00:09UU (singing)
Take a look. You take a look.
00:24S1
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Keyland and this is the Vision Australia library program, where we talk about books in the Vision Australia library collection. And today we have a catch up with Leeanne Surjadi, Community engagement coordinator at Vision Australia Library. Welcome to Leeanne Surjadi once again on her monthly visit to talk about what's happening in the library. Leanne is the Community Engagement Coordinator here at Vision Australia in the library area. And yeah, welcome, Leeanne.
01:00S2
Great to be with you again, Frances.
01:02S1
There's a lot happening in the library, including the wonderful Melbourne Writers Festival. There's the memoir writing that would have already been or the journal-ing that would have already started with Sharon Prior. So yeah, heaps going on. Where would you like to start?
01:18S3
Oh goodness me.
01:18S2
Well, how about we start with the Melbourne Writers Festival because that is almost upon us. So on the 10th of May, I believe, and this will be going to air. We'll be hosting our two authors as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival, in person, live at Kooyong, but also online for anyone to stream in and listen to wherever you are across the country. So we are hosting Toby Walsh, who is an AI expert, In Conversation, he'll be discussing the ethics of AI, which I think will be a really fascinating conversation. And that's at 6 p.m. on the 10th of May, Eastern Standard Time.
And then at 8 p.m., we will be welcoming Louise Milligan, who's an investigative journalist, probably quite well known for her work, um, through programs such as the ABC's Four Corners. But she has just released her first fiction novel. So this is Pheasant's Nest by Louise Milligan. It's just been added to the library. So a new one just added this week. And you said it was probably a bit more lighthearted than than I would have expected.
02:23S1
Yes. And there's a bit of a joke very early on in the book. And of course, the title is called Pheasant's Nest, and it has no apostrophe. This main character early on in the book is being driven towards what she knows to be Pheasant's Nest, and she remarks that I've always wanted to get out of my car when I'm travelling through here and put an apostrophe on Pheasant's Nest. And I mean, this is on the way when she's been kidnapped and she's in a car being kidnapped. The character has a lot of black humour that gets her through, but that's an early kind of joke about Pheasant's nest. There is no apostrophe. No grammar.
02:59S2
Title did, it did trip me up. Frances. when we were putting together... the details for our event, I kept thinking, I feel like there should be an apostrophe in here.
03:09S3
Well, there you go. So deliver it.
03:11S1
Yeah, yeah. So that kind of, there's these little, oh, kind of lighthearted bits that crop up. And also there's some really great characters. And, you know, the main protagonist is a woman in her 30s. It starts off she's in a car going to heaven knows where, though. She thinks she's going to Pheasant's nest. She's been kidnapped by this guy, was in a bar. She's with all of her friends. Her friends get to play roles in this as well. It's fun. But, you know, compared to what she has written about George Pell and the awful, you know, child abuse in church that was revealed. This this book is a total breakaway from that.
03:50S2
Wonderful. Yeah. So we're really looking forward to hearing Louise share about her experience of, you know, a new writing endeavor, her foray into fiction. Yeah. So that will be 8:00 pm on Friday evening.
04:02S1
Even though people can't attend in person, you can still register online.
04:07S2
That's right. Yes. So if you would like to listen in to the live stream, you are welcome to register any time right up until the live stream starts. So just head to our website Vision Australia. Org forward slash library. And check out the What's On section for the links to register to, both in conversation with Louise Milligan and in conversation with Toby Walsh.
04:29S1
And, this other things happening with the library that are, you know, it's amazing, what's generated by libraries everywhere and Vision Australia Library as well.
04:39S2
Yes. So you did mention we have started our Writing for Wellbeing course. That's with Doctor Sam Prior. We're in week two of the program. It's a four week program. And this is the second time we're hosting this series. I really loved being part of it last year. And this year we have another great group who are learning more about different creative writing exercises to support their wellbeing. It feels like a course like this could be quite heavy. But we've had a lot of fun in the first session. It's really, really wonderful to kind of bring together our different library members from across the country, share some experiences, learn from Sian, who has this really wonderful insight into the power of writing to support us. And yeah, looking forward to kind of sharing some some writing samples with the group. So we do hope to run this program again next year.
