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Take a look. You take a look inside the book. Take a look. You...
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Hello and welcome to Hear This. I'm Frances Keyland and you're listening to Vision Australia Radio on the Radio Reading Network. On today's library show, we celebrate an Australian rock icon, and I can use that word quite freely with this particular person. And we look at some novels that have been nominated for some major awards this year in Australia and internationally, and we say farewell to a much loved Irish author. I hope you enjoy the show.
Let's start today's show with a bit of a celebration of a famous Australian singer who's had a rough time of it, John Farnham. His song You're the Voice has been chosen by Kamala Harris and has been played on American TV in advertisements endorsing and supporting Kamala Harris. So what a big lift for John Farnham. We have a biography of John Farnham written by Jane Gazzo. In the collection. John Farnham is nothing less than an Aussie icon. In a career spanning almost five decades, the likeable, charismatic star has entertained countless Australians of every generation, selling millions of records along the way.
But his extraordinary story is as much about tackling adversity as it is about topping the charts. In the mid 1980s, more or less penniless and seemingly destined to be remembered mainly as the chirpy teenager whose debut single Sadie the Cleaning Lady swept to number one back in 1967, Farnham had hit rock bottom - but courageously, and assisted by his great friend and manager Glenn Wheatley, who mortgaged his house to finance an album, John stormed into the public consciousness again in 1986 with the epic You're the Voice and the stunning LP Whispering Jack, his spectacular comeback complete. The fair haired superstar has simply gone from strength to strength in the decades since.
In this compelling biography, radio broadcaster and music journalist Jane Gazzo tracks down the key figures in John's life from the 1960s to the present day, revealing an exuberant personality that sometimes disguises his steely determination beneath the surface. Former teen idol Australian of the year. The man known across the nation as The Voice, John Farnham, has earned his reputation as a genuine legend of the local entertainment industry. Let's hear a sample of John Farnham by Jane Gazzo, where she's describing... why she decided to write this biography. And it's narrated by Christine Hall.
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When I first told my friends I was writing a biography on John Farnham, they thought I was joking. If I had said any 80s British pop icon or 90s rock group, they would have had no problem accepting it, but fancy it was very out of character. I first became interested in the idea of writing this book when I was presenting music television shows on Foxtel. It was the 25th anniversary of whispering Jack, so we decided to program a few hours of France's best music videos, interspersed with fun, fun and facts. As a child growing up in Australia in the 80s and 90s, I thought this would be a walk in the park as Farnham's music is part of my own DNA. Like every Aussie kid. But as I began researching John's incredible career, I realised how much I didn't know.
Here I was, a music journalist for the past 20 years, and my fancy knowledge was limited to Sadie. You're the Voice, Whispering Jack and the albums and mullets that followed. Of course, I knew about the key events, such as his Australian of the year award and massive 1987 ARIA win, his wife Jill and famous manager Glenn Wheatley. But as I pulled out videos from John's Little River band phase and early forgotten gems like One, I knew I had some more serious digging to do. I went looking for books about John and couldn't believe there was only one biography, written back in 1989 and now sadly, out of print. For a man so accomplished and who'd been part of the Australian music landscape for over 40 years, this seemed almost a travesty. The book was Whispering Jack by Clark Forbes, and I tracked it down on eBay and devoured it.
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And that was John Farnham by Jane Gazzo. Jane is spelled [spells author's name]. That book goes for ten hours. So a nice read there to celebrate. John Farnham. And that book was published back in 2015, but was reprinted in 2022, so it won't include details of his recent illness that has been so devastating.
And congratulations to Australian author Charlotte Wood, who is on the Booker long list to receive the Booker Prize this year for her 2023 novel Stone Yard Devotional. A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro. She does not believe in God, doesn't know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident. As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town. She finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget. Let's hear a sample of Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. It's narrated by Ailsa Piper.
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A heavy spring frost this morning. Crossing the grass I made a clean track of footprints. Deep green on the white spread of the lawn. It returned me to my childhood. To the sense of secret authority imprinting one's presence into a place with those clear, sharp prints. I exist. The private, pleasurable sound of the finest layer of ice breaking beneath the weight of each step. We've had to give up Anita, the housekeeper. There's not enough money. It always seemed silly to me anyway. Not to clean the guest rooms ourselves along with our own. But some are not happy about it, even though we have no guests now. Anita herself appears completely untroubled, which is a relief. We had a small morning tea to farewell her, and gathered around as Simon gave her the gift of a Saint Anthony medal, and a card on which we had each written a personal message of gratitude and our wishes for her future.
