Latest events and books

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00:24S1

Hello. My name is Francis Keyland, and I'm bringing you here. This, which is the Vision Australia Library radio show on Vision Australia Radio. Our special guest today is Leanne [indistinct]. Lovely to have her in the studio with us today and I hope you enjoyed the show. Once again, I'm here today with Leanne Seshadri, the Community Engagement Coordinator here at Vision Australia Library. Hello, Leanne.

00:53S2

Hi, Frances, good to be in studio with you today.

00:56S1

It is so nice. And I actually did get an email from somebody saying, oh, wish you could always do the interviews with Leanne in the studio because yeah, it is much nicer and just the sound is clearer and you get more of a, oh, I don't know, a rapport going.

01:11S2

Oh well, I always enjoy our chats when we're here in the studio. Francis. So that's lovely to hear.

01:17S1

And so what's on with the library?

01:20S2

What's on? Yeah a few things on. We are in the middle of our memoir writing series, which is always really fabulous. So that's been a lot of fun. We've got a great group who are learning all about the craft of memoir writing. We're halfway through that. So yeah, we will be repeating it in 2024. It feels strange to be talking about next year already, but we're it feels like we're almost there. So yeah, just an encouragement for anyone who missed out this time to please join us in future sessions. These have been really wonderful groups to be part of, but coming up in the library we have at the end of the month, treat yourself. So treat yourself as our regular every two months book chat, and we've got a bit of a special one for October. The end of October is, of course, Halloween the 31st, and we'll be hosting a special Treat Yourself with guests Ellen Baxter and Aaron Dries, who are both writers. Ellen Baxter has been described as the Stephen King of Australia. So yeah, kind of masters of the horror slash supernatural slash spooky genre. Yeah. So they'll be joining us to share some original short stories, which will be a lot of fun. So a bit of storytelling, and we invite for this one any of our participants who would like to share their own stories and to please submit a short piece, let us know if you'd like to tell your own story on the night.

02:46S1

Well, that's a great idea. Do you mean like true supernatural experiences?

02:51S2

Oh goodness me, I guess. I mean, I guess, but create let let's say creative creative ones. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah, that should be, it should be a fun night.

03:02S1

That'll be great. I love, you know, getting that spine tingling.

03:07S2

I know your.

03:07S1

Experience.

03:09S2

Not my it's not my favorite genre.

03:11S1

No.

03:12S2

So I have one of my colleagues Tim, who's some of your listeners might be familiar with. He's very excited for this one. So he's been eagerly planning it and looking forward to, yeah, some spine tingling tales being told.

03:25S1

Yes. Just a reminder that for some people, Halloween October the 31st is like bigger than Christmas. For them. It's it's a huge.

03:34S2

Growing each year. It's a big deal. In my neighborhood there's a lot of trick or treating happening. This treat yourself will be in the evening. So it's at 8 p.m. Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time. So yeah a nice thing to to occupy the night.

03:49S1

How do you register Leanne.

03:51S2

So you can register online through our website. If you go to Vision Australia. Org forward slash library and look at the What's on section, you can find the link to register to the event. You can also give our team a call on 1300 654 656. This one's on zoom so anyone across the country can join in. But as with all of our zoom events, you can also dial in using your phone. So give our team a call and they can help you learn how to do that.

04:20S1

Awesome. Thank you. And what else is coming up.

04:24S2

So we are looking forward to our final in conversation for the year, which will be hosting The Fabulous Judy nine. So she has a very storied career as an actress and entertainer. But for the past past few years, past decades or so, she's been a really prolific writer and has released a full of 20 novels, many of which are in the Vision Australia library. She's currently touring the country promoting her latest novel, which is called Black Sheep and has just been added to the Vision Australia library collection in Daisy audio. So yes, she'll be chatting to us about Black Sheep. A lot of her fiction is inspired by Australian history, so it's Australian historical fiction, and this one looks at the story of a sheep grazing family who welcomes an outsider into the fold. A lot of her stories are really kind of epic family sagas. And in this. Like to be another. Another good one.

05:25S1

Oh, great. And she's a fabulous talker. Guest speaker I've heard different interviews with her. She's wonderful.

05:33S2

Yeah, yeah. So we're really looking forward to that one. She'll be interviewed by Stellar Glory. So I know it's going to be a really entertaining discussion.

05:41S1

They'll be fabulous. And how does people register for that event? Yeah.

05:45S2

So that one is on the 17th of November on a Friday afternoon, 2 p.m. Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time. You can jump on the website, look for the What's On section and register through there, or contact our team.

05:59S1

And for younger audiences. Leanne.