So yeah, I'd encourage your listeners to perhaps give it a go. It's not for anyone who's, you know, looking to be published or anything like that. It's really just about personal creative writing, which I know, brings a lot of value to, to some of our members' lives.
05:47S1
And is there anything else coming up?
05:49S2
Treat Your Shelf is back on next month, for the 14th of June, we'll be continuing with our Treat Yourself program. I'm really looking forward to next month's Treat Yourself because we will be talking about animal stories, which I think will be a complete delight. So Treat Yourself. We run bimonthly. It's an informal book chat, bringing together our library members and our librarians from the Vision Australia Library. We discuss books across a whole range of different genres. Next month we'll be discussing animal stories. So looking at some of the great animal protagonists in literature, stories that celebrate the animal kingdom, and memoirs as well, that feature feature animals. Some of my favorites are kind of animal driven memoirs. So yeah, looking forward to chatting about those.
06:40S1
Yes, animal driven memoirs. And there's the tragic, like, you know, the history of the light horse.
06:46S2
Ah, yes. Yeah. You could get into kind of historical...
06:49S1
Yeah, yeah...
06:50S2
... writing as well.
06:51S1
Yeah, yeah. Up until the funny ones where there's, you know, actual dogs that are detectives or cats that are detectives.
06:57S3
Yes. That's right. That's right. So, you know, some great animal characters in children's literature and in classic fiction, thinking of things like Animal Farm and... children's stories, Black beauty, Paddington Bear... a whole host of, yeah, great animal sidekicks as well. In contemporary fiction. I really enjoyed Bonnie Gorman's lessons in chemistry. This is a great dog character in there. It's very important character and a complete story.
07:28S1
The good thing about these discussions, because I've attended a couple of treatment shelves, is that you realise you may think, Oh, I don't know much about this genre, but then you go in and you go, Oh, actually, I did read that years ago. Oh, right. Oh, that's that part of that. And you kind of... realise that you may have read more than you think that's... pertinent to the, to the talk, the treaty shelf.
07:50S2
Yeah. It can be a bit of a kind of trip down memory lane and you kind of recalling books that you read in your childhood. But our members have such a great depth and breadth of reading that we always come out with really excellent recommendations from the group. So always something new to add to your reading list after attending a Treat Yourself.
08:10S1
So how would people register to attend next month's... ?
08:13S2
So Treat Yourself is hosted online. You can register via our website. So back to our home page which is Vision Australia forward slash library. Navigate through the What's on section. And look for the link to register for Treat Yourself.
08:28S1
Is there something that you've been reading lately, Leeanne, that you'd like to talk about?
08:33S2
So we have recently added to the collection a great range of books which are being featured in the Melbourne Writers Festival over this weekend. So some really excellent titles. I've been reading The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. I'm about halfway through. This was a really, yeah, really popular book. I know a lot of book clubs have been reading it. Apparently it's got quite the ending. I'm not I'm not there just yet. But a really kind of compelling story of an Irish family around the time of the global financial crisis. So it is a family under pressure. It's a family that is dealing with secrets from the past and the ramifications that kind of continue to echo in their life in the present day. So it's a really, yeah, really exciting read. A really kind of, yeah, challenging read. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all kind of culminates.
09:34S1
Is it in different sections with a different narrator in each?
09:38S2
That's right. Yes. So there are four members in the family. There's a... husband and wife and their two children, a teenage girl and their young son. So we hear from each member of the family in turn, and we kind of build a really interesting picture of the secret life of each family member and how they intersect.
10:01S1
Yes. And he's out to speak, um, at the Melbourne Writers Festival. The author?
10:06S2
He is. Yes. So Paul Murray is currently in Melbourne, doing the rounds and speaking about the bee sting. Um, so that would be a great one to check out from the Vision Australia library, I think last month I mentioned Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett. So she's also down here for the festival. I really love, really love Tom Lake. It's a very beautiful, peaceful read, with a bit of an edge in the ending. So the ending is, yeah, a bit devastating, but, yeah, a great, compelling read.
