0:24S1
Hello and welcome to Hear This. I'm Frances Keyland and this is the Vision Australia Library show. Our special guest on the show today is Leon Sajjad, community engagement coordinator at the library. I hope you enjoy the show. Going back again with Leeanne Surjadi, Community Engagement Coordinator here at Vision Australia Library. I'm in charge of some organising some wonderful events with the team. The library team. Hi, Leeanne.
00:53S2
Hi, Frances, great to be with you in the studio today.
00:56S1
It's lovely. So last month there was a tele link that happened. So just recapping on last month. And what happened.
01:04S2
Yeah. So twice a year we run a special program with Vision Australia's tele link programme. So that's a phone based program that runs through through the years. So there's lots of different tele link groups. If you're interested in joining a book club or just a special interest group, there's kind of tele link groups for everything crosswords, gardening, Bible study, you name it, there's a link group for it. Um, that might be something you're interested in, but with them we do a little collab twice a year and we do a summer and winter program. And so we just finished our summer program over January. Um, and it was a lot of fun. We the theme was The Beautiful Everything, and we discussed it's kind of like a cultural tour of, uh, of the literary landscape, if you like. Wow.
So, um, our first week was on the arts, so looking at books, um, that feature dance, music, uh, books, books about books. Um, so that was a lot of fun. Um, then our second week, we looked at books around food, and this is great. This is probably my favorite of the series because so many books have great culinary moments. There's so many kind of characters that you associate with particular foods. If you think of some of your favorite childhood book characters, for example, you get some. You start thinking of some really fun things. You know, Paddington and his, yeah, orange marmalade sandwiches and Winnie the Pooh and his honey... but really some great, great books that are kind of themed around food or and cooking. Yeah. So that was a great conversation. And the final episode of the series was looking at travel. Yes.
02:44S1
Ever popular books, travel, aren't they?
02:46S2
Yeah, yeah. So not just travel writing, but also just different settings where books. Books? Oh, yes. Yeah. Where books are set. So that was, that was lovely to take a bit of a mental journey all around the world.
02:59S1
Um, was I thinking of then something popped into my mind. Oh, yes. Ian McEwan, the comfort of strangers all set around Venice. So Venice is is a is another character in that book?
03:09S2
Yes. Yeah, yeah. So we did look at some kind of classic travel writing. I'd read, um, Year in Provence to prepare for that one. But, you know, we also looked at kind of Fantasy lands as well. Um, so it's really lovely. We've got some fantastic reading lists out of those conversations.
03:26S1
That's fantastic. So if anybody wants to, you know, well, the winter one might not have been arranged yet, but if anybody wants to express interest in maybe attending it, um, how should they contact.
03:38S2
Yeah. Just keep an eye out on our regular communication. So check our library newsletter where we'll have information for the next series. And if you're part of Italy Link group already with Virgin Australia, you'll also find out about the special winter program, um, which will be planned for mid-year. Um, the team also put together a great series of kind of special guest speakers as part of that winter program and other topics as well. So the library is just one, one feature.
04:05S1
And there's lots of, uh, all there's some really great things coming up too. Yes.
04:09S2
Yeah. So we've got, um, heading into a busy march. Really. Um, so we over March, we will be, uh, launching our writing for children, writing picture books for children, um, series. So this is a short three week series looking at how we write for children and what the children's publishing landscape is like in Australia. Um, how to. Yeah, how to write a manuscript. I think it's going to be a really great series. It's being led by Andrea Rowe. Um, and she is the award winning author of a lovely book called Jetty Jumping, which was one of the Children's Book Council of Australia Books of the year, which is a very, very notable book prize in Australia.
04:47S1
Oh, lovely. Yes. And, uh, so many people may be interested in that because, yes, you've got children in your life. You're always having to make up stories because there's a demand for them, for your kids.
04:57S2
So yeah, we've and we've, we have almost filled out that one. So if you're interested in joining, please do jump on the website and register to join. Writing picture books for children that is starting on the 13th of March.
05:10S1
30th of March. Thanks for that. Um, and what else is coming up in this jam packed march?