Anita opened the box first and said, Oh wow. In an uninterested way, and then shoved the card in its envelope and the medal with it into her bag. She has a new job at the day spa in the fancy hotel in town, and seems delighted, despite the fact they are paying her even less than we did. It's more than four years since I met her on that first visit here, and still I know almost nothing of her life. Is this good or bad? Probably neither. I don't think she minds. I don't think she has much curiosity about the way we live. I doubt she noticed the day, or even the year I drove into the sisters car park instead of the guests. I think to Anita, we remain a foreign species. And why not? We've done it deliberately, made ourselves foreign to ordinary life.
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And that was Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. And that book goes for 12 hours and 20 minutes. Charlotte is spelled [spells author's name]. This novel and it is fiction is Charlotte Wood's seventh novel. In a review from 2023, in The Guardian by Fiona Wright, she writes, Set at a rural Australian monastery with a minimal plot and a looming climate catastrophe, this is a book of introspection and of despair, but also ends the review with Stoneyard. Devotional is a beautiful and masterful book, especially for its ability to dwell within the confusion and complexity of all that is questioning, and for all of its quiet force. We have other novels by Charlotte Wood in the library collection, including one here, a non-fiction. So this is nonfiction.
It's called The Writer's Room, and Charlotte Wood's The Writer's Room is essential reading for writers at all stages of their careers, and also pure reading pleasure for book lovers everywhere. Charlotte's interviews with a wide variety of well-known writers range in topic, from the subject matter of the writer's work to intricate and intimate revelations about the ways in which they work Frank about the failures and successes, the struggles and triumphs of the writing life. This is a must read for all writers and readers, and that's got multiple narrators. That book, and it goes for 10.5 hours. The Writer's Room by Charlotte Wood.
And if you... want to go to the Apple Podcast, podcasts dot Apple dot com, forward slash AEW forward slash podcast. You can hear Charlotte talking to the different people she spoke to to make up this book, and there are nine podcasts in total, and I like the title of the very last episode in that podcast series, How can you write While the Earth Is Burning? And that's a little bit about Charlotte Wood, and we have all of her fiction books in the library collection. And congratulations on being added to the Booker Prize longlist.
The Queensland Literary Awards for 2024 will. The shortlist has been announced in the last day or so, and I'm going to play a sample of a book, politica by Yumna Kassab, and it's been nominated for the Fiction Book Award for 2024. The war broke out and she decided to call her dad. Weeks and weeks we do not speak and the weeks become months. And then they are so many years. She imagines herself starting this story. She imagines how she will tell this story later to someone else. We hadn't spoken for years, but then the war broke out. As conflict plays out across an unnamed region, its inhabitants deal with the fallout. Families are torn apart and brought together.
A divide grows between those on either side of the war. Compromises are struck as the toll of violence impacts near and far. We learn about those who are left behind and those who choose to leave in a great scattering. As the stories of those affected play out, they weave together to show the whole of a society in the most extreme of circumstances, even after the last shot is fired. Their world will never recover. Now let's hear a sample of Politica by Yumna Kassab, and it's narrated by Shabana Aziz.
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What did school matter when there was a war going on? His father told Jamal to eat his food and to make sure he attended school. So there are ideas to feed your head. Otherwise we will make the same mistakes over and over, like the souls trapped in the East. Jamal was not sure where this east was, but he knew it was somewhere beyond the troubles of his life. And what were the troubles of his life? He was young, and the army saw no need for him. People were dying every day for their ideas, and he walked to school daily because his father made him. And he could not get his father to see his point, no matter how much they argued over ideas. Let me join a group. I can be useful. I can carry a gun.
His father stopped ruffling his hair, and Jamal knew his dad was restraining himself. Some ideas are worth fighting for, but very few of them are worth your life. His father used this line and it killed off their conversation each time. Jamal tried to come up with a response, but all his answers died. And for now, his father won each round of this argument they had. He knew he should go to school for now, until he understood this reference to the East. And then one day, Jamal would be able to formulate an argument that had silenced his father so that his life could be his own and properly begin.
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And that was a sample of Politika by Yumna Kassab. Yumna is spelled [spells name]. And that's a short one. Goes for five hours and 20 minutes. And congratulations to the author for being nominated for the Queensland Literary Award for Best Fiction for 2024.
So another book in the non-fiction book award is The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. This is by Anthony Loewenstein. And in the light of what's happening in the world at the moment, may may seem controversial For more than 50 years, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has given the Israeli state invaluable experience in controlling an enemy population. The Palestinians. It is here that they have perfected the architecture of control, using the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world.
