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Hello and welcome to Hear This. This is the Vision Australia Library radio show. I'm Frances Keyland, and we've got a few books on today's show, and I hope you enjoy some of them. And it might inspire you to either join the library or to at least borrow those books. You can also get some of these books from your local library if you're not a member of our Vision Australia library.
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Thank you to one of our listeners, our readers, who alerted us to the fact that it was Happy World Book and Copyright Day on April the 23rd. It is aligned with Shakespeare's birthday. So the Bard in all of his glory is celebrated on that day. But as well as being just a Happy World Book Day, this was organised by UNESCO to promote reading and publishing. This was inaugurated back in 1998, and this listener also said that she enjoyed reading. One of the recommendations from a couple of weeks ago called betrayed about the drug grannies. And these were a couple of elderly women who were given a Kombi van by one of their nephews to drive around, and unbeknownst to them, it was packed to the rafters with drugs.
It's a true crime story and getting back to, well, Book Day. If you want to read any of the biographies and there are many of Shakespeare, including the author of Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess wrote one of the most respected biographies, just ring the library and ask them to explore the biographies of Shakespeare in the collection and to choose one you might like to consume. This week it was Anzac Day, and last week I played a sample of a book. But there's an interesting one also now in the library by renowned, um, war historian and storyteller Roland Perry. The book is titled Anzac Sniper, and this is the synopsis.
Stan Savage had been on Gallipoli for just two weeks in the trenches, firing at Turks less than 20m away, but Sniper's Ridge was a different proposition. Killing took on another dimension. In the flurry of trench warfare, a soldier would rarely be certain he had hit an enemy on this ridge of death, however, Savage's job was to make sure he struck as many of the opposition as possible. The son of a struggling country butcher, Stan Savage left school at 12 to become a blacksmith's striker, but in 1915 a passage in the Bible inspired the devout scout leader and Sunday school teacher to enlist. Soon, his abilities as a crack marksman attracted the attention of officers, and he was put in charge of the sniper's post.
His job: to eliminate enemy assassins at Anzac Cove. Savage succeeded and survived Gallipoli, only to be sent to the Western Front, then to Persia as part of the elite squad. Dunsterforce. It was the beginning of a long, dangerous and distinguished military career, spanning both world wars with savage fighting and commanding in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific. In World War Two. Let's hear a sample of Anzac Sniper by Roland Perry. It's a Bolinda audiobook production and narrated by David Tredinnick.
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Stan Savage and his spotter, private MC Sunderland, eased their way up towards Sniper's Ridge above Lone Pine in the hour before dawn. It was the 20th of September 1915 at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli. The night before, Savage had been promoted to company sergeant major. It was a subtle bribe that many men accepted in war, designed to induce a soldier to take on a task he might otherwise have thought twice about. Savage, 25 years of age, was keen to rise through the ranks. He had been rejected for officer training in Australia, primarily on the basis of his lack of formal education. No matter that he was more intelligent than most, it was irrelevant that he was close to the best, if not the best, marksman ever tested before the Great War. It meant little now, as he and Private Sunderland crept towards the rocky outcrop.
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And that was a sample of Anzac Sniper by Roland Perry. Roland is spelt [spells author's name]. And there are many, many books by Roland Perry in the collection. That book goes for 11 hours and 20 minutes. He has become very notable for bringing to life the stories and often very heroic stories of Australian soldiers and their world war experiences. Other books by Roland Perry in the collection are The Australian Light Horse, The Magnificent Australian Force and its Decisive Victories, Pacific 360 degrees. Australia's Battles for Survival in World War Two. He wrote a biography of Monash, The Outsider Who Won a War, and also another book called Horrie the War Dog and I remember in my library working days, a lot of people would ring up asking for this book because it was out of print for a while, and it's just the story of a little stray pup the boys of the first Australian Machine Gun Battalion saved from the harsh Libyan desert, and he became a bit of a mascot, but also a saviour of sorts. And what happened on his return to Australia?
The next book is by Geoffrey McGeachin. It is called The Diggers Rest Hotel, and it also gives us... an insight. But it's a fictional book, an insight into what happens to men when they return from war. In 1947, two years after witnessing the death of a young Jewish woman in Poland, Charlie Berlin has rejoined the police force. A different man sent to investigate a spate of robberies in rural Victoria. He soon discovers that World War Two has changed even the most ordinary of places and people. An ex bomber pilot and former P.O.W., Berlin is struggling to fit back in grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder, the ghosts of his dead crew, and his futile attempts to numb the pain. When Berlin travels to Albury-Wodonga to track down the gang behind the robberies, he suspects he's a problem cop being set up to fail. Taking a room at the Digger
s Rest hotel in Wodonga, he sets about solving a case that no one else can. With the help of feisty, ambitious journalist Rebecca Green and rookie constable Rob Roberts, the only cop in town he can trust. Then the decapitated body of a young girl turns up in a back alley, and Berlin's investigations lead him even further through the layers of small town fears, secrets and despairs. Let's hear a sample of the Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey Mcgeachin. It's a production of Vision Australia and it's narrated by Rod MacDonald.
