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Let's. Take a look. To take a look inside the book. Take a look...
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Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Keyland, bringing you the Vision Australia library show. Today we have a great variety of books, so I do hope you enjoy listening to the show.
The Brimbank Writers and Readers Festival is happening this year from the 13th to the 22nd of March. Brimbank is a very vibrant area out west of Melbourne, and this is a yearly event that celebrates and encourages a love of reading, storytelling, creativity and diversity and learning. Brimbank City Council is delighted to present the 2025 program supported by principal sponsor Victoria University and partnered events with the Bowery Theatre, Borrow Box, Vision Australia. Local writers and community groups, so Vision Australia Radio have partnered up and will be hearing more about this as the festival begins.
When I thought people might want to know what they can come and see, Kate Ceberano will be there on the opening night at 630 till 8 p.m. on the 13th of March. So that's the opening day, and this will be at the Bowery Theatre in Saint Albans. Join Aussie music icon Kate Ceberano in conversation with Paul Bateman as they explore Kate's beautifully illustrated memoir, Unsung, and this features Kate's inspirational song lyrics, stories and artwork celebrating four decades of songwriting and recording. There are drinks and complimentary food will be available from 5:45 p.m.. This event is also Auslan interpreted. There is wheelchair access and it is a free event.
If you would like to contact Brimbank and find out more about the Writers Festival, there is an email writers festival at Brimbank dot gov dot AU. That's writers festival all one word at Brimbank dot gov dot AU. Or you can phone [03] 9249 4296 ... 9249 4296. So there are a number of libraries and venues around the Brimbank area that you can attend. But there's some great things. I know. Our very own Jason Gibbs was going to attend one on comedy writing, a little workshop on comedy writing. And there's also been a micro fiction competition, so the awards ceremony and celebration will be on the 21st of March and we we as partners with the Brimbank Festival, will be highlighting some of those microfictions and and talking to somebody from the festival.
I do hope if you're in the area or if you just want to travel out for the day, as I said, it's such a vibrant area out west and I was lucky enough just to drop in at some water gardens and just had a look around the shelves, and they were making pancakes for the kids because it was about 330. So kids were coming out and going to the library after school, and there were pancakes being made. Our libraries are always such great community areas, so check out Brimbank Festival. The spelling for Brimbank is [spells festival name].
The first book today is one that commemorates the birth date of John Steinbeck, a famous American author. Janine sent me in a list of authors birthdays for February. Earlier on in the month, and John Steinbeck was the last on the list. His birthday was the 27th of February. What a fabulous author he was. Many people would have studied him at school, either Of Mice and Men or Cannery Row.
But I thought I'd play a sample today of East of Eden, and this was recorded in 1995. 30 years ago, set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Let's hear a sample of Are East of Eden. And rather than start with a story, I thought I'd play the foreword. This was written in 1995 by his partner at the time, Elaine Steinbeck. He had died already, but she writes a lovely, lovely foreword about John Steinbeck.
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When John Steinbeck and I began to fall in love, he took me for long drives around Northern California in what is now called Steinbeck Country, to show me the land where he had grown up and the places he had especially loved. One day he drove through a green valley into a town called Salinas, took a turn onto Central Avenue, and stopped in front of a pretty Victorian house with big trees and a well-kept lawn and flowers. He pointed to a window on the first floor and said, that's the room I was born in. Then he pointed to the window above and said, that's the room I wrote in. I asked, when did you begin to write? And John said, almost in wonder. I don't remember a time I didn't write.
You, a reader, are holding in your hands something he wrote. And I, his widow, his wife, for the last 18 years of his life, would like to tell you some things I remember about the way he wrote the places in which he wrote his moods while writing ether. Of course, I can't tell you why he wrote what he did. That's every writer's secret. Having co-edited a book of his letters, I know a little about his beginnings, especially during the years of the Great Depression when he lived in Pacific Grove, California, just beside Cannery Row and near to Monterey. He lived in a little old house with great old trees and a walled garden, which still belongs to the Steinbeck family.
There was no money for writing material, so he wrote in old ledgers gathered from his father's civil service job, and he boasted about having bought from a local shop a cheap bottle of ink that had been so long in stock it was as ripe and rich as Napoleon brandy.
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So that was a sample of the recording done 30 years ago of East of Eden by John Steinbeck. John is [spells name]. And he was born 1902 and passed away in 1968. It's a long one. It goes for 23 hours and 52 minutes. And that narrator was Eliza Ross. And there is a male narrator in this story as well in the recording. There are many other books by the wonderful John Steinbeck in the library, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and a cute little one that I've always quite liked.
