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Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Keyland and you're listening to the Vision Australia library show, talking about some of the wonderful books we have in the Vision Australia library collection and some wonderful samples as well. So I hope you enjoy the show.
This is a bit of fun. Vision Australia Radio is participating in the 100 kilometre Your Way challenge. You can raise vital funds for our not for profit radio network and we want you to join the team. So set yourself a goal of walking, running, swimming or rolling 100km across April whilst raising funds for Vision Australia Radio. It's fun and easy to get involved. You can visit RVA radio. Org that's RVA radio. Org click on the 100 K Your way Up banner. So there's a sort of banner that says 100 K your way. Choose a team and start knocking over those kilometres. So that's RVA radio org. This is a great way to fundraise and to get fitter and healthier. If you're in the southern states, it's starting to get into the cold weather, cooler weather. So it's a bit nice to walk at this time of the year. And an autumn is happening, so give that a go. That is the 100 kilometre your Way fundraising challenge.
The Melbourne Writers Festival is coming up and Vision Australia have partnered now for a couple of years with the Melbourne Writers Festival. Last year we saw Richard Fidler talking about his work The Book of Roads and Kingdoms. This year, once again, we've got a couple of events that are coming up really exciting at Vision Australia Library here at Glenferrie Road in Kooyong, but also available via live stream, and you can register for that. And we'll have Leon CJD on in the next couple of weeks to talk more about this on 10th of May, between 8:00 and 9:00 in the evening.
Award winning writer and journalist Louise Milligan will discuss her latest novel, Pheasants Nest, which is her debut as well. It's a literary thriller about an abducted reporter. She'll be in conversation with Mark Chapman already. This new novel has fantastic reviews from people such as David Meyer, Patricia Ellis. So she's going to be discussing this wonderful book, Louise Milligan. We've got a couple of books by her in the library. Pheasants nest hopefully will be getting in very soon, but the first one is Cardinal, The Rise and Fall of George Pell. And there's also Witness, which is Louise Milligan. Charts the experiences of those who have the courage to come forward and face their abusers in high profile child abuse and sexual assault cases.
So a bit of a warning with both of those books that they will contain issues and situations that people may find painful. So there are two non-fiction books by Louise Milligan in the library. Both of her non-fiction books have been on the shortlist and have been award winning books. And she's not afraid to take on some really controversial and tough topics. Louise will be in conversation with Mark Chapin, and we have a couple of books of his in the library collection.
We're going to play a sample of Public Enemies, Russell Mad Dog Cocks, Ray Denning, and the Golden Age of Armed Robbery in Australia of the 1960s, 70s and 80s armed robbers were the top of the criminal food chain. There. Dash and violence were celebrated and men like Ray Denning and Russell Mad Dog Cox were household names long before underbelly established Melbourne's gangland thugs as celebrities. Both were handsome, charismatic bandits who refused to bow to authority. Both were classified as intractable in prison and both escaped. Cox was the only man to escape from Australia's only escape proof jail. Soon after he broke out, he tried to break in again and rescue his mates.
This story is one of violence. Both men killed at least once and romance. Both men had lovers on the run and humour. Let's hear a sample of Public Enemies by Mark Deppen. It's narrated by Henry Nixon.
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In the glory days of armed robbery in Australia to fit handsome, gaol hardened outlaws became notorious for their guts and dash. Russell Mad Dog Cox from Queensland and Raymond John Denning, from New South Wales. Both men were serial prison escapees. Cox had broken out of Australia's only escape proof jail, then broken back in to try to free his mates. Denning had taunted Sydney cops while he was on the run, leaving signed handprints on the doors of their HQ, and terrorised prison warders by shooting at them in their own gun tower.
They were both popular men in prison. Natural leaders. Charismatic, likeable and tough. But had grown up without a father. In boys homes where children were battered and tortured and worse. Their dads were hapless, bungling, petty crims, a drunken sausage thief and a failed bingo bandit, respectively. But Cox and Denning were the real deal. Planning heists. Storming banks. Firing into the air. Everybody get down and nobody gets hurt.
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And that was a sample of Public Enemies by Mark Dayton. Mark is [spells author's name] and that all goes for ten hours. A bit of a warning with that one, that it will contain violence and, as a synopsis, murder. And even though it says it's got a bit of humor, it may just be confronting for people still on the theme of Australian true crime.
An interesting book here. It's called Betrayed and it's by Sandi Logan, a relentlessly fascinating and often jaw dropping true story of two American women who unwittingly became Australia's drug grannies in 1977, Vera Toddy Haze and Floris Beezy Besser thought they were about to embark on the trip of a lifetime when Vera's nephew, Vern Todd, offered them a campervan to drive from Germany to India. Little did the women know that Vern and his accomplices would secretly pack two tonnes of hashish into the vehicle along the way.
