Past Programs
Arts and Culture - 2008
Montana's Malady by Enrique Vila-Matas (Review) Read Transcript
02/12/2008
Enrique Vila-Matas has earned a reputation in Europe as one of Spain's most important living writers. Montano's Malady is the second of his novels to be translated into English. Don Anderson was so impressed by Vila-Matas's earlier book Bartleby & Co that he has read and re-read Montano's Malady for The Book Show. Although the book's described as a 'novel' he suggests it might be more useful to think of Vila-Matas as pioneering a new literary form. Some reviewers have found it hard going, but Don believes it's well worth the effort.
Saving endangered words
25/11/2008
The wordsmiths at Collins English Dictionary have identified 24 rarely used words deemed too obscure to be included in the dictionary's 30th anniversary edition to be published next year. But there is a rescue plan. The London Times is spearheading an online campaign to save the endangered words from permanent oblivion, with some of Britain's leading literary lights arguing for their salvation.
A West Bank story
17/11/2008
Australian-Palestinian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah talks about her latest book Where the streets had a name, a tale of longing and loss seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old Palestinian girl.
Art books
15/08/2008
Do you ever find yourself drawn to publications full of seductive images, flipping through pages just to stare at the pictures - alluring, double-page spreads of glossy full colour images? We're talking, of course, about art books.
Art publishing - catalogues, monographs, art history, art theory, art criticism - is an industry in itself, with very exacting standards.
Joining Peter Mares to discuss art and books is arts writer Chris McAuliffe, Director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne. Chris's most recent publication is Possible Histories a monograph on the work of Melbourne artist Jon Cattapan, who also joins the discussion. With them is John Dunn, publisher of Piper Press, which specialises in books about contemporary Australian artists.
Australian sedition laws revisited
10/07/2008
While no-one has been convicted of sedition in Australia since 1951, the crime of inciting rebellion against a government was given new impetus in 2005 when the Howard government strengthened anti-terrorism laws and revamped the crime of sedition. At the time the legislation created concern within Australia's arts community, particularly among writers, who feared the new measures could restrict freedom of expression. Before the last election the then shadow Arts Minister, Peter Garrett, told The Book Show that if Labor were elected the new government would move immediately to repeal the sedition laws. So far the legislation is still in place and writers and artists continue to be concerned.
The future of public libraries Read Transcript
13/06/2008
Public libraries in New South Wales have threatened to charge for services if they don't get more funding. Library users continually say they want more books and more book-based programs, but would a fee-for-service be too high a price to pay for improved resources?
During the course of this week The Book Show asked for your thoughts on public libraries and why they are important - and we've been overwhelmed by the response. The majority view has been that libraries are an incredibly valuable community resource, that they deserve better treatment from government - and that forcing library users to pay for services would be a retrograde step.
Why writers choose anonymity Read Transcript
05/06/2008
Some writers have gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent their names being associated with their published work. Seventy per cent of English novels published in the last three decades of the 18th century were anonymous. In the first three decades of the 19th century almost half were published either anonymously or under a pseudonym. Authors opting to keep their identities secret included Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Walter Scott and Jane Austen, whose novels were orginally attributed to 'a lady'. In Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature John Mullan explores the reasons behind this wish by writers to keep their names from public view.
Shaun Tan - Tales from Outer Suburbia Read Transcript
29/05/2008
Shaun Tan has done much to propel the graphic novel into the mainstream with his exquisitely illustrated stories -- books like The Lost Thing and The Red Tree -- which told stories with a diverse palette of drawing styles.
But it was his last book, The Arrival, a wordless allegory of the migrant experience, that has truly set him apart. That book won him the 2007 World Fantasy Award for Best Artist, the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Book of the Year (not bad for a work without text), and this year he's won the French Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Comic Book and has been nominated for two Hugo Awards.
His latest is a collection of short stories called Tales from Outer Suburbia; pictures with words this time. Before speaking to Michael Shirrefs, here's Shaun Tan reading the first story from his collection: 'The Water Buffalo'.
