century. And that's from Morag Fraser in The
Australian Book Review. So the Deal is his latest book
and published in 2024. It's his 14th novel. Alex Miller
was born in south London. He left home at 15

(06:55):
and worked as a farm labourer in the West Country
of England. Then he travelled alone to Australia at the
age of 16 and worked as a ringer in Queensland
with indigenous stockmen on their country. In his 20s, he
went to night school and gained entry to Melbourne Uni,
where he studied history and literature. And there's quite a
lot of, um, information about Alex Miller, of course, on

(07:16):
his web webpage. Alex Miller. Thank you, Bob, for recommending
that author. Now I'm going to recommend a couple of, um,
recent works that have been added to the library catalogue.
And I think people will find these interesting and quite topical,
especially the first one, which is Brain Storm, and this
is by Richard Scholar and Gary Maddox. The Incredible Story

(07:41):
of 2024 co Australian of the year, Richard Scholar, as
he uses his groundbreaking melanoma science to fight his own
incurable diagnosis with brain cancer. Skin cancer is this country's
most common cancer and melanoma the deadliest form of it.
Richard Scholar, together with his colleagues at Melanoma Institute Australia,

(08:03):
has dedicated years to Brown's Groundbreaking research and succeeded in
transforming even the most advanced cases of melanoma into a
largely curable disease. Then last year, at the peak of
his life, Richard was devastated when he was diagnosed with
an incurable brain cancer. As a world leading clinician and
cancer researcher, Richard was never going to accept the status quo,

(08:27):
including a medical approach unchanged in nearly two decades and
an expectation of little more than a year to live.
He instead chose to undertake a world first experimental treatment
for his brain cancer based on melanoma science. His brave
decision could shorten or save his life. The only certainty
is that it will push the brain cancer field forward

(08:49):
and ultimately help save the lives of others. Let's hear
a sample of Brainstorm by Richard Scholar. It's narrated by
Tim Carroll.

S4 (08:59):
Kicking a football around in Launceston, walking the famous Overland
Track to Cradle Mountain. Long summer holidays, camping in the
same spot at Ulverston every year. My dad did a
great job of documenting our family history in Tasmania with
decades of photographs. He started in black and white, then

(09:20):
bought his first colour camera in 1972. Whenever we were
out socialising with family and friends or taking a trip
around the state. Dad would get out a small Olympus
or canon, which he carried around in his pocket and
start clicking away. His dedication to recording our lives fills
80 albums, each with 100 photos that are filed by

(09:42):
name and date on shelves in his living room. These
8000 photos are a treasure trove that shows dad's love
for our family. I always enjoy going through them when
I go back to Tassie on holidays. Well, I've never
been anywhere near as meticulous at taking and filing photos.
I've surrounded myself with pics of Katy and our kids

(10:04):
in my office up on a shelf. The kids are
eating ice creams or smiling in front of a tree
at a long forgotten get together in a park. They're
having fun in a swimming pool, enjoying an overseas holiday,
or getting ready for school in their new uniforms. Even
before I was diagnosed with a brain tumour, family pictures

(10:24):
that came up on my iPhone from years ago could
bring tears to my eyes. Take out just about any
album from the early years on dad's shelves, and it
will show what an active kid I was with blonde
hair and a cheeky grin. I hammed it up for
the camera as I played sport, camped, swam, went walking
in the bush, rode my bike and explored. I enjoyed

(10:48):
the attention. Then I'm quieter as an adult now. I'm
driven by wanting to help other people rather than getting
pats on the back.