I had a copy of this at one stage in print, Travels with Charley, in which Steinbeck and his French poodle Charley travel across the states of America from Maine to California, moving through woods and forests, dirt tracks and highways, to large cities and glorious wildernesses. Steinbeck observed America and the Americans with humorous and sometimes a sceptical eye. What he sees is a lonely, generous nation, too, packed with individuals for single judgments. His vision of how the world was changing, however, speaks to us warningly and prophetically through the decades. Travels with Charley was published in 1962.
Lately I've been reading some articles from 1925, so from 100 years ago and this particular year in 1925. crosswords became the absolute craze, the crossword as we know it today. There had been word puzzles before this, but 1925 crosswords became much debated. Libraries were reporting that people weren't borrowing as many books. People were doing crosswords. It was sort of the, what would you call it, gaming of the 20s. So I don't have any history of the crossword puzzle, and I found that so interesting. But we have a book called A clue for the Puzzle Lady, and this is part one of the Puzzle Lady books by Parnell Hall.
When the body of an unknown teenage girl turns up in the cemetery in the quiet town of Baker Haven, Police Chief Dale Harper finds himself investigating his first homicide. A baffling clue leads him to consult Baker Haven's resident puzzle expert, and soon Cora's meddling, mischief making behavior drives Chief Harper to distraction. But when another body turns up in a murder that hits much closer to home, Cora must find a killer before she winds up in a wooden box three feet across and six down. Let's hear a sample of A clue for the Puzzle Lady by Parnell Hall. It's narrated by Agnes Blake.
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The first clue came with a corpse. The body lay next to a gravestone in the Baker Haven Cemetery. Police chief Dale Harper stood in the pouring rain and looked down at it with displeasure. What was a corpse doing in the cemetery? Chief Harper was not unaware of the humor in the question. A body in the cemetery. The press would have a field day. Chief Harper frowned and wiped the water off his face. The body was that of a young girl in her late teens or early 20s. She was lying face down with her head twisted to the side. Her left eye was open. Chief Harper wished he could close it.
It was eight in the morning. He had barely had his coffee, and the sight of her made him queasy. What in the world was she doing there, and why was she in the cemetery if she'd only been on the other side of the fence, not a hundred yards away. She'd have been in the township of Clarksville, and he wouldn't have gotten the call that dragged him away from the breakfast table before his toast had even popped. On a rainy Monday morning. The last day in May. But no, this corpse fell under his jurisdiction. The good citizens of Baker Haven would expect him as chief of police to do something about it. It was up to him to find out who killed her and why.
At the moment, he didn't even know who she was. Never seen her before, the caretaker said. It was the fourth or fifth time he'd said so. A shriveled little man with a somewhat belligerent nature. Fred Lloyd had found the body when he'd arrived for work this morning. He'd driven in the gate and his headlights had picked up the girl's silhouette. He'd called the police station. The cop on duty had called the chief, and now Lloyd and Harper were standing together in the cemetery in a drenching rain. So you said Chief Harper knew he should interview Mr. Lloyd. But at the moment he couldn't think of a thing to ask him.
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And that was a clue for the puzzle. Lady by Parnell Hall. Parnell is [spells name]. That book goes for eight hours and 40 minutes. And it is part one of the Puzzle Lady Mystery series. So there are others in the collection so that you can follow on with. I think there's about 6 or 7. And just to mention, I did some research and I found an article from The Guardian in 2011 by Alan Corner, about the... and he did a bit of research on newspapers from the time talking about news crosswords. He says some people associate crosswords with respectability. The suburbanite knocking off the times on the 722 from Twyford, or the Major's wife tidying away her coffee morning and settling into the Telegraph. It wasn't like that when they first appeared.
There are quotes in it from different newspapers, different publications. One publication said... Everywhere at any hour of the day, people can be seen quite shamelessly poring over the checkerboard diagrams, cudgelling their brains for a four letter word meaning molten rock or a six letter word meaning idler in trains, trams or omnibuses, in subways, in private offices and counting rooms, in factories and homes, and even although as yet rarely, with hymnals for camouflage in church. These pernicious puzzle, the Herald goes on, have dealt the final blow to the art of conversation and have been known to break up homes.
Not only were dictionaries being stolen from libraries, but also the damage caused to dictionaries in the library at Wimbledon in in Britain by people doing crossword puzzles has been so great that the committee has withdrawn all the volumes, and poor zookeepers were being hounded by people asking them what is what is a word of three letters meaning a female swan? What is a female kangaroo? Oh dear. The disruptive evil of crossword puzzles. A different time indeed.
And next... it's been a few years now. 2018, when we lost Peter Temple, Australian mystery crime writer. There is a book here in the collection and its title is the Red Hand Stories, reflections and the last appearance of Jack Irish. Peter Temple didn't start publishing novels until he was 50, but then he got cracking, writing nine of them in 13 years. When he died in March 2018, there was an unfinished Jack Irish novel in his drawer. This substantial fragment, entitled high Art, reveals a writer at the peak of his powers. The Red Hand also includes the screenplay of the ABC telemovie Valentine's Day, an improbably delightful tale about an ailing country football club, as well as stories, essays, autobiographical reflections, and a selection of temples brilliant book reviews.