This shocking inside story chronicles Toddy and Beasley's wild ride across continents and oceans to our shores, their arrest by Australian Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents, and all that the women faced in the aftermath. On the ground at the time, journalist Sandy Logan draws from his interviews with those attached to the events and accounts in The Women's Diaries to tell the incredible tale of an unlikely pair who became infamous and their fight for justice. Let's hear a sample of Betrayed by Sandi Logan, and it's narrated by Sandi Logan.
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Around mid-June 1977, there was a knock on the front door. One morning, Toddy glanced at the wall clock. They weren't expecting a visitor, but then, in a small town like lupine, friends and neighbours were just as likely to drop by unannounced. That's the way it was. In a quick glimpse through the curtain windows thought he could make out a well-dressed man carrying what appeared to be an aluminium briefcase. Standing with his back to her, toddy approached the door and opened it. Her face immediately creased into a smile. Vern, she said, enveloping her nephew in her arms. You didn't even call us to let us know you were coming, damn it! We wanted to have everything all fixed up, but no matter. Come on in, honey.
She said it had been almost a year since they had seen him, and at 34, he was a fine looking man. He was tall, with an athletic build, not unlike his father and aunt. His thick brown hair was called a length, but neat and styled. A gold ring on his wedding finger and a gold chain hung about his neck, added to his chic but casual look. Completed by an open necked shirt. Vern Todd now co-owned and operated an import export business in Sydney, which would become known as Tubby Infant Products and gained global shelf space for, among other products, its inflatable Tubby Bath.
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That book was Betrayed by Sandi Logan. Sandi is [spells author's name] and that book goes for 11 hours.
Now to a book by Australian author Darcy Tindale. This is a fiction book and it's part one in the Detective Rebecca Giles series. On a hot November morning, the first body lies in a cattle trough. It will be another two hours before rigor mortis sets in. Until then, the slim fingers will float below the water surface, gently bobbing, beckoning Detective Garth to come and find her. Detective Rebecca Giles has just finished interviewing ageing petty criminal Sticky Pete over a spate of break, and enters when a disturbing new report comes in. 12 year old Kaylene Ellis has vanished from her home in Muswellbrook, in the upper Hunter Valley. Hours later, Giles is a local hero, having apparently solved Kathleen's case and the spate of jewellery thefts. Yet the hangover from her celebrations has barely kicked in when the body of young jewellery Ava Emmerson is discovered in gruesome circumstances on a nearby farm.
Giles is convinced the link between all three cases lies in the town's tragic history, perhaps even in her own mother's mysterious drowning 30 years ago in a place where nothing much changes. Suddenly a great deal is happening and Gail's life and career are now on the line. Let's hear a sample of The Fall Between, part one in the Detective Rebecca Giles series. This is by Darcy Tindale and it's narrated by Marissa Barter Waters.
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It's not unusual for daughters to rebel, to wish. To be nothing like their mothers. To take an oath. Never to dress, speak or even cook like their mums. Detective Giles had taken the same oath when she was 13. Only it wasn't because her mother was critical or controlling, or because her mother thought she dressed like a tramp or would make the same mistakes in life. No. Detective Giles didn't want to be anything like her mother because her mother was dead. Instead, Giles was determined that her destiny would not be spun by the same thread as her mother's, measured and cut by tragedy. Giles was resolute she would not fall to the same fate.
So rather than ending up like her mother, Giles ended up like her father, a cop, and just like her father, she drank a little too much, swore a little too often, and laughed his rollicking laugh. She'd also inherited her father's no nonsense approach, which made her seem cold at times prickly, a hard nut to crack, so she would have to keep that in check if she wanted to get anything out of the missing girl's mother. On the other side of town. Giles was about to visit Claire Ellis, who had also followed in her father's footsteps.
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And that was The Fall Between, part one of the Rebecca Giles detective series. Darcy is spelt [spells author's name]. And that book goes for a good 11 hours and 15 minutes. Darcy Tindale is an actor, author, theatre sports player and director, and has appeared in television commercials, on film, on stage. She's written a comedy for radio, stage and media personalities, and The Fall Between is her first novel. Candice Fox called it rural noir at its very best. Margaret Hickey, another wonderful study writer, called it unpredictable, authentic, a thrilling debut, and the fall between was first published in 2023. Good reads give it four out of five stars and called it a classical rural noir.