S2 (10:57):
And that was Brainstorm by Richard Scholar. Brainstorm is one word.
If you're going to search for the title brainstorm. Richard
is r r I c h a r r I
c h a r c is s o y e
r s o y e r. That book goes for

(11:19):
7.5 hours. The next book is um by Grantley Keyser,
who has written quite a few biographies of very prominent Australians.
And this one is called Sister Viv. Bangka Island, 1942.
Vivian Bullwinkel was just 26 when Japanese soldiers marched her
and her fellow nurses into the shallow waters of a

(11:41):
remote beach to be executed. Miraculously, Vivian would be the
lone survivor, and she committed the rest of her life
to an exceptional career caring for others. The lieutenant colonel
would also be the first woman to be honoured with
a statue at the Australian War Memorial. A country girl
who became one of the highest ranking women in the
Australian Army when Japanese forces attacked Singapore. Vivian and 64

(12:07):
other nurses were ordered to evacuate, but soon their ship
was bombed by enemy aircraft. Somehow Vivian lived, and for
the next three and a half years she was a
prisoner of war in brutal Japanese camps, where she helped
others survive the horror. When peace was restored, Vivian became
a giant of Australian nursing and a key driver of

(12:28):
Operation Babylift. For her extraordinary bravery and service, Vivian was
awarded numerous honours, but she never forgot her fallen colleagues.
Living her life in tribute to them. Let's hear a
sample of Sister Viv by Grant-lee Kaiser. It's narrated by
Bridget Gallacher.

S5 (12:47):
Bullwinkle nee Shegog. On the 18th of December at Kapunda
to Mr. and Mrs. G a Bullwinkle. A daughter thus
Vivian Bullwinkel arrived, kicking and screaming joyous sounds of new
life into a world gone mad with killing. It was
seven days before Christmas 1915, and Vivian's birth was a

(13:11):
godsend for her first time parents, Eva and George Bullwinkel.
The baby girl's first cries came at the same time
as thousands of Australian soldiers were at war on the
far side of the world. Although the fighting in what
had already been dubbed the Great War had not come
close to Vivian's birthplace, a small South Australian farm town

(13:32):
called Kapunda, about an hour out of North Adelaide on locomotive.
Its aftershocks had local clergymen had already started making the
sad pilgrimage to some of the Bullwinkle's neighbours to break
the news that a son or brother, husband or father
had died on a foreign field. Eva was 27 when

(13:53):
she brought Vivian into the world from a well-established South
Australian family. She was the daughter of William Shegog, a
veteran policeman who was born in Londonderry, the second largest
city in what is now Northern Ireland. William had come
to Australia in 1857 as an infant, when his family
migrated to the Victorian goldfields. A relative, James Shegog, had

(14:18):
been a rough riding sergeant major in the charge of
the heavy brigade in the Crimea. In 1854, an attack
on Russian forces that took place just prior to the
celebrated charge of the Light Brigade. William had been schooled
in the central Victorian gold town of Maryborough before working
as a farmer in the area. At the age of 25,

(14:40):
he had moved to Adelaide to join the Mounted Police.
His life for the next four decades.

S2 (14:45):
That was Sister Vibe by Grantley César Grantley is g
a l e g r a t l e kaisar
is k z a k e z a. That book
goes for ten hours and 40 minutes, and I'm reading
here from the Harpercollins.com. Harpercollins.com website. Grant-lee Kaiser is an

(15:13):
award winning journalist and the highly acclaimed best selling author
of more than 20 biographies. He has held senior editorial
positions at The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and the
Courier Mail for many years, and was awarded the medal
of the Order of Australia for his writing and some
of his other biographies. Other acclaimed biographies are banjo, about

(15:35):
Banjo Paterson, and also Sir Joseph Banks, um Flinders. He's
um covered the life of Flinders Hudson Fysh, who was
a decorated World War One hero, um, who founded, uh,
the airline Qantas. There's also Lawson about Henry Lawson, Mrs. Kelly,
the story of Ned Kelly's mother. Um, so there's quite

(15:57):
a few biographies there to enjoy. I think, um, he
sort of ranks up there with Peter Fitzsimons for writing
in-depth and great biographies. Last night at my local library,
the Fitzroy Library. I was, um, lucky enough to see.
It was a free event at the library, a chat
between Tony Birch and Jack on Jock Serong, two really

(16:18):
wonderful Australian authors. And that was really entertaining. I went
for an hour and, um, they talked about the writing process,
talked about both of their ideas about writing. It was
it was fascinating. The main thrust of the evening was
about promoting Cherrywood, which is Jock Sarongs latest novel. And

(16:39):
while we don't have that in the library at the moment,
we do have quite a few Jock Serong novels, including
the two of the novels from the Greyling Family series.
So part one of the Greyling Family series is preservation.
On a beach not far from the isolated settlement of
Sydney in 1797, a fishing boat picks up three shipwreck survivors.

