Book Reading

Transcript

May 22 - June 16
Mr Darwin’s Shooter
by Roger McDonald
When Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species in l859, he included no acknowledgment of Syms Covington, the man who had accompanied him on HMS Beagle in l837. Covington had shot birds, captured all manner of reptiles and small mammals, skinned, preserved and labelled, and made copious notes. Covington and Darwin established a close working relationship. Yet Covington was prickly and stubborn character, and a devout Christian. He was never likely to follow Darwin in his questioning of the doctrine of Creation. Covington’s unease is at the heart of this brilliant novel, as well as his admiration for Darwin and his longing to be recognised by him.
Later in life, Covington lives in Australia and does well on the land, but is still haunted by the questions awoken earlier: What is the place for God in the world? What is the place of man? And what is it to be liked - and loved?
Mr Darwin’s Shooter is a novel of both sea and land, a story of adventure as well as intellectual inquiry, of both faith and doubt. It has scooped the pool of recent awards, winning the Premier’s Awards for Fiction from NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

Adapted by Rodney Wetherell
Reader Rhys McConnochie
Producer Anne McInerney

June 19 to 30
Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann
Translated by David Luke
Passion that drives to distraction and destroys dignity that was really the subject matter of my tale," wrote Thomas Mann when Death in Venice was first published in 1912.
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was one of the greatest German writers of the twentieth century. His reputation was established with the publication of The Buddenbrooks in 1901, when he was 25. His other major novels include The Magic Mountain, Joseph and His Brothers, Doctor Faustus, and Confessions of Felix Crull, Confidence Man.
Mann also wrote a number of major shorter novels and stories. The most famous of these is Death in Venice, the story of a writer who is drawn to visit Venice at a time when infection and sickness are also invading the city. He learns the true nature of the deadly disease, despite the Venetian authorities’ attempts to deny its presence. However, he is increasingly obsessed with the beauty of a boy who is staying in the same hotel, and gradually abandons caution, dignity and attachment to life itself in the pursuit of love.
'Death in Venice' is published in Selected Stories by Thomas Mann, translated by David Luke (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics).
Reader John Gaden
Sound engineer Steven Tilley
Adapted and produced Richard Buckham