Past Programs
Critique and Theory - 2007
The New Granta Book of the American Short Story (review) Read Transcript
21/12/2007
What do you get when you ask Richard Ford to select his favourite short stories from the past 50 years of American writing?
The most obvious result is a very large book -- a substantial stocking-filler and holiday reading project.
Melinda Harvey has delved inside the anthology for the Book Show, to give us a deeper sense of the literary allsorts chosen by Richard Ford.
Imagining the literary future and the year in review
21/12/2007
Today we reflect on the literary year that's been and speculate on what 2008 may bring in publishing and literary life.
Domestically, Australia has undergone a major political shift. We've swapped prime ministers and parties in government, but does that signal a shift in the nation's psyche, or is Kevin Rudd just John Howard lite?
Will we see ourselves reflected in new ways in the work of authors, journalists, playwrights and screenwriters or can we expect more continuity than change?
Internationally the world will be focussed on getting the United States to join the team on climate change -- while the US itself will be in election mode in 2008 -- and looking inward.
Which voices will prick our collective conscience? Who will step forward to take the place of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya or Turkish newspaper editor Hrant Dink?
To discuss these and other issues the Book Show is joined by some fine literary thinkers:
Robert Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books;
Henry Rosenbloom, head of Melbourne based Scribe Publishing;
and playwright, author and speechwriter Michael Gurr.
Surveillance by Jonathan Raban (review) Read Transcript
19/12/2007
Jonathan Raban's new novel Surveillance portrays a United States where everything has been changed by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Lucy Bengrstrom lives in Seattle, the heartland of American liberalism. But in Raban's novel, the city is now full of machine-gun toting soldiers and there are surveillance cameras everywhere.
And this compels Lucy to rebel against everything her personal and professional life has taught her.
Surveillance is a novel of political ideas, but, says our reviewer Brendan Gullifer, not one that draws conclusions.
Best of Australian poetry (review) Read Transcript
17/12/2007
As the year draws to a close and the silly season approaches, the publishers of Australia's two Best of poetry collections offer some respite from Christmas parties and consumerism, and offer an opportunity to reflect on the work of our finest poets.
Reviewer Geoff Page has been admiring the depth of the work in these two books.
Travels in the blogosphere -- blogging novelists
13/12/2007
Is blogging a way for authors to keep in touch with readers or just a distraction from that manuscript they're supposed to be finishing?
Science fiction writer William Gibson gave up his blog, or web diary, because it needed too much of his time - it was a bottomless sink that took him away from 'proper' writing.
On the other hand, Colby Buzzell - an American GI - was offered a book deal based on his online diary about life as a soldier in Iraq.
Why do writers blog and what are benefits and drawbacks of life in the blogosphere?
A homage to Alice Munro from the Edinburgh International Book Festival
04/12/2007
At this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, the much-loved Scottish poet Liz Lockhead told a packed audience why she loves the work of Alice Munro.
Alice Munro is widely considered one of the best living writers in the world. Her short stories are largely set in Canada's southwestern Ontario but Alice Munro's reach is international.
And the Edinburgh International Book Festival paid special tribute to her this year with a series of events -- including one, hosted by fellow Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, that was attended by a host of other writers who love Munro's work -- writers like Ali Smith, Kate Atkinson, and Liz Lockhead herself.
Here, Liz Lockhead celebrates the work of Alice Munro.
Kathryn Lomer's Two Kinds of Silence (review) Read Transcript
29/11/2007
Poet and novelist Kathryn Lomer has recently published Two Kinds of Silence, her second poetry collection after her award winning Extraction of Arrows.
Reviewer Geoff Page feels Lomer draws on both her crafts, as storyteller and poet. He is entranced by the delicate narrative threads she weaves, which move 'by a series of intuitions and thoughtful observations.'
He starts with a reading of the poem 'Vortex'.
Jane Austen and comedy
29/11/2007
Jane Austen is read from Bath in England, where she spent her later life, to Australia, India and Japan. Perhaps what explains her near universal celebration is her wit. This week the international flavour of her comedy is being celebrated in Melbourne at La Trobe University at a Jane Austen and Comedy conference.
Tim Thorne's A Letter to Egon Kisch (review) Read Transcript
27/11/2007
Poetry reviewer Geoff Page has been laughing out loud in coffee bars, which is a bit unusual for him. What's brought this on? He's been reading Tim Thorne's latest book, A Letter to Egon Kisch. He starts his review by reading us section four from the book.
I Wouldn't Start From Here by Andrew Mueller (review) Read Transcript
26/11/2007
Andrew Mueller writes under many different hats and in his latest book, I Wouldn't Start From Here: A Misguided Tour Of The Early 21st Century, he combines all of his different perspectives as a foreign correspondent, travel writer, rock critic, author and, as he says, 'general all-purpose hack'.