The brush or the pen? Great writer-artists Read Transcript
27/03/2008
In his introduction author Donald Friedman notes that for some of the writers in The Writer's Brush 'a coin toss could have determined whether to spend the day standing in a smock or seated with a pen'. This collection shows what writers like Joseph Conrad, Hermann Hesse, Dostoevsky, Sylvia Plath and many others achieved in their other, lesser-known lives as visual artists.
Kevin Rabalais' fascination with Burke and Wills Read Transcript
12/03/2008
In The Landscape of Desire Kevin Rabalais tells a story that revolves around the mysterious disappearance of Burke and Wills. The book took Rabalais four years to write and involved a move from the United States to Melbourne after he decided during a New Orleans thunderstorm that this was a novel he had to write.
Ian McEwan
07/03/2008
Ian McEwan has written a number of acclaimed novels, as well as screenplays, a stage play, children's fiction and an oratorio. His 2001 novel Atonement was made into a successful feature film and his most recent novel On Chesil Beach was shortlisted for the 2007 Booker Prize.
Poetry for the eye
26/02/2008
There is a tradition of visual artists and poets bouncing off each other's work to make new creations: 'poetry for the eye'. This kind of artistic cross-pollination goes back to the ancient Greeks, where it began as a written description of art. It's called Ekphrasis and is now applied to music, sculpture and literature as well as to art and poetry.
Writing lyrics: Joni Mitchell
26/02/2008
Please note that for copyright reasons we are unable to include this part of today's Book Show in the podcast. Despite being a very private person, Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is best known for songs revealing her personal relationships and those of her friends. Fiona Croall examines the lyrics of Joni Mitchell for the Book Show.
<em>The Fern Tattoo</em> by David Brooks
25/02/2008
David Brooks is perhaps better known as a poet and an authority on AD Hope.
The Fern Tattoo is his second venture into fiction. It's a story that spans several generations and uncovers myriad secrets. There's a bigamist bishop, a tattooed librarian, and a young girl who kills her best friend by accident. David Brooks spoke to Lyn Gallacher for The Book Show
Review of Douglas Coupland's <em>The Gum Thief</em> Read Transcript
20/02/2008
Now to an epistolary novel within a novel. It sounds like a mouthful but Douglas Coupland's latest book The Gum Thief is written as a collection of journal entries, notes, and letters. It also has a novella within the novel called Glove Pond which is written by one of the characters in The Gum Thief.
Douglas Coupland is the Canadian author who wrote Generation X and was instrumental in popularising the term.
Kirsten Alexander has been reading The Gum Thief for the Book Show.
Writing lyrics ... Willie Nelson
19/02/2008
Please note that for copyright reasons we are unable to include this part of today's Book Show in the podcast. Today we continue our series about writing successful songs and the contribution lyrics make to a song's enduring appeal.
The second program looks at the work of Willie Nelson, who still finds songwriting a difficult experience after almost 70 years. 'It's kind of like labour pains,' he says.
For the Book Show Fiona Croall takes a look at what motivates Willie to write hits such as 'Crazy', 'Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys' and 'Funny How Time Slips Away'.
The literary life of Gerald Murnane Read Transcript
18/02/2008
Gerald Murnane talks to Ramona Koval about his life as a writer and his literary achievements. He has recently received two major awards, a New South Wales Premier's Special Literary Award and the Australia Council Writers Emeritus award, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Australian literature.
Picasso's triumphant years
14/02/2008
John Richardson is one of the most eminent of Picasso's biographers. His third volume on the painter's life covers the period from just after World War 1 to the early 1930s. In today's discussion with Joseph Rishel, a curator of European painting from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, John Richardson talks about some of Picasso's most famous paintings and about the challenges facing a biographer writing about both the personal and the artistic life of such a complex character.
Desert writers' walk ... the Larapinta Trail
03/01/2008
Travel writer Robyn Davidson says that she was transformed by her experience of trekking across the desert.
Big open spaces are inspirational -- and don't they just make you want to write?
Last June, Into the Blue, which organises creative getaways, took a group of writers into the central Australian desert for a week of writing and walking along the Larapinta Trail.
For the Book Show, Sarah L'Estrange spoke to Jan Cornall, the desert writers guide, and to Rowena Harding Smith, a psychologist who was one of the walkers.