What connects them all is his trademark wit, his ruthless intelligence and his abiding love of his adopted homeland of Australia. Peter Temple held crime writing up to the light, and with his poet's ear and eye made it his own incomparable thing. His work transcends all notions of genre. He remains a towering presence in contemporary Australian literature. This wonderful book pays tribute to all the achievements of the master. Let's hear a sample of the Red hand stories, reflections and the last appearance of Jack Irish are so their workings. Writings by Peter Temple. The narrator is Dennis Challenger.
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I took the swatting branch with me. It would harbour bits of my sweat and serve, only to confuse the forensic geniuses who had Joe in their future low gear all the way. I drove the Falcon out of the valley, grinding up the steep and winding road to the junction on the spine of the mountain. You could see the sea from here. The tower blocks at the water's edge and the houses packed in behind them. Soon everyone would live at the sea in Chinese subdivisions, and Chinese peasants would farm the outback near Brisbane. I stopped at a service station and rang the number.
Hello, said a man. I could hear the clicking of pool balls. Coarse laughter. I asked for Colo. Which colo, mate? A pigtail and missing front tooth. My mate. That's all. The cholos and spider tat on his forehead. Dead center. Or narrows it. And you are Jeremy. Tried, Jeremy. He shouted. Colo, darling, it's a Jeremy. No. Any Jeremy's doll? I listened to laughter and rude words while I watched a man shouting at two small boys trying to kill each other in the back seat of a station wagon. Yeah. Jack the car. How'd it go? Top machine purrs. Done with it, then dusted back where you got it. He said, ticket on the seat. Lock up. Chuck the key down a drain. Got lots of keys.
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And that was a sample of the Red Hand Stories, Reflections, and the last appearance of Jack Irish by Peter Temple. Peter is [spells author's name]. And that book goes for 14.5 hours. So quite a substantial body of work, however, and I'm reading here from the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, in a review by Peter Maywald, he says... Lovers of temples best known anti-hero, Jack Irish, will be thrilled that sport that this book contains 90 pages of riveting mystery and adventure prose from Jack's last case, high art. Unfortunately, the joy will be short lived. The novel is unfinished, so we will never be able to unravel the usual convoluted strands which make temple's mystery stories puzzling but intensely enjoyable.
But this novel also includes six standalone short stories and 16 reviews and essays, many of which were published in respected journals including Griffith Review and The Bulletin. He was a bit scathing of Agatha Christie. Some of Temple's reviews were searing in their criticism of Agatha Christie. He wrote. Having money made her more and more satisfied with herself, more and more convinced that the view from an English country house was the only sane one. So Agatha Christie was not around when he wrote that.
But he wasn't afraid to critique people's work that were around. On John le Carré's Absolute Friends, he says... It joins a list of recent le Carré novels that resemble zeppelins huge things that take forever to inflate, float around for a bit, then expire in flames. His reviews sound very entertaining. He was the only crime writer to win the Miles Franklin Award, and that was for his novel truth, which isn't a Jack Irish novel, it's a standalone novel.
The next book is a nonfiction book, and it is Home to Biloela - The story of the Tamil family that captured our hearts. It is by Priya Nadesalingam. I'm sure most people already know what this is about. It was written in conjunction also with Rebecca Holt and Niromi de Soysa. It was dawn in the small rural town of Biloela. Loud thumping on the front door signaled the start of a four year odyssey that would catapult Priya and her family into national debate for the first time. Priya shares the story of her sheltered childhood in war torn Sri Lanka and her perilous escape across the Indian Ocean on an overcrowded and leaking fishing boat.
Alone in a strange country, she had to make a new life without family or friends. She marries Nardis and settles with him in Biloela, where they have two daughters. The shocking Dawn raid was the first of multiple attempts by Australian Government to deport the family, but the people of Biloela wouldn't have it. A small group swung into action and built an extraordinarily powerful social media campaign that broke through into the mainstream, gathering support from hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australians around the country.
Journalist Rebekah Holt has been following the family's journey over the four long, painful years, and she recounts the dramatic, behind the scenes efforts to prevent the family from being deported. Finally, Priya, nades and the girls were all granted the permanent visas they needed by the new government and they were able to return home to Biloela in the happiest ending they could have wanted. Let's hear a sample of Home to Biloela, the story of the Tamil family that captured our hearts. It's by Priya Nadesalingam and Rebecca Holt, and it's narrated by Rachel Tidd.