A bit of a change of pace here, one of the library members emailed to say, just a reminder that on April the 2nd was International Children's Book Day. This has been happening since 1967, and it's always on or around Hans Christian Anderson's birthday, April 2nd. We have a sample here of a book that was published in 1965. It's called The Wild Swan, and it's by Monica Sterling, where she chronicles the life and times of Hans Christian Andersen, revealing him as a man of letters and an inveterate traveler, befriending many famous people. Born in 1916, Monika Sterling was a correspondent in Europe for the Atlantic Monthly Press, both during World War Two and afterwards. Because it was published so long ago 1965.
There's just a few reviews here. There's one here on Amazon.com that I thought might be nice. It's, Rob Brennan has given it four out of five stars and calls it a fascinating introduction to a great writer. He says it's a very detailed and readable account of an unusual and remarkable life. Monica Sterling has done a commendable job of recounting not only Anderson's life, but also the amazing network of writers, poets, performers and prominent people in Denmark and throughout Europe, amongst whom Anderson moved a fascinating glimpse into the 19th century and one of its most appealing writers. So let's hear a sample of The Wild Swan by Monica Sterling. It's narrated by Duncan Cass.
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In the corner of a railway carriage, the child I then was sits looking out the window to hide her tears from her fellow travelers. The train is taking her away to boarding school, and she longs fiercely to turn the clock back and capture. Yesterday, the muscular effort to stop crying makes her clutched more and more tightly, the already much handled book in her lap. Presently she opens this book. At first she sees the letters indistinctly. Then she reads far out at sea. The water is as blue as the loveliest cornflower and as clear as the purest glass, but it is very deep, deeper than any anchor lines can go, and many a church steeple would have to be placed one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface. Down there live the sea people.
Immediately the child forgets her own troubles. For those of the Little Mermaid. The world of the child's daily life is full of alarming mysteries. But in the world of Hans Christian Andersen, everything seems comprehensible. She understands little Karen's immoderate love of her red shoes. For she herself finds just such an insensate pride in the black woolen stockings. The first stockings she's ever worn.
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And that was The Wild Swan by Monica Sterling. A fascinating look at the times and the life of Hans Christian Andersen. That book goes for 12 hours and 45 minutes. As you can tell, the narration is quite an old narration there. And a little bit about Duncan Carr's, because it made me think, well, who was this man with this incredible voice? He was born in 1913 and died in a secluded Sussex cottage in 2004. He was an English explorer and actor, known for surveying South Georgia, and for the portrayal of Special Agent Dick Barton on BBC radio. He was awarded the Silver Polar Medal for his part in the Graham Land Expedition on the Antarctic Peninsula, at the suggestion of the Royal Geographical Society.
He decided to focus his attention on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, and over the next several decades he won a pre-eminent place in South Georgia's history in 1961, who decided to become a modern day Robinson Crusoe and lived as a hermit in a remote part of South Georgia. That's just a little bit of detail about the voice behind the book there. Duncan Carr's surname is spelt [spells it], and I do like that sample showing how the impact of fairy tales has on our lives often when we're growing up. I was a big fan of all fairy tales. I loved even the Grimm fairy tales, which were very violent and dark, and we had a really old book at home that I would peruse and and read. Terrible punishments bad people got, and they're very cruel, but I love them as a child. If you like, send in your favourite children's books.
Of course, the Famous Five was another staple of my childhood and I remember reading them voraciously until finally the local librarian said, Hmm, look, I think you're reading just too much of him and Blyton. And it was at a stage in in the education system where they were trying to get children to read more Australian novels, which is very commendable. And this librarian gave me a copy of Hill's End by Ivan Southwell, and I read it and felt quite traumatised by it because, um, the synopsis is stranded by a sudden, violent storm in a remote Australian village with only the ailing school mistress, seven children struggle to learn the tricks of survival.
So after reading an immersing myself in the very safe English countryside where there's just smugglers and bad people, but the environment is so harmless and safe to be thrust into some very realistic Australian writing, at the time really disturbed me. But we do have the Ivan Southall book, Hills and in the library collection, narrated by Betty Barrett. And that goes for seven hours and four minutes. So that was my first taste of Australian fiction. So if you have a memory of a book that stood out for you, it could have been because it was so scary or disturbing or one that you just fell in love with and wanted to be there, in the, in the country or the setting where the book was as a child. Just send an email through. I'd love to know. It interests me how people, um, read as children.
Now to another Australian book. This is a non-fiction book. It is by Sonia Henry, and it's called Put Your Feet in the Dirt Girl. Sonia Henry is the author of Going Under, which we also have. It's a fictional book in the library, but this recounts her real life journey from hard partying Sydney medical intern to dust covered rural GP. Solo GP needed for medical clinic, mining town in Pilbara region, Western Australia. Car and accommodation provided on call paid extra. Close proximity to absolutely nothing going under Sonia Henry's autobiographical novel about the stresses and failures and triumphs of a young doctor struggling to find herself in a broken system, was published in 2019. It is also in the library as an audio book. In real life, Sonia was the one having the affair with the older heart surgeon, and in real life her heart ended up broken. Sonia found herself. Depressed, confused with the guy who owned the bottle on the corner of Darlinghurst Road as her surrogate counsellor. Desperate to escape, she answered an ad calling for a GP in a tiny mining town in the middle of Western Australia. Let's hear a sample of Put Your Feet in the Dirt Girl by Sonia Henry. It's narrated by Sarah Blackstone.