Some other novels featured in the festival which have just been added to the collection. We have A Day by Michael Cunningham, who is the author of The Hours. Yeah. We also have Rosie Batty's newest book, which is titled Hope. So. It's a follow up from her memoir. So a really, really important message there from Rosie Batty. And what's another one I can recommend? Bruce Pascoe, who has written a memoir called Black Duck: a Year at Yumbarra.
11:13S1
They sound, they sound fantastic. If anybody would like to be reminded of what the new books are and the collection, they can always ring the library, can't they?
11:24S2
They can. Yes. So you can always contact our team on 1300 654 656. And for any recommendations on new titles, you can also look up our Daisy New titles list. So this is a list published on our website. You navigate through the collections section. You can find the monthly list of new titles which have been added to the library, and you can also subscribe to the audio version of the Daisy New Titles list. And so each month, you will receive the Daisy audio in your bookshelf and listing all of the great new titles which have been added to our library.
12:03S1
It's exciting. It's a little bit like... having a birthday present each month.
12:07S1
When it is, when you get the new titles list and you, yeah, it's a wonderful thing. So I would recommend anybody that's a member of the library to subscribe to that.
12:16S2
Yes, absolutely. And I did mention there that, um, our team, which you can call through on 1300 654 656 and you are also welcome to give them a call if you'd like to register for any events. And so they'll be able to help you over the phone as well to sign up for any of our programs.
12:34S1
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Leanne, for coming back to the, to Hear This and telling us what's happening. An exciting time. And it's great that the library's got some really great new releases there.
12:47S2
Always good to chat with you, Frances.
12:54S1
And that was librarian Leeanne Surjadi, community engagement coordinator at Vision Australia Library. You're listening to hear this on Vision Australia Radio. Leanne mentioned, a couple of the books that she's been enjoying. One of them was Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Uh, there is also, uh, new releases in the library. There is Hope by Rosie Batty and Black Duck by Bruce Pascoe, two important Australian writers there. And as Leanne mentioned, and we've been very excited about the Melbourne Writers Festival is happening at present.
Last week we had a sample of Machines Behaving Badly, by Toby Walsh, about the development and the ramifications of AI. And this week I've got a sample of Pheasant's Nest by Louise Milligan. Kate Delany has made the biggest mistake of her life. On a girls night out. She picked the wrong sleazy guy to publicly humiliate in a bar, and now she is living every woman's worst nightmare. She finds herself brutalised, bound and gagged in the back of a car, being driven God knows where by a man whose name she doesn't know, and petrified about what is in store for her.
As a journalist who is haunted by the crime she's had to report over her career, Kate is terrifyingly familiar with the statistics of women who go missing and the fear and trauma behind the headlines. She knows only too well how those stories usually end. Kate can only hope the police will find her before it's too late, but she's aware a random crime is hardest to solve. As the clock ticks down, she tries to keep herself sane by thinking about her beloved boyfriend and friends, escaping into memories of love and happy times together. She knows she cannot give way to despair as the suspense escalates. Kate's boyfriend Liam is left behind, struggling with his shock, fear and desperation as the police establish a major investigation.
The detectives face their own feelings of anguish and futility as they reflect on the cases they didn't solve in time, and the victims they couldn't save. They know Kate's chances of survival diminish with every passing hour. Let's hear a sample of Pheasant's Nest by Louise Milligan. It's narrated by Sacha Horler.
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Kate Delaney's eyes snap open and the first thing she notices is the cold. It's a familiar cold. The sharp sting of a thousand acupuncture needles plunging into her skin at once. She knows that cold southern highlands. Cold. She's approaching the southern Highlands. She's lying on the back seat of a car. His car shudder. The guy. The guy doesn't get to have a name. She looks ahead and sees his frosted blonde hair glinting, his arms at the steering wheel snaked with veins buffed at the gym. His wrists and fingers tap. Tap the wheel in time to the music and manic delight, Pearl jam. It'd be kind of funny if it wasn't so grim. Kate loathes Pearl jam 90s commercial grunge on the car CD player, the nasal whine of Eddie Vedder's voice warbling that he's still alive.