05:15S2
Yeah. So, uh, we are doing a Write Your Life Part two series. Um, so you'll be familiar with the real life. Memoir writing series that we've done a number of times now at the library. So we've had a over a hundred people do that course, and they keep coming back for more. So we wanted to offer a part to, um, where people who've done the introductory series can kind of delve a bit deeper into some other technical topics around memoir writing. So we'll be looking at things like, uh, developing emotions, um, considering space, writing, family. Um, so some really interesting kind of ways of considering memoir. Um, so that'll be a six week program, and that's starting on the 23rd of February.
05:58S1
Yes, it's hard writing memoir because you have to be kind to yourself, because some things that you bring up might be really hard and also kind to other people. So there's an ethical stance with writing memoir.
06:10S2
Yeah, there certainly is. We do cover ethics in the introductory course. Um, and I know that we've always had really interesting conversations come up in that session. Um, because, yeah, our lives intersect with, you know, the people around us. And, um, yeah, there's kind of there's there's important editorial decisions to be made when you're trying to tell your story because it, it does inevitably implicate other people. Um.
06:32S1
And, um, there's a great in conversation coming up.
06:35S2
Yes. So this is a really special event for the library. We are really honored to be hosting. Alexis writes with us in conversation on the 25th of March. Um, so Alexis Wright is a First Nations author. One of the recognised really is one of Australia's greatest writers. She has recently been longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. She's a miles Franklin winner, a stellar Prize winner. Just a brilliant, brilliant writer. Um, we have four of her books in our collection. Um, so we have Carpentaria, which is on my to be read pile; Tracker, the Swan book, and her latest novel. The book for which she was longlisted for this year's Dublin Literary Award, is praiseworthy. That's currently in production and will hopefully be in the collection by next month. So yeah, so I encourage people to read her work.
Her style is kind of is described as magical realism. So she, yeah, she really kind of taps into her heritage as a First Nations woman. Her writing is challenging. I'm really looking forward to. I haven't read any of her work yet. I'm really looking forward to reading Carpentaria. But she's a really wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful writer. She'll be in conversation with Astrid Edwards - who, if you joined us for our Melbourne Writers Festival event last year, she interviewed Richard Fidler. So she's fabulous. She's a real bibliophile. She has a wonderful podcast called Writers on Writing.
08:12S1
And the Garrick, the guest.
08:14S2
Yes. That's right. Um, so yeah, we're really looking forward to having her in conversation with Alexis.
08:20S1
Um, and is there anything else I'm coming up or pending?
08:24S2
Um, some things to keep in mind, perhaps for the future. So, um, we are starting again. Our Treat Your Shelf book chat series. Um, so we will have just finished our first one, which was celebrating Library Lovers Day on the 14th of February. We chatted about romance books, so that was that was really good fun. Um, our next one. We do these every two months, so the next one will be on the 15th of April. If you want to shut that down for your calendar. We talk about all sorts of different genres for Treat Yourself. So we've done romance through the year. We'll be looking at science fiction. Um, we'll be talking about animal stories, historical fiction, and we will repeat a Halloween special, which is always very popular on Halloween. Um, and we'll have a lovely Christmas party to round out the year, which, um, Francis, you have heard of last year, which was so nice.
09:16S1
It was so much fun. And, yeah, but, please don't mention Christmas now.
09:20S2
I know, I know, I know, we do have to plan ahead at the library. But yes, we'd love to have, um, our members join us for these chats because they're really just kind of casual, informal conversations. We're book lovers kind of get together and get to share some recommendations and, and reminisce over some favorite reads.
09:39S1
And you've compiled a bit of a list of the top ten books from last year, the top ten, most borrowed or downloaded.
09:45S2
The most downloaded books. So this might be interesting for some of your listeners. We have some suggestions for you that you might not have gotten to eat yourself. Shall I just run through the list, Francis? Sure. So we have a couple of James Patterson titles. So. Mary, Mary. And then the big Bad Wolf. Bryce Courtney makes an appearance with Matthew Flinders' Cat - oh, again. So not not a recent title at all by any means, but, nice to see it up in the list. A couple of Samantha Shannon titles. We have a day of fall and night and the song rising Sidney Sheldon, morning, noon and night. So definitely leaning kind of mystery thriller here. We've got an Alice Faders title, Saint Peter's Fair, a couple of Lee Childs, so we have Persuader and The Midnight Line, and finally the book that probably topped public library borrowing in Australia for 2023, Prince Harry's memoir, Spare.