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Berlin during the afternoon, drinkers at the Port Melbourne Corner pub, which, like many pubs in the Docklands, was dedicated to easing the aches and sorrows of the working bloke through the worship of beer. It was also a tribute to the art of the tiler. Every surface that could be tiled had been tiled right up to the ceiling. The tiles might have been white at some stage, but years of neglect and the smoke from thousands of durries and tailor maids had left them coated with a nasty yellowish brown stain. The tiling was a master stroke of functionality. At 6:00, when the mad rush of the post-work swill was over, the landlord would hose the public bar clean, flushing spilled alcohol, cigarette butts, sometimes blood, and more often vomit out of the doors and across the footpath to the gutter in a tidal wave of carbolic suds.
Berlin leaned back on the bar and studied the other drinkers through a thick, blue grey haze of cigarette smoke. There were the blokes who laughed with their mates as they drank. The ones who were lucky to be alive and knew it. These men had seen death, but it had passed over them, and they took each new day as a gift and tried to put the horror behind them. But there were also the solitary souls, men with haunted, downcast eyes and shoulders, stooped from carrying a great burden. They had advanced once too often at the machine gun nests, who had watched a mate blasted into a quivering, screaming, bleeding mess of shattered bones and torn flesh and would never forget it. Heavyset man in his 30s ambled up to Berlin, choosing a spot at the empty bar right next to him. He was wearing a smart grey woollen overcoat. Underneath it, Berlin could see a tailored suit and an expensive silk tie.
The man sized Berlin up quickly. Nicely polished shoes. Always a good sign. Obi cut clean but showing its age around the cuffs. Same for the hat. Office clerk. He guest skipping off for the afternoon. He didn't look into Berlin's eyes, which was his biggest mistake.
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That was the Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey Mcgeachin. Geoffrey is spelt [spells author's name]. That book goes for seven hours and 50 minutes. Part of the Vision Australia recorded books, diggers Rest Hotel was published in 2010. There is a second one called Black Wattle Creek, which is the second part of the Charlie Berlin series. Both of these books received Australia's highest crime writing accolade, the Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction. Let's stick with hard boiled, um, Australian crime heist fiction and this one is Gunshine State by Andrew Nettie Gary Chance is a former Australian Army driver, ex bouncer and thief. His latest job takes him to Surfers Paradise, Queensland, working for aging standover man Dennis Curry.
Curry runs off site non-casino poker games and wants to rob one of his best customers, a high roller called Freddy Gow. The job seems straightforward, but Curry's crew is anything but. Frank Dormer is a secretive ex-soldier turned private security contractor. Sophie Lekakis is a highly strung receptionist at the hotel where Gow stays when he visits Surfers Paradise. Amber Curry's female house housemate, is part of the lure for Gow. Chance knows he can't trust anyone, but nothing prepares him for what unfolds when Curry's plan goes wrong. Let's hear a sample of Gun Shine State by Andrew Nettie. It's narrated by Dennis Challenger, and again, it's part of the Vision Australia production.
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The high pitched whine of the power drill tore through the confined space of the back office. Chance winced at the noise, worried it could be heard on the street outside. How much longer, Adamo. He said, his voice edgy. The man crouched on the floor with his back to him, said nothing. His attention focused on a green metal safe the size of a three drawer filing cabinet. They'd agreed no more than two hours for the job, just over 40 minutes left. Chance pulled at the smooth stump, where the little finger on his left hand had once been leaned against a battered wooden desk. He picked up a sheet of A4 from the mess of paperwork, held it to the glow of the portable halogen lamp, read an order for glassware. He let the paper flutter to the floor, sniffed the aroma of their sweat mingled with stale beer and fried food.
I thought all you needed was a stethoscope and a good pair of ears, like in the movies. Adamo cut the power. Swore in Italian. He looked over his shoulder, the olive skin on his face stretched tight and beaded with sweat. We've been over this already. All safes get shipped from the manufacturer with what they call tryout combinations. Ideally, the owner resets it on delivery. Doesn't happen as often as you think, but unfortunately, these folks are the exception. You said you might be able to guess the combination, said chance. The noise from the drill. Someone might hear it.
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And that was Gunshine State by Andrew Nettie. Andrew is [spells name]. That book goes for nine hours and ten minutes. And it's part one of the Gary Chance series. This was published in 2016, and there is also part two of the Gary Chance books in the collection. It's called Orphan Road, and that book, Orphan Road, is a fairly new addition to the catalog. It was only, um, released this month as an audio into the Vision Australia library.