This book fits into a sort of 'danger travel genre' and for the Book Show, reviewer George Dunford put on his backpack and went on Andrew Mueller's journey in I Wouldn't Start From Here.
New York Review of Books update with Robert Silvers Read Transcript
22/11/2007
Robert Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books, talks about Philip Roth's new novel Exit Ghost, the latest and last in the series begun in 1979 featuring New England writer Nathan Zuckerman. He tells us about environmental activist Dai Qing on China's dire water shortage and a 'looming environmental catastrophe'; and about several new books revealing how drug companies have helped exaggerate the extent of serious depression in order to push sales of antidepressants.
Philip Roth's Exit Ghost (review) Read Transcript
21/11/2007
It can be difficult for novelists to write endings. But the end of a much loved series can also be difficult for readers, when characters they've come to know so well are finished off -- often because their creators want to move on to other pastures.
Harry Potter's last appearance was made in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus took his bow in Exit Music. Now Philip Roth has written the swansong of his character Nathan Zuckerman. In fact, in Exit Ghost, 71-year-old Zuckerman is contemplating the meaning of his own existential end.
Geordie Williamson has been reading Exit Ghost for the Book Show.
David Edgerton's Shock of the Old (review) Read Transcript
20/11/2007
Which do you think was the more important technological advancement -- the rickshaw or the jumbo jet? The condom or the contraceptive pill?
Perhaps the answers are not as obvious as you might first think...
In The Shock of the Old: Technology in Global History Since 1900, well known historian of modern military and industrial technology David Edgerton challenges the idea of technology as a glistening behemoth, frog-marching us ever forward into a bigger, better, brighter, faster, future...
Reviewer Jock Given takes a closer look for The Book Show.
Lapham's Quarterly: a new project for former editor of Harpers
08/11/2007
The name of Lewis Lapham is synonymous with the New York magazine Harpers, the monthly journal that he edited for 30 years. Last year, Lapham stepped back from the role of editor, while still retaining the positions of editor emeritus and national correspondent. He still writes his Notebook column for the magazine, for which he won a National Magazine Award in 1995 for exhibiting 'an exhilarating point of view in an age of conformity.'
Most people would find that more than enough to be going on with, but Lapham has also been actively involved with another project, the ambition and range of which is truly epic.
He's about to launch a new magazine called Lapham's Quarterly. It's a journal that seeks to make sense of present day events through the prism of great writers and thinkers from the past.
Lewis Lapham joins the Book Show on the phone from New York.
Judith Bishop's poetry collection -- Event (review)
08/11/2007
One of the defining characteristics of poetry can be the subtlety of its imagery. We can read a poem over and over before we find a sympathetic interpretation. Judith Bishop's first collection of poems is called Event, and reviewer Geoff Page finds some arresting images among the enigmas. He starts with a reading of Judith Bishop's poem 'Late In the Day'.
Sara Paretsky's Writing in an Age of Silence (review) Read Transcript
02/11/2007
Sara Paretsky is well known for her best-selling VI Warshawski crime novels, and her tough-talking, Smith and Wesson wielding heroine, Vic, who was one of the first female crime fighters to grace the pages of genre fiction.
But Radio National's Lynne Mitchell has discovered that this time she's written a very different sort of book called Writing in an Age of Silence.
Voices by Ursula Le Guin (review) Read Transcript
31/10/2007
The latest fantasy novel by Ursula Le Guin is Voices, it's the second instalment in The Annals of the Western Shore.
Alison Croggon, who is, among her many literary guises, a writer of genre fiction, reviews Le Guin's latest novel for young adults.
Who wrote Frankenstein? Read Transcript
26/10/2007
Was Mary Shelley too young and uneducated to have written Frankenstein? The gothic classic, first published anonymously in 1818, has got the experts raging in a debate.
John Lauritsen, the author of The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, says that that man was Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley's husband and senior by five years.
And Lauritsen has his supporters. The scholar and social commentator Camille Paglia thinks Lauritsen is right, and has published a favourable review of his book on Salon.com. But in response Germaine Greer has written for The Guardian that the flawed prose in Frankenstein means it could only have been written by the 19-year-old Mary.
John Lauritsen discusses The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein with The Book Show's Ramona Koval. They are joined by two other Shelley experts: Charles Robinson, who compiled the Frankenstein Notebooks, and Neil Fraistat, who co-published Volumes I and II of The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
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Callisto by Torsten Kroll (review) Read Transcript
18/10/2007
If you're a successful writer, do you really have to do festival appearances, interviews and book-signings? Can you choose to stay at home in Queensland and just write? Torsten Krol is a writer who's had no trouble attracting lucrative book deals on the strength of his first two novels. But no-one, not even his agent, seems to have seen him or even heard his voice. All communication is by email, and some people are wondering if he (or she) is actually another well-known writer in disguise. We love a mystery, but is it all just publisher's hype? Ryan Pain has been reading Torsten Krol's second novel Callisto for The Book Show.