The Palestine Laboratory shows in depth and for the first time, how Israel has become a leader in developing spying technology and defense hardware that fuels some of the globe's most brutal conflicts. From the Pegasus software that hacked Jeff Bezos and Jamal Khashoggi's phones, and the weapons sold to the Myanmar army that has murdered thousands of Rohingyas, to the drones being used by the European Union to monitor refugees in the Mediterranean, who are left to drown in a global investigation that uncovers secret documents based on revealing interviews and on the ground and on the ground reporting. Anthony Loewenstein shows how, as ethno nationalism grows in the 21st century, Israel has built the ultimate tools for despots and democracies.
Let's hear a sample of the Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein. I'm not sure who the narrator is... [readinbgs transcript not included].
And that was a sample of The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein. Antony is spelt [spells name]. And that book goes for nine hours and 45 minutes. And congratulations to Antony Loewenstein for being nominated for the best Non-fiction for this year in the Queensland Literary Awards, and you can actually register to live stream the awards, which are being held in September. So if you go to the State Library of Queensland website. Specifically, if you go to slcu qld.gov dot a you so sslc.qld.gov edu. You will be able to register if you look up what's on our register to stream that September the 5th awards ceremony and read more about the authors and the books that have been shortlisted.
And a sad farewell to one of the world's best known authors, an Irish author, Edna O'Brien, who passed away this week. The author was known for being outspoken about the oppression of women in Ireland. This is a novel from 1997 called Down by the River, based on a true story, but it is fictionalized that occurred in 1992. In Ireland. Set in Ireland, this novel begins with the crime that has far reaching consequences. As Mary, the young heroine, tries to escape her fate, she finds herself driven into the emotional Styx. Her private tragedy is dragged into the public realm, and her power of decision is usurped by militant factions on all sides. One person's history is subsumed by church and state. And let's hear a sample of down by the River by Edna O'Brien. It's narrated by Kate Binchy.
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Ahead of them, the road runs in a long, entwined undulation of mud patched tar and fjords of green. The grassy surfaces rutted and trampled, but the young shoots sergeant in the sun, flowers and flowering weed in full regalia a carnival sight. Foxglove, highest and lordliest of all the big fuddy bees nosing in the cool speckled recesses of mauve and white. Bell O son, O brazen egg yolk albatross. Elsewhere, dappled and filtered through different muslins of leaf. An after smell where that poor donkey collapsed, died, and decayed. The frame of a car. Turquoise once rhymed in rust, dark, and nettle, draping the torn seats. A shrine where a drunk and driven man put an end to himself. Then at intervals, rubbish dumps the bottles canisters reading matter and rank gizzards of the town riffraff stowed in the dead of night.
Blackguards, her father said. He always said that when he passed these dumps and vowed to look into his forefathers deeds and get his ownership straightened out. They walk in silence, the man several leagues ahead, his soft brown hat, a greenish shard in the bright sunlight, a bold rapparee, his stride animated with a kind of rivalrous frenzy, traffic growing fainter and fainter, a clackety river beyond. And in the odd gusts of wind the undersides of the larches purling up to show ballroom skirts of spun silver.
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That was Down by the River by Edna O'Brien. And just a warning there, it does contain issues of sexual abuse that may offend some people. Edna is [spells name]. And that book goes for 8.5 hours. And the narrator, Kate Binchy, is the sister of Irish author Maeve Binchy. Edna O'Brien came to great prominence in 1960 with the publication of The Country Girls, and it's hard to Imagine now it's fairly tame, but when it was published in 1960, it was banned in Ireland, and not before a priest in Limerick had burned copies after the rosary. The English novelist L.P. Hartley deemed its protagonists the teenage Kate and Barbara, a pair of nymphomaniacs.
And there's an article by Lynn Enright here who has written in The Independent, upon the death of Edna O'Brien, that the country girls affected her deeply, even though she read it years after it was published. And it's the story of two girls striving to move beyond their small town and avoid the fate of their mothers. And, she says, O'Brien understood longing better than most writers the longing for experience, for escape, for sex and love that was forbidden. There's going to be a documentary made called Blue Road The Edna O'Brien story. Going to be directed by Sinead O'Shea and quoting her here. Lynn Enright in her article has O'Shea saying Edna was very funny, gossipy, bitchy and so sharp, but most of all she was a workaholic. That was the main thing I learned about her. She worked and worked and worked. There had been a time, she said, when she could write all day and throw a party that same evening.