The second book looks as interesting as the first to me. Anyway. Gary Chance is an Australian army driver and nightclub bouncer turned professional thief, and offer comes from a former employer, once notorious Melbourne social identity, now aging owner of a failing S&M club. Verily, a shadowy real estate developer, is trying to squeeze Lee out of a rapidly gentrifying city. But she has a rescue plan that involves one of Australia's biggest heists.
Now keeping on with mystery and crime, more crime and mystery this time than heists or hard boiled detectives. This is New Zealand author Michael Bennett's novel Better the Blood. Hannah Westerman is a tenacious Maori detective, juggling single motherhood and the pressures of her career in Auckland's Central Investigation Branch. When she's led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man hanging in a secret room as Hannah and her team work to track down the culprit. Other deaths lead her to think that they are searching for New Zealand's first serial killer. With little to go on, Hannah must use all her experience as a police officer to try and find a motive to these apparently unrelated murders.
What she eventually discovers is a link to an historic crime that leads back to the brutal, bloody colonisation of New Zealand. Then the pursuit becomes frighteningly personal, and Hannah realises that whilst her heritage is key to finding the killer, their agenda of revenge may include her and her family. Let's hear a sample of Better the Blood by Michael Bennett. It's narrated by Miriama McDowell and Richard Tiara, and this is a production of the Aurora Audiobook Studios.
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5th of October, 1863. His hands move quickly as he polishes the sheet of silver plated copper to a perfect mirror finish. He is well practiced at this. On a good day, say, on a day where he has been engaged to create portraits of a number of members of a wealthy London merchant family, he could easily craft 30 daguerreotypes. Perhaps more. In this God forsaken place on the other side of the world, though it is far more difficult. Engaged by the Queen's army to make permanent records of the colonial campaign. He finds himself again and again practising his art in the field where he has no permanent studio. No light, safe room where he can prepare the materials. It is a challenge, to say the least. But he prides himself on his professionalism. On the cover of a black cloth. The daguerreotypist places the highly polished plate in a sensitizing box containing iodine crystals. He waits patiently for the fumes to react with the silver. Others there are not so patient. We haven't got all day for this, says the captain of the troop.
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Hurry up, man.
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The captain is quite drunk and has been so for hours ever since his men successfully apprehended the captive. If truth be told, he is inebriated far more often than he is sober. A fact has meant no well attested to by the ongoing lack of rum in the evening rations. And while none would dare make a complaint about the situation, the captain's appetite for the bottle has made him no friends amongst his subordinates.
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And that was a sample of Better the Blood by Michael Bennett. Michael is [spells name]. He's also a film director as well as being a screenwriter. He's 2022 crime novel Better the Blood was short listed for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for fiction at the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and for Best Novel at the at the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards, which are a huge deal in New Zealand. The Ngaios, as they're called, are literary awards presented annually in New Zealand to recognise excellence in crime fiction, mystery and thriller writing.
Now a change of pace, let's go to award winning book The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. This is a very new release into the library. The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's car business is going under. But instead of doing anything about it, he's out in the woods preparing for the actual end of the world. Meanwhile, his wife Imelda is selling off her jewellery on eBay and half heartedly dodging the attentions of fast talking local wrong'un big Mike. Their teenage daughter Cass, usually top of her class, seems determined to drink her way through the whole thing, and 12 year old PJ is spending more and more time on video game forums where he's met a friendly boy named Ethan, who never turns his camera on and wants PJ to run away from home, digging down through the layers of a family history. The roots of this crisis stretch deep into the past.
Meanwhile, in the present, the fault lines keep spreading, ghosts slipping in through the cracks, and every step brings the barness closer to a fatal precipice. When the moment of reckoning finally arrives, all four of them must decide. Decide how far they're willing to go to save the family, and whether, if the story has already been written, there's still time to give it a happy ending. There is a warning with this book because it does have some challenging issues with, you know, people taking their own lives or murder. It is a darkly humorous book. Um, so yes, there is swearing in in it as well, but let's hear a sample here of, uh, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. It's narrated by Heather O'Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, Kieran O'Brien and Lisa Carroccio. Come again. It's been distributed through audible, and so it is available in many of your local libraries as an audible book.
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Cass and Elaine first met in chemistry class when Elaine poured iodine on Cass's eczema during an experiment. It was an accident. She cried more than casted and insisted on going with her to the nurse. They'd been friends ever since. Every morning, Cass called to Elaine's house and they walked to school together. At lunchtime, they rolled up their long skirts and wandered around the supermarket, listening to music from Elaine's phone, eating croissants from the bakery section that were gone by the time they got to checkout. In the evening, they went to each other's houses to study. Cass felt she'd known Elaine forever. It made no sense that they had not always been friends. Their lives were so similar it was almost eerie. Both girls came from well known families in the town. Casa's father, Dicky, owned a local Volkswagen dealership, while Elaine's dad, big Mike, was a businessman and a cattle farmer. Both girls were of slightly above average height. Both were bright. In fact, they were consistently at the top of their class. Both intended to leave here someday and never come back.