06:02S2

Yeah, well we do have in November our final intergenerational storytime for the year. And you did say younger audience, but it is it is for our younger and older audience. That's true. This is a lovely morning that we host at our Kooyong office once per term. So on the 23rd of November, we'll be inviting back some of our Young at Heart Vision Australia Library members. So members aged over 60 to join us for a morning with some young people from the community. So we welcome and families with preschoolers. And we also have a lovely group of children from a local kindergarten who join us for story time. And so we share some stories, do some songs, and have a craft activity, and this one will be a fun one. We know that kids love dinosaurs, and we have recently launched a Dynamites club for our younger library members. So our intergenerational storytime is going to be dinosaur themed and welcoming a real life palaeontologist to join us. So that's that's good fun. And there'll be some dinosaur related activities as well.

07:12S1

Oh, that'd be so exciting for kids.

07:14S2

Yeah, yeah. So and adults as well. So we have a lovely group from our young recreational group who join us each time we do these. But any anyone who's part of the Vision Australia community and aged over 60 is also invited to come in. So if you're local Toku Young, you're very welcome to join us. You can register through the website or give our team a call.

07:36S1

What have you been reading, Leanne? Anything exciting?

07:39S2

Yeah. So. Yeah. What am I reading currently? I'm reading a great memoir at the moment called My Father and Other Animals. This is in the library. It's by Sam Vincent. It's the story of a look, a millennial city guy who returns to the family farm. His father and his family owns a property in New South Wales. He's a bit aimless in life and, yeah, decides to go back to the family farm and learn the farming ways of his dad. So it's a great story about returning to country, about the about modern farming in Australia. A lot of it is focused on the practice of regenerative farming. So that's kind of a concept that's new to me, but moving beyond kind of sustainability and learning how to work with the land to produce a kind of a local ecology that's really productive and fertile and fruitful. So it's yeah, it's a really fun read. There's a there's a lot of light humour in it. It's a, yeah, really, really insightful look into rural life in Australia.

08:48S1

Mhm. That sounds really interesting.

08:50S2

Yeah I'm enjoying it a lot. Yeah. It's a good read.

08:54S1

What have I been reading. I've been reading. It's not about the taps okay. It was written in the 90s by an Australian woman who bicycled across Spain. Oh that.

09:04S2

Sounds fabulous.

09:05S1

Yes. And it's a very funny and kind of nice. And it's in the library collection, and she has a lot of amusing adventures on the way. So it's not about the taps. I don't forget the author isn't that terrible, but I'll find out. I'll look it up that. Yeah, great. And it's nice that in the library newsletter that's gone out to everybody who is subscribed to the library newsletter by email. That's right.

09:28S2

So the October edition of the library newsletter has just been released. So do you have a look in your inbox for it? And you can also subscribe to the Daisy audio version, so you will receive that if you're already a subscriber. But if not, give our team a call and they can help you subscribe so that you automatically receive future editions of the newsletter. We always include in there upcoming events. We always like to highlight some books in our collection, so we've got a great list in there. At the moment of some newly published books from 2023 that are in the collection now. And yeah, just any other news from the libraries in there.

10:07S1

Thank you so much, Leanne. We'll have you back again soon. Thank you.

10:10S2

Thanks, Francis.

10:17S1

Let's start off with what Leanne has enjoyed reading recently. My father and other animals. Sam Vincent, a moving and hilarious fish out of water memoirs of a millennial leaving his inner city life to take over the family farm. Sam Vincent is a 20 something writer in the inner suburbs, scrambling to make ends meet when he gets a call from his mother. His father has stuck his hand in a woodchipper. But not to worry, it wasn't like that scene in Fargo or anything. When Sam returns to the family farm to help out, his life takes a new and unexpected direction, where the castrating calf, or buying a bull, or knocking in 100 fence posts by hand when his dad hides the post. Driver. Sam's farming apprentice is an education in grit, but there are victories, too. Nurturing a fig orchard to bloom, learning to read the land, joining the forces with indigenous elders to protect a special site. Slowly, Sam finds himself thinking differently about the farm, about his father, and about his relationship with both by turns affecting Hillary and utterly surprising, this memoir melds humour and fierce honesty in an unsentimental love letter. It's about belonging, humility and regeneration of land, family and culture. What passes from father to son on this unruly patch of earth is more than a livelihood. It is a legacy. Let's hear a Sam a sample of My Father and Other Animals by Sam Vincent. It's narrated by Sam Merrifield.

11:52S3

My parents farm is 45 minutes from Canberra, the last ten on corrugated dirt roads. When the paramedics arrived trailing a plume of dust, they asked him to rate the pain on a level of 0 to 10. My father replied five, which the paramedics took to mean the pain was bearable. But to anyone who knew, my father meant he was in a great deal of pain indeed. I drove out to the farm the next day. It was late winter, sunny but brisk, and my father was dressed in his characteristic short shorts and mothafuckin jumper. He was in good spirits. His right thumb had been broken in three places. Shattered was the word he used with detectable pride, but the rest of his hand was just badly bruised. He seemed more annoyed that the accident had stopped him making compost. The Acacia and Tagus trees he'd been shipping being the first ingredients which he customarily brewed into a tea each year and sprayed on his pasture as fertilizer. His cattle were calving. The idea was that by the time the newborn calves were ready to start eating grass in spring, the pasture would be turbocharged by compost tea. He spoke of the physiotherapy exercises he would do, and his confidence that in no time his thumb would make a near full recovery. But when my mother made coffee for the three of us, I sensed an unspoken feeling of. Here we are again. Farming families often need a crisis to start a conversation about succession.