10:46S1
Yes, of course I did have a listen to that, too. You know, it's kind of, he's a good narrator. He is? Yeah. Good night.
10:53S2
Yeah, yeah. No, it's very it's a great book to listen to in audio format. I really enjoyed listening to his narration as well.
11:00S1
And finally, what are you reading?
11:02S2
What am I reading? Oh, so I think when we last chatted, I had just started The Book of Dirt. Yes. Bram Presser. So finish that one. And that was a remarkable read. I really, really enjoyed, um, the book of did such a creative way of approaching memoir, an incredibly powerful story that weaved together, you know, his research of his grandfather's story. His grandfather was a survivor of the Holocaust. But the circumstances of his experience during the war, um, were quite mysterious for Bram presser. And kind of remain mysterious in a lot of ways. So the way that he kind of creatively brought that story to life, for his readers, was just felt really, really special, just incredibly. Yeah. Exquisite writing. That's set in Prague. Well, that's set in the Czech Republic. And I'm now reading The Golden Maze by Richard Fidler, which is his history of Prague. The city, the capital, of course, of the Czech Republic. So, I mean, he's a real kind of historian's historian. So, yeah, enjoying his retelling of the really fascinating history of that city.
I have almost finished reading Rant by Craig Silvey. I think I spoke about that last year is one of the new releases we added to the collection. It is a complete delight. Have you read it? Present? Oh, it's just gorgeous. Itt is a kind of middle school novel. It was very nostalgic for me to read. It really felt like an old fashioned children's book, with just a lovely, lovely story. A lovely girl protagonist and her dog. Her stray dog, who becomes her best friend. And they're kind of their adventures to... save their town effectively. It's just a delight. Lovely naming by Craig Silvey. He just comes up with the most gorgeous names for his characters and his places. And it's, yeah, it's a real treasure of a book. So highly recommend that one for just a really cozy, kind of comforting read. And finally, I am planning. I do have Carpenteria on my list to start next.
13:14S1
Yeah. Good idea. I haven't read any Alexis Wright either, so I might try Tracker, which I think was based on her great grandfather. Yeah.
13:23S2
So that's a that's a non-fiction work. Yeah. Yes.
13:27S1
Okay. All right. Well, thank you for coming in. It's always a like to have you in, especially in the studio. Leanne. So thank you for coming in and, um, giving us all that information and some book inspirations as well.
13:38S2
It's wonderful to be with you, Frances.
13:46S1
And that was Leeanne Surjadi, community engagement coordinator here at Vision, a sturdy library with some really exciting events coming up. But Leanne also mentioned in conversation with Alexis Wright and mentioned her books, in particular - Carpentaria, a portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of desperate in the Gulf country of north western Queensland. It centres on the powerful phantom family, leader of the West End prickly bush people and its battles with Old Joseph, Midnight's renegade East End mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighboring Gold mine on the other. The town and its surrounds team with extraordinary characters Elias Smith, the outcast savior, the religious zealot Moses Fishman, the murderous mist and Bruiser, the moth ridden Captain Nikolai Finn, the activist and and prodigal son, Will Phantom, and above all, the queen of the rubbish dump, Angel day and her seafaring husband. Normal Phantom, the fish embalming King of time. Figures that stride like giants across this storm swept world. Let's hear a sample of Carpentaria by Alexis Wright. It's narrated by Jennifer or Jenny Bullock.
15:06S3
From time immemorial a nation chants, but we know your story already. The bells peal everywhere. Church bells calling the faithful to the tabernacle with the gates of heaven will open. But not for the wicked. Calling innocent little black girls from a distant community with a white dove bearing an olive branch never lands. Little girls who come back home after church on Sunday, who look around themselves at the human fallout and announce matter of factly. Armageddon begins here. The ancestral serpent, a creature larger than storm clouds, came down from the stars, laden with its own creative enormity. It moved graciously. If you had been watching with the eyes of a bird hovering in the sky far above the ground, looking down at the serpent's wet body, glistening from the ancient sunlight, long before man was a creature who could contemplate the next moment in time. It came down those billions of years ago to crawl on its heavy belly all around the wet, closed soils in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Picture the creative serpent scoring deep into scouring down through the slippery underground of the mudflats, leaving in its wake the thunder of tunnels collapsing to form deep sunken valleys, the seawater following in the serpent's wake, swarming in a frenzy of tidal waves, soon changed colour from ocean blue to the yellow of mud. The water filled the swirling tracks to form the mighty, bending rivers spread across the vast plains of the Gulf country.