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That was The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. Paul is [spells name]. That book goes for 26 hours, so it's a long one. But the reviews are amazing, including one by our very own Stella Gloria here at Vision Australia. She absolutely loved the book all the time that she was listening to it. She was saying, oh, you'll have to read it, you'll have to read it. And still is not the only one with lots of people. Actually, the ones I'm reading here are pretty much, five all across the board for the overall book, the performance and the story. Paul Baumann, a reviewer here on audible, says incredible book and incredible audiobook two using different wonderful voice actors for the four family members was a great decision.
I feel like starting again from the beginning. And, another review here by Jessica, she says, I read about two books a week and generally give only, and give only star reviews, but this one deserves some actual comments. And she says at times this book is excruciating in a good way, in its pathos. This novel had me on edge again, in a good way, all the way through. It was published in 2023. It was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. Writing for The Guardian, Justine Jordan stated that this is a sprawling, capacious novel, but expertly foreshadowed and so intricately put together that many throwaway moments to only take on resonance on a second reading. So not often you get people saying that about, oh, you know, you have to read it again, or I'd like to start it over again. Justine Jordan finishes that review by saying, you won't read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year. Big busting, great reviews all around for that. That is the Bee Sting by Paul Murray.
The women's prize shortlist has been announced. Six books have been nominated for this year's women's prize. One of the books is by Anne Enright and it's called the Wren. The Wren as in The Bird, the Wren. Nell, funny, brave, and so much loved, is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape for her mother, Carmel. Nell's leaving home opens a space in her heart with a turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn, and across the generations falls the long shadow of Carmel's famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions. Let's hear a sample of the Wren. The Wren by Anne Enright. It's narrated by Anne Enright, for Duffin own Row, and Liza Ross.
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There is a psychologist in Nevada called Russell T Hurlburt, who is interested in the different ways people think. In 2009, he fitted a young woman called Melanie with a beeper that went off randomly during the day, prompting her to record everything in her awareness at that moment, and she later reconstructed these mental events for his research. On the third day of Melanie's experiment, as her boyfriend was asking her a question about insurance, she was trying to remember the word periodontist. On the fourth day, she was having a strong urge to go scuba diving. On the sixth day, she was picking flower petals from the sink while hearing echoes of the phrase nice, long time.
Doctor Hurlbut says that there are great variations in the way our inner lives play themselves out in our heads. My research says that there are a lot of people who don't ever naturally form images, and then there are other people who form very florid, high fidelity, technicolor, moving images. Some people have inner lives dominated by speech, body sensations or emotions, and yet others by unstabilized thinking that can take the form of wordless questions like should I have the ham sandwich or the roast beef? I find this experiment very useful and attractive. No explanations are sought or given. Melanie thinks this way because that is the way that Melanie thinks. There may be no reason for Melanie to have the mind of a poet, with her sink full of faded petals and her inner ear enjoying the words nice long time where other people would see used tea bags and think my life is turning to shit. I wonder what was going through her boyfriend's mind at these moments. Let's get insured. Or why is she ignoring me? Or Oh my god, her breasts.
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Or again, it's distributed by Audible.com so you can get it at your local libraries if you aren't a member of our library. And again, a bit of a content warning I'm reading from the Audible.com website here. It says this is a meditation on love spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or genetic. A generational saga that traces the inheritance not just of trauma but also of wonder. It is a testament to the glorious resilience of women in the face of promises, false and true. And above all, it is an exploration of the love between mother and daughter, sometimes fierce, often painful, but always transcendent.
Anne Enright is an Irish writer born in 1962. She was the first laureate for Irish fiction in 2015 to 2018, and she was the winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2007. She has described her writing practice as involving in quotes, rocking the pram with one hand and typing with the other. Her fourth novel, The Gathering, was the one that won the Man Booker Prize in 2007, and we do have that in the library collection. The Gathering by Anne Enright... Anne is spelt [spells name]. And The Wren. The Wren goes for seven hours and 40 minutes.
Thank you once again for joining us on Hear This today. I'm Frances Keyland. Thank you to everybody that listens to the show. And remember the 100 K your way? It runs until the end of April. So there's still a few days to make an impact and help Vision Australia Radio with keeping the Community Radio Network on the air. If you would like to join the library, please give the library a call on 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email library@visionaustraslia.org - that's et's library at Vision Australia - dot - org. I hope you have a lovely week and we'll be back next week with more Hear This.