But this was long in the past by the time Shinade spoke to her. But, at her parties, you could find people such as Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithfull, Jane Fonda and many more celebrities of the days where she was living in London. Vale to Edna O'Brien and The Country Girls is available in the library collection, as well as many other novels and short stories.
Let's finish the show today with a memoir by Priscilla Presley. It's called Elvis and Me and was recently made into a movie as well. It's written in conjunction with Sandra Harmon. Priscilla Presley describes her relationship with Elvis, beginning with their first meeting in Germany when he was in the Army and she was 14. In the course of time, he came to be her friend, lover, father, husband and very nearly her God. So let's hear a sample of Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon, and I'm not sure who narrated it. It says here it's written by Deidre Rubenstein, but I don't think it's her voice.
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When I awoke the next afternoon, I looked over at Elvis and snuggled against him as closely as I could. He put his arms around me, holding me as he slept. I studied his eyebrows, his long black eyelashes, his perfect nose, and his beautiful full mouth. After a while, I ate from lying in the same position, but I didn't move. It might wake him. I thought about the pills he had taken earlier. They mystified me, but I felt Elvis must know what was best for him, and I decided to put the matter out of my mind. He must have sensed that I was staring at him. He suddenly opened his eyes and started to laugh. What are you doing? If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were putting a hex on me. I couldn't sleep, I said, embarrassed that he'd caught me studying him. Guess I'm too excited.
Sitting up, he said, well, little girl, the first thing I need is a cup of black coffee. Press number four on the intercom and tell Billy to order us some breakfast. He knows what I like and just tell him what you want. Tell him to have it here in half an hour and to make sure the coffee is hot. Getting out of bed, he flipped on the TV and walked into the bathroom. A moment later, he stuck out his head and grinned. Get dressed, little one. I want to show you off a little. That was all I needed to hear. I jumped out of bed and ran into my bathroom to get ready as I dressed in a casual summer outfit, I could hear music coming from the living room. I cracked open the adjoining door and was surprised to see all the boys up and dressed with breakfast set up on the dining room table.
I finished combing my hair and walked out to the living room, where the guys greeted me with friendly smiles and hellos. Elvis wasn't there yet, so no one had begun eating. Everyone was pretty quiet, although it was after four in the afternoon. It seemed like early morning. About 15 minutes later, Elvis came into the room, all dressed up in a three piece suit, and I realized that nothing in my wardrobe was suitable. He walked over to the stereo and put on his latest record, saying he'd just finished a recording session and wanted me to hear the songs. Then we all sat down for breakfast.
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And that was Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon. And that book goes for 6.5 hours. Priscilla is [spells name]. And this is not a new book. It was published in 1985. This memoir. In 1988, the book was adapted into a two part ABC miniseries. ABC as in the American ABC, Elvis and Me, and in 2023, the film adaptation Priscilla was written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Cailee Spaeny starring in the role of Priscilla alongside Jacob Elordi, an Australian actor playing Elvis. So it's quite open about their relationship, how young she was and also about the prescription drugs that were to play a big part in Elvis's life. And in the book. It's interesting because... Viva Las Vegas, that famous movie with Elvis and Anne Margaret, and it was always rumored, was there an affair between the two, or was it just the publicity of the studios trying to create some promotion for the movie?
But Priscilla devotes four pages in her book to Viva Las Vegas and her torment over that time. According to the book Elvis, after the movie, admitted to the affair, but he promised it was all over. And of all the movie stars Elvis Presley worked with, Ann Margaret was the only one to attend his funeral. And she talks about other infidelities, and it sounds like quite an intense period of her life for the 2023 movie, Priscilla served as executive producer on that film.
And before I head off today, I just wanted to remind people of the Treat Your Shelf. It's called Upending the Hourglass, and that's going to be on the 27th of August, between 11 and 12:00 in the afternoon. It's an online event and it's going to be with the library staff. Historical fiction melds the past with imagination, taking the reader beyond the available proof. It's time travel between the pages. Come along and share your favorite historical fiction reads. It's not all bonnets and lords and ladies. There's a wealth of new release modern historical fiction to enjoy. Treat Your Shelf is a bimonthly online gathering bringing together Vision Australia's library members and librarians for a fun and informal chat about books.
So to find out more information to give any feedback on the show, if you've got book recommendations, send them on through. You can always call the library on 1300 654 656. That's 1 300 654 656. Or send an email to library@visionaustralia.org ... that's library at Vision Australia dot org. But yep, that Treat Your Shelf, historical fiction, 27th of August. Register now if you can attend from 11:00 to 12:00. Have a lovely week and we'll be back next week with more Hear This.