Kate Delaney is still alive, but her stomach churns with the understanding that she mightn't be for long. She's hundreds of kilometres from where she started from in Melbourne that night. If Pearl jam is to be one of the last sounds of her 30 something years, it feels like one of those postmodern jokes she once scoffed at over cheap Shiraz. She glances down at her stockings, black opaques torn at the knee, her blood like treacle in the moonlight. It hurts to move, and she's afraid to move in case he realises she's awake and does something else.
16:56S1
That was Pheasant's Nest by Louise Milligan. And that book comes just with a warning that there is high levels of language and disturbing material. Some of the book reminded me very strongly, and I don't think it's an accident about the terrible case of Jill Meagher, the journalist who was out with friends for a night like the character in the book a few years ago, and her life was taken by a guy as she was walking home. Louise is [spells author's name]. And that book goes for 7.5 hours, and I didn't realise that Pheasant's nest is actually a real place. And the bridge that plays such a big role in this book is a place where terrible tragedies have happened. And Kate Delaney, the character in the book, are thinking about the tragedies that have happened there. They are actually real tragedies. So a bit of historical weight to the book in that way as well.
Another new release into the library that is exciting to have is Wisdom, and this is by Anna Funder at last night's Australian Book Industry Awards, or the RBA Awards, as they're shortened to. This was the winner of the biography the Biography Book of the year, looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday. Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero, George Orwell, as she watches him create his writing self. She tries to remember her own, and when she uncovers his forgotten wife, it's a revelation. Eileen O'Shaughnessy's literary brilliance shaped Orwell's work, and her practical nous saved his life. But why and how was she written out of the story?
Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, funder recreates the Orwell's marriage through the Spanish Civil War and World War Two in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell's private life, she is led to question what it takes to be a writer and what it is to be a wife. Compelling and utterly original, wisdom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past. Let's hear a sample of Wisdom by Anna Funder. It's narrated by Arianwen Parkes-Lockwood.
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Suffolk, November 1936.
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It has been six months since the wedding. She Uncaps the pen, 38 High Street, Southwold, Suffolk, a Tuesday. Now what? She gets up and pokes the fire, sits down again. The cat, a silver thing that knows its own mind, jumps into her lap. She lights a match, lets it burn out in the ashtray, lights another. Who are you writing to? George asks from his armchair, creasing the newspaper firmly so she knows he's annoyed. Fair enough. She has been annoying Nora. Ah, the famous Nora. This is a joke. He's never met her. Is it so hard? His eyes are blue with laughter in them. She smiles. Shouldn't be, should it? He gets up. I'll leave you to it.
She's at a desk in the front room of her new in-laws' house in sleepy Southwold. In the kitchen, they are clearing away the lunch dishes. She's done it each day since they got here, so is giving herself a reprieve. His mother and Avril, the younger sister, will be doing it. The older sister, Marjorie, has married and moved away, which is just as well because this place could barely fit another body. She rolls a cigarette with a little contraption. Licks it closed. It's hard to know how to even begin explaining what has happened to her since the wedding day. She and Nora rarely write Dear Nora or Dear Eileen on their letters, a habit of intimacy from college days as if theirs were a single, uninterrupted conversation. She lights the roll up, puffs twice, and rests it in the ashtray.
21:17S1
And that was Wisdom by Anna Fonda. Congratulations to Anna for winning the book Awards. Biography book of the year. Anna is spelt [spells name]. That book goes for 12 hours and 40 minutes. Anna has also written All That I am, which is available in Braille in the library and Stasiland stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, which is available in audio and also in Braille. And congratulations also go out to Madeleine Gray, who is the winner of the Matt Rochelle Award for New Writer of the year. Her novel Green Dot is in the library here. Stephen is clawing through her mid-twenties, working as an underpaid comment moderator in an overly air conditioned newsroom by day and kicking around Sydney with her two best friends by night. While everyone around her seems to have slipped effortlessly into adulthood.