13:20S1

That was My Father and Other Animals by Sam Vincent. Sam is spelt Sam. Vincent is v I n c e n t v I n c e n t. And that book goes for seven hours and 39 minutes. Published in print by Black Ink and out of the book. I've recently enjoyed myself. And this is It's Not About the Tapes by Polly Evans is the author. The author's life in the publishing industry of London and Hong Kong seemed just too easy, so she packed up and headed to Spain with her bicycle from the thigh, burning a sense of the Pyrenees to the relentless olive groves of Andalucia, she found more adventure than she had bargained for. Let's hear a sample of It's Not About the Tapestry by Polly Evans. It's narrated by Elizabeth Easter.

14:11S4

I decided to go to Spain. I knew the country and I spoke the language after a fashion. Even if my attempts did make the locals laugh out loud. I'd even lived there for a while when, as a university student studying Spanish, I'd been required to spend a year abroad. I knew how to order a beer. I could even ask for different sizes, depending on the level of alcoholic refuge the moment demanded, I vaguely understood the words on a menu. Spain would be a nice, restful destination. I thought it would present nothing too difficult. It would be fun to go back. It was eight years since my last visit, and the fresh air and sunshine would do me good. To ensure my recuperation. I'd even take some exercise. I wouldn't just visit Spain. I'd cycle round it. I set myself a target of a thousand miles and six weeks in which to cover them. I'd start at the top in the chic beach resort of San Sebastian, then work my way east over the Pyrenees and down to Barcelona, where I'd strut along tree lined boulevards with the beautiful people. Then I'd head south to Granada and westwards across Andalucia to Seville, before heading up into Extremadura, Spain's wild west. I'd then pedal over to the historic capital of Toledo and finally end up in the modern hurly burly of Madrid. After six weeks of the cycling cure, I'd be lithe, fit, suntanned. If my tour took a few ups and downs, if I felt the need to let out the occasional primal scream. Well, in Spain nobody would notice. They're used to craziness in Spain. In fact, they positively celebrate it.

15:53S1

That was. It's not about the tap. It's by Polly Evans. Polly is doubly. Doubly. Eva Ann's. And that Will goes for eight hours and 37 minutes. It was published in 1998, so it is a bit dated in some ways. She talks about having a mobile phone as if it's an unusual thing to have back then, which it was, and you kind of forget how far we've come since then. And a while ago there was an email sent by the wonderful Bob from the act. Hello, Bob, because I'd talked about themes for future programmes, perhaps in one of the shows and Bob's in a book group in the act, which has a theme each month. And this way of choosing books for clubs is called Book Bingo. He said next month's theme is debut novels. This will enable us to go back to the beginnings of a writing career and see how it develops, or to project on what might be the future of an author. And he said, I have a long list to choose from. Books like Lillian Story by Kate Grenville, which I love that book as well. That's the Kate Greenville's first book. But he said he's inclined to go for Lillian Paul's debut, The Bees, a mind expanding dystopic fantasy which she followed with The Ice, which also deals with the ecological crisis in the world today. And yes, that was on here. This her second novel, The Ice. So I'm going to play a sample of the Bees. Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive, where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees, with circumstances threatening the hive survival. Her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw, but her courage and strength are assets. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect nectar and pollen. A feat of bravery grants her access to the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous. But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all, daring to challenge the Queen's pre-eminence, enemies abound from the fearsome fertility police who enforced the hive's strictest social hierarchy, to the High priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by a greater power, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, and her society, and lead her to perform unthinkable deeds. Let's hear a sample of The Bees by Layla Paul. It's narrated by Orla Cassidy.

18:46S5

The cell squeezed her and the air was hot and fetid. All the joints of her body burned from her, frantic twisting against the walls. Her head was pressed into her chest and her legs shot with cramps. But her struggles had worked. One wall felt weaker. She kicked out with all her strength and felt something crack and break. She forced and tore and bit until there was a jagged hole into fresher air beyond. She dragged her body through and fell out onto the floor of an alien world. Static roared through her brain, thunderous vibrations shook the ground, and a thousand scents dazed her mind. All she could do was breathe, until gradually the vibration and static subsided and the scent evaporated into the air. Her rigid body unlocked and she calmed as knowledge filled her mind. This was the arrivals hall and she was a worker. Her kin was Flora and her number was 717. Certain of her first task, she set about cleaning out her cell in her violent struggle to hatch. She had broken the whole front wall. Unlike her neater neighbors. She looked then followed their example, piling her debris neatly by the ruins. The activity cleared her senses, and she felt the vastness of the arrivals hall and how the vibrations in the air changed in different areas. Row upon row of cells like hers stretched into the distance. And there the cells were quiet but resonant, as if the occupants still slept.