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In the latter half of 2017, in the small Queensland town of Biloela. Mayor Neville Ferrier was called by reception staff. There was a woman who wanted to talk to him, but she wouldn't give her name. Ferrier believes part of his role is to talk to anyone if they're a constituent, even if he's yelled at. He believes he should take the brunt of public office rather than his reception staff. Nev is a quiet and solid figure, not given to flowery language. His rural background shows up in many mannerisms, not least that he appears as ready to fix a fence as he is to discuss the local power plant.
Unusually for a politician, he leaves a lot of space for other people to speak, and remains a technically difficult interview for a journalist because his sentences gently trail away. When the mayor brought the woman through to his office, he realised he didn't recognize her, which was unusual in a town with a population of only 5500. While the stranger continued to insist she couldn't tell Ferrier her name, what she did tell him, and with some urgency, was that she held grave fears for the safety of one particular family in Biloela. They were Tamil asylum seekers, and she believed their lives were at risk because the entire family were being assessed for deportation back to Sri Lanka.
The family she described were Priya and Nades and their two Biloela born daughters, Kopika, then aged two, and Tharnicaa, only a few months old. This would be the first time the mayor would hear the names of a family who were soon to become the most famous residents of his town.
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And that was the sample of home to Biloela. The story of the Tamil family that captured our hearts by Priya Nadesalingam and Rebecca Holt. That book goes for eight hours. Priya is spelt [spells name].
The next book pays homage to Mrs. Dalloway, the book by Virginia Woolf. This is called Daughter Dalloway, and it's by Emily France. London, 1952. 46-year-old Elizabeth Dalloway feels she has failed most everything in life, especially living up to her mother, the elegant Mrs. Dalloway, an ideal socialite and model of perfection until she disappeared in the summer of 1923 and hasn't been heard from since. When Elizabeth is handed a medal with a mysterious inscription from her mother to a soldier named Septimus Warren Smith, she's certain it contains a clue from the past as she sets out, determined to deliver the medal to its rightful owner, Elizabeth begins to piece together memories of that fateful summer.
London, 1923. At 17, Elizabeth carouses with the Prince of Wales and sons of American iron barons, and decides to join the Bright Young People, a group of bohemians whose antics often land in the tabloids. She is a girl who rebels against the staid social rules of the time. A girl determined to do it all differently than her mother. A girl who doesn't yet feel like a failure. That summer, Octavia Smith braves the journey from the countryside to London, determined to track down her oldest brother, Septimus, who Her returned from the war but never came home. She falls in with a group of clever city boys who have learned to survive on the streets. When one starts to steal her heart, she must discover whether he is a friend or foe, and whether she can make it in the city on her own.
Elizabeth and Octavia are destined to cross paths, but when they do, the trusts they unearth will shatter their understanding of the people they love the most. Let's hear a sample of Daughter Dalloway by Emily France. It's narrated by Hannah Curtis.
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I picked the flowers myself. Elizabeth Dalloway said for every flower shop in London was closed. Even mulberries was shuttered. At least Miss Pym wasn't alive to see it. Her shop locked for the past three days. What a storm. What a morning to prepare for a party. Bleak as if under someone's boot. Heel. Heal. I know this is disappointing. Theodore said gently. He put a hand in his pocket, looked out the window at the dense fog. He was in his navy sweater, the one that made him look like a captain in an advert for the Royal Navy. It deny it? How dashing he'd always looked in that blue. But I believe you need to send word to your guests. Your party. No one will come. No one will come.
He slipped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. But cheer up. That was Rose, who just rang. She's bringing something over for you. Seemed very keen to bring it straight away. Didn't say what it was. Perhaps it will boost your spirits. Rose. Rose Purvis perfectly put together. Rose. She was the same age as Elizabeth. She had grown up next door. She'd married and become the dignified Mrs. Alfred Foster. But to Elizabeth, she'd always be Rose Purvis. Now she lived with her perfect husband and perfect sons, three of them surely bound for Eton. She, of all people, knew what disasters Elizabeth's parties typically were. There was that spring affair when Elizabeth had made the salmon herself desiccated, each fillet obstinate, impenetrable.
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And that was Daughter Dalloway by Emily France. Emily is Emily. Emily France is [spells name]e. The book goes for 11 hours and 50 minutes. It was published in 2023. It gets really favourable reviews, especially from people who are fans of Virginia Woolf and who loved Mrs. Dalloway. So this relies really heavily on that book. So it's not sort of a a real cutaway. It references the book constantly throughout.
Thank you so much for joining us on Hear This today. I'm Frances Keyland. If you would like to join the library or if you have any inquiries about how to join, please give the library a call on 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email the library at Vision Australia dot org - that's library@visionaustralia.org ... Have a lovely week and we'll be back next week in the autumn months for our next episode of Hear This.