Hera has spent the years since school caught between feeling that she is purposefully rejecting traditional markers of success to forge a life of her own, and wondering if she's actually just being left behind. Then she meets Arthur, an older married colleague intoxicated by the promise of ordinary happiness he represents. Hera falls headlong into a workplace romance that everybody, including her, knows is doomed to fail. Let's hear a sample of Green Dot by Madeline Gray. It's narrated by Sasha Simenon.
22:51S7
High school, my classmates would often speculate about their dream jobs and about which degree they should pursue to attain that dream job. In our final year of school, we would sit around on the deck at lunchtime, girls from different social groups and hierarchies, girls with different skirt lengths, all of us united in filling in the blanks of this vague, hypothetical time of when school is over. As I was one of the highest achieving in our grade, the ball was inevitably lobbed my way. I was supposed to say a dream job that required a high Leaving Certificate mark, an exclusive university degree, and then everyone would nod because the things that I said would have made sense.
Although I was clever, I had never conquered my times tables or evidenced any aptitude as a woman in Stem. So my options included lawyer, journalist and academic, lawyer, money journalist. Exciting. Academic worthy. I just had to pick one. I knew this and then the conversation would flow on like a bounce pass from a wing defence to a nimble centre. But I couldn't do it. I fobbed the pass. I intercepted my own shot. This is something I have made quite a habit of. As you will see.
24:06S1
That was a Green Dot by Madeleine Grey. Madeleine is spelt [spells name]. And that book goes for eight hours and 40 minutes.
And now to a very topical book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, being streamed on Stan as a series at the moment. The book is in the library. It's by Heather Morris. The incredible story of the Auschwitz Birkenau tattooist and the woman he loved. Laali Sokolov is well dressed, a charmer, a ladies man. He is also a Jew. On the first transport of men from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, Laali immediately stands out to his fellow prisoners in the camp he's looked up to, looked out for and put to work on the privileged position of being a tattooist to make his fellow prisoners forever. One of them is a young woman, Gita, who steals his heart at first glance, his life given new purpose. Laali does his best to the struggle and suffering to use his position for good.
This story, full of beauty and hope, is based on the year on years of interviews author Heather Morris conducted with real life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz Birkenau tattooist Ludwig Eulalie Sokolov. Let's hear a sample of The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. It's narrated by two people, Robert DeGraw and Marilyn Barclay. Oh, and just a little warning. There is a coarse language warning with this sample, but it's not a swear word. It's just a bit coarse.
25:45S8
Lalli rattles across the countryside, keeping his head up and himself to himself. The 24 year old sees no point in getting to know the man beside him, who occasionally nods off against his shoulder. Lalli doesn't push him away. He is just one among countless young men stuffed into wagons designed to transport livestock. Having been given no idea where they were headed, Lalli dressed in his usual attire a pressed suit, clean white shirt and tie. Always dressed to impress. He tries to assess the dimensions of his confinement. The wagon is about 2.5m wide, but he can't see the end. To gauge its length, he attempts to count the number of men on this journey with him. But with so many heads bobbing up and down, he eventually gives up.
He doesn't know how many wagons there are. His back and legs ache. His face itches. The stubble reminds him that he hasn't bathed or shaved since he boarded two days ago. He is feeling less and less himself. When the men try to engage him in conversation, he responds with words of encouragement, trying to turn their fear into hope. We stand in shit, but let us not drown in it. Abusive remarks are muttered at him for his appearance and manner. Accusations of hailing from an upper class. Now look where it's got you. He tries to shrug the words off and meet the glares with smiles. Who am I trying to kid? I'm as scared as everyone else.
27:18S1
And that was The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Heather Morris, the author, is, her name is spelt [spells name]. That book is available in audio and in Braille. So the two formats, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Thank you for listening to Hear This today, I'm Frances Keyland and thank you to Leeanne for her chat about what's happening in the library. And if there's anything that you would like to query, find out more about, you're welcome to call the library on 1300 654 656. That's 1 300 654 656. Or you can email library@visionaustralia.org - that's library at Vision Australia - dot - org. Have a lovely week and we'll be back next week with more Hear This.