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The magic lasts up until I drive to the resort. The medical clinic where I'll be working has me staying in. I leave the car I fetch from the clinic and try to find reception so I can get the keys to the apartment. A woman appears, looking flustered. Are you staying here? She asks. Um, yeah, I say. Do I get the keys from you? No, she says no. No. I look at her. It's closed. She says the resort is closed. But I'm meant to be living here for the next two months, I explain. I'm a doctor working here in Broome. A lizard got into the fuse box, she tells me, and it's destroyed the power and electricity to the whole place. So we're shut. What? I know. She rolls her eyes. One bloody lizard has taken down the entire resort. So how long will it take to fix? That's a thing, she says apologetically. We don't know. We're waiting on a part that has to come from over east, so it might take a while.
You can't get it in Perth. I ask. She shakes her head. Nope. I stand there with my bags, letting it sink in that the resort really is shut because of the actions of one lizard. Most other people have moved into the Oaks Resort next door. She tells me it's really nice. Just ring your boss and explain. We've emailed them a few times, but no one has answered. I'm sure they'll put you up there. I call my boss. Her husband answers and promises he will sort something out. I go and wait by the pool. Could be worse, I think. The day is hot and the pool is clean and blue. I lie out on a deck chair. It's a pity about the lizard resort. Living wouldn't have been a bad way to start.
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And that was a sample of Put Your Feet in the Dirt Girl by Sonia Henry. Sonia is spelled [spells name]. And as I said, going under is also available in the library. And that's an audio book that is fiction. But based on her life, that book goes for ten hours.
And to another non-fiction to finish off with today, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, lyric writer. And also just a phenomenal influence on the music and Elton John's life. He and Bernie Taupin were recently honored with the prestigious Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and also for their philanthropy. I'm reading from The Washington Post here. From the March 22nd, 2024, Elton John said, if you're successful, all you have to give back. That was my mantra in the 1980s when I got sober, and it's been my mantra ever since. So I thought I would play a sample of a book called scattershot, or an autobiography rather, by Bernie Taupin. This is the memoir music fans have been waiting for half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music.
Bernie Taupin, is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits and sold millions and millions of records together. They were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary half century and counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics like the 2019 film Rocketman and even John's own autobiography, Me and We Do Have It, Elton John's autobiography in the collection. But let's hear Scattershot. Bernie Taupin has an excerpt here, and it's narrated by Bernie Taupin.
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Perched on a sloped embankment of emerald green grass, it sat on the corner of Cordell Drive-In, North Doheny Drive, no more than a minute from Sunset Boulevard. Ensconced in the wishbone of the two streets, it was both exposed and secluded, its facade naked to the eye of traffic. Yet its internal demographics wrapped within walls of white stucco and twisted foliage. Its secrecy assured, as it would be for years. It was my first and most quintessential of L.A. homes. It's in a design ever changing over several decades, from stark rock star oblique to Art nouveau pretension to a cornucopia of acceptable taste. Like most things at the time, it was afforded by success. I saw such a kaleidoscopic turnover in both relationships and personal development that it almost feels like I lived several different lives there.
If the road of excess does indeed lead to the Palace of Wisdom, the ensuing years did in reality become a path littered with constantly evolving fads, pastimes, and recreational diversions, either interesting, educational or narcissistic. Irrelevant. Although I wrote a great deal of my work in the vicinity of recording studios and rented homes around the world, the lion's share of everything from 1974 to 1989 was executed in the office of that house at 1320 North Doheny Drive. The revolving door was already operating, and as I moved in, my first wife was preparing to leave after barely breathing enough air into the place to register her presence at all.
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That was Scattershot by Bernie Taupin. His name is spelled [spells name]. Apparently a French Huguenot is his surname Taupin. Thank you for joining us on here this today. I'm Francis Kelly, and thank you to the library member who kindly reminded us of the World Children's Literature Day. If you would like to make a suggestion for the library, if there's any event that you think is worth noting and we can, try to find some books that reflect that event, if there's some books that you really love. And again, the children's books, let us know what you really enjoyed. You can ring the library on one 365 4656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email library at Vision Australia - dot - Org. That's library@visionaustralia.org ... Have a lovely week and we'll be back next week with more Hear This.