20:23S1

That was the bees by Lilian Paul. Lilian is spelt Lal in E Lal in E, Paul is PR, double PR double L and that book goes for ten hours and 16 minutes. Good reads. The website Good Reads have called it The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut novel. It was published back in 2015. It sounds like an absolutely beautiful book and I am going to give that a read. Bob. Yeah, thank you for sending through that email. The next book won the Booker Prize in 2016. It is The Sellout by Paul Beatty. This was the first American book to win the prestigious Booker Prize, an award traditionally reserved for the English language literature not from the US. It was published in 2015. Born in the agrarian ghetto of Dickens on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles, the narrator of The Sellout is raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, and spends his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies led to believe his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. He is shocked to discover when his father is killed in a police shootout, that there was never a memoir. All that's left is a bill for a drive through funeral. Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to write another wrong. Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from embarrassment. Enlisting the help of Dickens most famous resident, Hominy Jenkins, he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school. What follows is a remarkable journey that challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution urban life, the civil rights movement, and the Holy Grail of racial racial equality. The black Chinese restaurant Laodicea a sample of The Sellout by Paul Beatty. It's narrated by Prentice on AMC.

22:32S6

Washington, DC. With its wide streets confounding roundabouts, marble statues, Doric columns and domes is supposed to feel like ancient Rome. That is, if the streets of ancient Rome were lined with homeless black people, bomb sniffing dogs, tour buses and cherry blossoms. Yesterday afternoon, like some sandal shod Ethiopia from the sticks of the darkest of the Los Angeles jungles, I ventured from the hotel and joined the hearts of blue Jean yokels that paraded slowly and patriotically past the Empire's historic landmarks. I stared in awe at the Lincoln Memorial. If Honest Abe had come to life and somehow managed to lift his bony 23 foot, four inch frame from his throne, what would he say? What would he do? Would he break dance? But he pitched pennies against the curbside. But he read the paper and see that the union he saved was now a dysfunctional plutocracy. That the people he freed were now slaves to rhythm rap and predatory lending. And that today his skill set would be better suited to the basketball court than the white House. There. He could catch the rock on the break. Pull up for a bearded three pointer. Hold the pose and talk shit as the ball popped the net. The Great Emancipator. You can't stop him. You can only hope to contain him. Not surprisingly, there's nothing to do at the Pentagon except start a war.

23:58S1

That was the sellout. The 2016 Booker Prize winner by Paul Beatty. Paul is people. People. Beatty is b e a double t b e double t. The book goes for 9.5 hours. The sellout is a fictitious satirical novel about race relations in the US. Beatty utilizes stereotypes and parody throughout the story to inject social commentary. Beatty's other works are mostly humorous as well, but Beatty has claimed he does not view himself as a satirical author. I'm reading just from Wikipedia here. Also from Wikipedia. They say that in The Guardian, Elizabeth Donnelly described it as a masterful work that establishes Beatty as the funniest writer in America, and The Huffington Post said The Sellout is a hilarious, pop culture packed satire about race in America. Beatty writes energetically, providing insight as often as he elicits laughs. Paul Beatty was born in 1962. He's an associate professor of writing at Columbia University, and this book, The Sellout, took five years to complete. The author himself has mentioned that he thinks critics concentrate too much on how funny it is, and that's a way to avoid the deeper social issues in the book. Interesting. So that's Paul Beatty and The Sellout. Thank you for joining us on here this today. Thanks to Bob from the Act for sending an email through. And it's taken me a while to sort of fit it into the show. But thank you so much and keep them coming. Bob, I always love your suggestions. If you would like to offer your suggestions about anything to read or what you're reading that you're enjoying, or authors that are popular or unpopular that may not have been heard of, just ring the library or send an email. So the number for the library is 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email a library at Vision Australia. Org that's library at Vision australia.org. And sometimes it can be a little bit nerve wracking like today when I was recommending it's all about the tapes, I was thinking is it really that good a book or I mean, it's not earth shattering, but it's enjoyable and got a bit of historical content, but you start to second guess yourself and think, oh, maybe if I, I shouldn't really commit myself to recommending something. But look, this program is all about just communicating. What you're reading doesn't have to be Earth shatteringly good. It can be something that you'd find just brightens your mood or preoccupies you for a while to get you away from the every day. So any recommendations are welcome. Have a lovely week and we'll be back next week with more here. This.