(17:02):
Distressed and terribly injured, they have walked hundreds of miles
across a the landscape, whose feature and inhabitants they have
no way of comprehending. They have lost 14 companions along
the way. Their accounts of the ordeal are evasive. It
is Lieutenant Joshua Grayling's task to investigate the story. He
comes to realise that those 14 deaths were contrived by

(17:25):
one calculating mind, and as the full horror of the
men's journey emerges, he begins to wonder whether the ruthless
killer poses a danger to his own family. Let's hear
a sample of Preservation by Jock Serong. It's narrated by
Conrad Coleby.

S6 (17:43):
The governor's quill stopped in its flow as if it
had struck some unseen obstacle. Tell me again, Lieutenant. Carefully,
the nib hovered above the page. The hand suspended there.
Steady and waiting. A small fishing boat, Excellency. It had
been gone three days, working offshore from a bay to

(18:04):
the south of here, about 20 miles distant. Guatemala, sir.
Native word. The quill waited. Governor Hunter's powdered hair caught
the sun through the window. Behind him, the serene beauty
of Sydney and Autumn laying its soft light on the
bookshelves and the chairs. It was one of the deckhands

(18:25):
that saw them, a master Drummond early morning on his watch.
Three men. He thought they were natives at first, as
there wasn't much left of their clothing, and one's, uh,
one's dark. They were making their way up the beach
from south to north. The inlet there forms a pronounced
indentation in the coast, but the beach is very short.

(18:48):
I'm told they were terribly distressed. The quill moved again,
trailing blue words crawling. Yes, came the governor. You said
that before. Such a striking detail. Is there no doubt
about that? He was quite firm, sir. could see the tracks.
They'd made up the beach. Go on. Their condition was pitiable.

(19:13):
They were hoarse, although not delirious in any way. They
were taken on board and identified as a mr. William
Clark Supercargo of a vessel named the Sydney Cove, a
three masted country trader of 300 tons displacement. His Lascar
man servant named undisclosed. And a mr. Figg, a tea merchant,
travelling aboard the same vessel.

S2 (19:33):
And that was a sample of preservation by Jock Serong.
Jock is spelled j o k j o c k.
Sarong is s e r o n g s e
r o n g. And that book goes for ten hours.
Preservation is based on the true story of the wreck
of the Sydney Cove. And it sees master storyteller Jock

(19:55):
Sarong turn his talents to historical narrative. I am at
the moment on text publishing. Com.au text publishing. And, um,
there are links on this to a whole lot of
reviews and interviews, including a three CR radio interview, three
triple R, ABC Hobart, ABC Melbourne. So if you go

(20:16):
to text publishing and search for Jock Serong or search
for preservation, you'll come to the page where you'll see
that it was listed for a whole lot of literary
awards in the year 2019, but also all all these
links to interviews, including the Wheeler Centre podcast as well
with Jock Serong. We do have part two of the
Grayling family, which is The Burning Island. That's part two.

(20:41):
There's also on the Java Ridge quota, the rules of
backyard cricket and the settlement. The next book is by
Jo Nesbo and Blood on Snow. This is the story
of Olav, an extremely talented fixer for one of Oslo's
most powerful crime bosses. But Olav is also an unusually

(21:02):
complicated fixer. He has a capacity for love that is
as far reaching as is his gift for murder. Here's
our straightforward calm in the face of crisis. Narrator. With
the storyteller's hypnotic knack for fantasy, he has an innate
talent for subordination. But running through his veins is a
virus born of the power over life and death. And

(21:24):
while his latest job puts him at the pinnacle of
his trade, it may be mutating into his greatest mistake.
Let's hear a sample of Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo. Um,
it's narrated by Patti Smith, which is one of the
reasons why this book caught my eye. The narrator is
Patti Smith.