16:47S1
That was a sample of Carpentaria, the beginning of Carpentaria, setting a very dramatic and somewhat beautiful scene there. Carpentaria is by Alexis, right? Alexis is spelled [spells it]. Wright. Is [spells it]. And that book goes for 17.5 hours. And I'm looking at the article, um, from the Guardian. June 4th, 2020. It's a review of Carpentaria by Tara June Winch, another fabulous First Nations author, and she writes, I've just read Carpentaria again 13 years after I first read it, and perhaps I'm only realising now how much it had over a decade ago gotten into the marrow of my bones. This novel will change you as long as you have the guts to read all the way through to prepare. Tear down your calendars. Disable your phone's clock, your complete understanding of before and now and after. Because to give up those constraints of chronology will help you to float from uptown through the narrative en route, a stream that write had all intentions of setting you on in the broken heart of the land, to view the dispossession of ancestral country from the elements.
And her novel praiseworthy, which the library will be getting very soon, published in 2023. It was the winner already of the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards for the Fiction Book of the year. Praiseworthy is a town in Australia's north, and it's home to cause Man Steel, who sees an end of the world crisis looming. His solution is to round up all the donkeys in the nearby area, arguing that they will be important when civilisation collapses. He and his wife dance, who have become fascinated by moths and butterflies, and his son's aboriginal sovereignty, who wants to commit suicide, and Tommy Hawk, who wants to become white, have to live under the 2008 Australian Federal Government Intervention Program, which attempts to regulate how Indigenous Australians act and behave, hopefully praiseworthy. All one word. By the way, if you are going to research it yourself, praiseworthy one word by Alexis Wright and hopefully the library will get that in very soon. And fabulous to be able to hear her speak in person along with Astrid Edwards.
One of the great things about attending a treat Yourself is that you get so much inspiration for different books and you hear of authors again, it's like an extended reader recommended from all sorts of people. And Maxwell, who is in the latest Treat Yourself, which I learned, sort of said, oh, do you want to attend? So I was in the building. I sat with her and enjoyed this wonderful session of about books, and it was talking about what people have read on the holidays, but also talking about authors that people love. Because it was Library Lovers Day, Maxwell mentioned Alex Miller, and this name brought back memories because years ago, I remember he won an award here at the Library Book of the year in audio. But he has a huge body of work, and unlike a lot of Australian authors, we get to know them very well through writers festivals of different sorts all over the country, interviews with them.
Alex Miller tends to just kind of write steadily but in the background, and Maxwell mentioned him as being a really beautiful author and one that he loves everything that he's written. Uh, thank you, Maxwell, for mentioning Alex Miller and the book I'm going to play a sample of is. Journey to the Stone country. Following the sudden end of her marriage, Annabel Beck returns from Melbourne to the sanctuary of her old family home in North Queensland. There, on an archaeological survey, she discovers that Aboriginal field officer Beau Rennie knows her from her childhood. Immediately intrigued, Annabel finds herself increasingly captivated by Bowe's modest assurance that he holds the key to her future. She sets out with him on a path of discovery that leads back to her childhood, and to the uncovering of family secrets that have lain buried for a generation or more. Secrets about the links between their ancestors and the stealing of Beau's grandmother's land. Secrets that forced them to question whether their love can survive. Let's hear a sample of journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller. It's narrated by Jenny Swordsman.
21:18S4
The moment she opened the front door and stepped. Into the passage. She knew he was gone. She stood in the silence, her heavy briefcase hanging from her hand, staring at her reflection in the beveled mirror glass on the hall stand. The passage smelled of fish from next door's cooking. It was raining again, and the tires of the cars going past in the road outside were making a swishing sound. A week earlier that had celebrated her 42nd birthday together at her favorite Italian restaurant in Carlton. That evening with their meal. They shared a bottle of wine, then went home to bed and made love. After making love, she slept soundly and woke next morning refreshed. That day, which was a Saturday, they began planning a trip to Europe to be undertaken in the autumn. There were conferences. They would each attend hers at Kent on Globalising history, and here's at Leeds on biography as fiction.
After her conference, she was to look up family connections in Somerset, and they would then meet in Frankfurt and spend a week there together with his brother's family before flying home. She looked along the passage towards the stairs and called dearest. Her voice, however, was small in the evening stillness of the house, her tone, uncertain against the silence, pitched a little too high for conviction. Her throat was tight and dry. She swallowed and stood listening. The car tires hissing on the wet road outside. The faint sound of voices through the party wall. A Greek neighbors who always seem to find something in life to shout about.
23:11S1
That was journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller. Alex is spelled Alex. Alex Miller is [spells it]. And that book goes for 11 hours and 45 minutes. It's a romance book, and it comes under literary literature and fiction as well. Alex Miller was born in 1936. He's twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award, firstly in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and in 2003 for journey to the Stone country. In recognition of his impressive body of work, and in particular for his novel Autumn Lang, he was awarded the Melbourne Prize for literature in 2012. And all of the books that we've mentioned we do have in the library, he was actually born in London to a Scottish father and Irish mother, and migrated alone to Australia at the age of 16. And I'm looking through the history here, and this is actually quite wonderful because even back in 1990, before I was working at the library, he did win the Braille book of the year for the Tiverton. Not so. He's been in our library for a long, long time. And, uh, a great list of awards here. Alex Miller, if you want to explore his works further than journey to the Stone country, explore the catalog or call the library and find out what other books you can borrow.
Now I'm running out of time, but I did want to mention another book that I heard of in the Treat Your Shelf session, which I had never heard of before. Thomas Keneally's the Dickens Boy. So I'm going to play a quick sample. Here's the synopsis. In the late 1800s, rather than run the risk of his underachieving sons tarnishing his reputation at home, Charles Dickens sent two of them to Australia, the 10th child of Charles Dickens. Edward Dickens, known as Lorne, had consistently proved unable to apply himself to school or life, so aged 16 he is sent as his brother Alfred was before him to Australia. Plan arrives in Melbourne in late 1868. He is sent out to a 2000 square mile station in remotest New South Wales to learn to become a man from the most diverse and toughest of companions, plus an unexpectedly encounters the same veneration of his father and familiarity with Dickens work in Australia, as was rampant in England. Literature A sample of The Dickens Boy, it's narrated by David Tredinnick.
25:37S5
Even at 16, after I arrived in Melbourne, I knew it was a remarkable place and that I would have no trouble writing about it to my ma, Aunt Georgina and the governor of a great city built on the riches provided by the gold of Victoria's hinterland. Unlike Manchester or Liverpool or Nottingham or such, it had not grown from some dreary medieval village or fearsome coal pit. It was a lively British city 15,000 miles from its parent. In such a place one finds a particular kind of Britain. My Australian mentor, George Ruston, was a scholarly British sort of Melburnian. He had come to Australia as a boy with his clergyman father, and had later explored the country and driven livestock through it. As clerk of the Parliament of Victoria. He had the final say on parliamentary procedure in a booming and self-governing colony. Ruston had somehow met up with my father in London some years past. He struck me as a Tory and was certainly not, therefore, the sort of fellow who would have consorted with my father. And he wasn't pliable in the way I sensed the governor was, nor likely to wear a flesh waistcoats, nor be a critic of slums or an honest Royster down towpath. He was, though, a scholar and a billiard player. The governor was indifferent to the sport of billiards.
27:10S1
And that was the Dickens Boy by Thomas Keneally. Thomas is Thomas Holmes, Keneally is Keneally, Keneally. And that book goes for 14 hours and 40 minutes. Thank you so much for joining us on Hear This on Francis Kelland. Thank you to Lianne and thank you to that wonderful Treat Yourself group that I was fortunate enough to sit in on. And on Library lovers day. If you would like to join the library, or if you'd like to recommend a book, please give the library a call on 1300 654 656. That's one 306 54656 or email them at 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.