S7 (21:43):
The snow was dancing like cotton wool in the light
of the street lamps, aimlessly, unable to decide whether it
wanted to fall up or down, just letting itself be
driven by the hellish ice cold wind that was sweeping
in from the great darkness covering the Oslofjord. Together they

(22:03):
swirled wind and snow. Round and round in the darkness
between the warehouses on the quayside that were all shut
up for the night, until the wind got fed up
and dumped its dance partner beside the wall. And there
the dry, windswept snow was settling around the shoes of
the man I had just shot in the chest and neck.

(22:27):
Blood was dripping down onto the snow from the bottom
of his shirt. I don't actually know a lot about snow,
or much else for that matter, but I've read that
snow crystals formed when it's really cold are completely different
from wet snow. Heavy flakes are the crunchy stuff that
it's the shape of the crystals and the dryness of

(22:49):
the snow that make the hemoglobin in the blood retain
that deep red color. Either way, the snow under him
made me think of a king's robe, all purple and
lined with ermine, like the drawings in a book of
Norwegian folktales my mother used to read to me. She
liked fairy tales and kings. That's probably why she named

(23:12):
me after a king. The Evening Post had said that
if the cold carried on like this until New Year
1977 would be the coldest year since the war, and
that we'd remember it as the start of the new
Ice age. Scientists had been predicting for a while, but
what did I know? All I knew was that the

(23:34):
man standing in front of me would soon be dead.

S2 (23:37):
That was a sample of Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo.
Jo is spelt Jo Nesbo is Nesbo NASB. That book
goes for four hours. A short one. Where to start
with Jo Nesbo. Phenomenally successful writer of detective fiction, starting

(23:59):
off really with his series the Harry holler series featuring
a detective. A bit of a maverick, troubled. Um, the
usual sort of private detective that we've come to know
and love. Dishonored from the police force. So he's working
on his own. Those Harry Haller books were greatly successful. Um,
it starts off with an a book set in Australia,

(24:20):
The Bat. That's the first one in the Harry Haller series. Um,
it is dealing a lot with serial killers. So you're
going to get the really outrageously bloodthirsty kind of details
of how these bodies are found. So just be aware
of that. But all of the series is available. The
bat was first published in 1997, but wasn't translated into

(24:43):
English until 2012. And there's a the 13th book in
the series, which was the latest one is Killing Moon,
published in 2023. Thank you once again for joining us

(25:05):
on here this today. I'm Frances Francis Kelland and you're
listening to the Vision Australia library radio show. If you
would like to recommend a book, or if there are
any that stand out to you that you've discovered through
borrowing from the Vision Australia library, just send an email
or call the library. The phone number for the library
is 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email library at

(25:33):
Vision Australia. Org that's library at Vision Australia. Org. And
there are other wonderful resources through Vision Australia including the
Hindsight podcast. And I thought I'd just mention that. So
if you do go to the Vision Australia website and
search for hindsight HIGHT1 word you can listen to people's stories.

(25:57):
This is hosted by Jason Gibbs. Each episode offers a
unique perspective about vision loss. This is a valuable support
for family members and friends. The personal journeys of people
and supporters of people living with vision loss. It covers
topics such as insight from experience, the barriers of regional exclusion,

(26:19):
the challenge of accepting help and let's talk about public transport,
parenting and vision loss. Tips and tricks of assistive technology.
Overcoming burnout. Staying independent at home. So a wonderful collection there.
A wonderful resource for people who, um, may just want
to feel a little bit included in what they're going

(26:39):
through and to learn, uh, ways to, um, get through any,
any issues that they're finding. So that is hindsight available
on the Vision Australia website. Have a lovely week and
we will be back next week with more here. This.