A tale of two Gertrudes -- with Robert Silvers
18/10/2007
Robert Silvers from the New York Review of Books with a tale of two Gertrudes: Gertrude Stein who, with her partner Alice B. Toklas, is the subject of a new book by Janet Malcolm, and Gertrude Bell, the snobbish Englishwoman who translated Persian poetry, climbed mountains, and was the architect of the modern state of Iraq.
War, Denmark and Hans Christian Andersen
17/10/2007
After the Bible, Hans Christian Andersen's popular fairy tales are said to be the most translated works in literature. But some of his minor stories speak directly to our times, as they did in his 19th century Denmark which faced German expansionism. Scholar and cultural commentor Norman Berdichevsky explores the social significance of Hans Christian Andersen's stories to today's readership.
Not just a big nose - the real Cyrano de Bergerac
16/10/2007
The movie Roxanne with Steve Martin and Darryl Hannah is just one of the many movies inspired by the famous play by Edmund Rostand about a 17th century free thinker with a big nose -- Cyrano de Bergerac. Other than pride in a big nose, the similarities between the real man of French intellectual society and Rostand's character end there. In real life he wrote satirical plays and fiction and his works are considered a precursor to the science-fiction genre.
Margaret Sankey will be discussing, in French, the differences between Rostand and the real Cyrano at Alliance Francais in Sydney on Tuesday 16 October and she joins the Book Show to tell us about it in English.
Playing guess who? with the Times Literary Supplement's Peter Stothard
10/10/2007
It seems everybody in London thinks Robert Harris's new book The Ghost is about Tony Blair, but Robert Harris is denying that his one time friend is a character in this novel. Peter Stothard from the Times Literary Supplement gives his opinion.
The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen (review) Read Transcript
09/10/2007
Is the internet making our culture and society more banal? Are we becoming less intelligent in the age of information? A new book by Andrew Keen says this is indeed the case. He argues that because ordinary people can post opinions and film clips online, as well as contribute their ideas to pseudo-encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, that our culture is being swamped by mediocrity. Our culture -- represented by novels, music, newspapers and the like -- is threatened by this new army of amateurs.
Simon Cooper is here to review The Cult of the Amateur and he is only partly convinced.
Gunter Grass's Peeling the Onion (review) Read Transcript
08/10/2007
Just over a year ago, when Nobel prize-winning German writer Gunter Grass was 78, he revealed that in his youth he'd been a member of Hitler's Waffen-SS. This was a secret he'd kept for 60 years, and its disclosure was understandably shocking for those who'd come to rely on Grass as a kind of post-war moral beacon.
Grass gives an account of his time with the SS in his autobiography Peeling the Onion, and Geordie Williamson has been reading it for The Book Show.
David Prater's We Will Disappear (review) Read Transcript
02/10/2007
In David Prater's first full-length collection of poems, We Will Disappear, reviewer Alicia Sometimes finds punk lyric lullabies and poems laced with rap qualities -- and a language born of the internet with lyrical mash-ups and HTML-like code where poems are like hyperlinks, teleporting us to another world at a click of a button.
Michael Sharkey's The Sweeping Plain (review) Read Transcript
01/10/2007
Michael Sharkey's latest book The Sweeping Plain, comes with a CD recording. We hear the poem 'Getting a Lover', read by Michael Sharkey who, as reviewer Geoff Page discovers, can be sardonic, ironic and lyrical all at once.
The Curtain by Milan Kundera (review) Read Transcript
24/09/2007
As book lovers, we all intuitively understand the value of the novel, but Czech novelist Milan Kundera -- famous for his work The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- has looked at its significance to Western civilisation in his latest essay, The Curtain. This builds on his previous exploration of the novel in The Art of the Novel, but in The Curtain he looks at how the novel transgresses borders of nation and language to reveal something about the very nature of existence.
Reviewer Geordie Williamson lifts 'the curtain' on Milan Kundera's latest contemplation on the art of the novel.
Bill Bryson's Shakespeare (review) Read Transcript
17/09/2007
Popular author Bill Bryson is best known for his travel writing, but he's also penned a few very intelligent books about the English language. This interest stretches its legs in his latest title, a biography about William Shakespeare that aims to dispel the myths. Patricia Maunder reviews this new addition to the ever-expanding library of scholarship about the Bard, it's simply titled Shakespeare.
The empire strikes back: Nury Vittachi's literary report from Asia
13/09/2007
Where the Man Booker's concerned, the Empire has really struck back in recent years, last year's winner was Indian born Kiran Desai and this year, among the Asian writers long- and short-listed is Nikita Lalwani for her first novel, Gifted, Indra Sinha for Animal's People and Tan Twang Eng for Gift of Rain. So, it's a good time to have a chat to our man in Asia, Nury Vittachi from the Asian Literary Review and find out if this is just a coincidence.
Napoleon's Double by Antoni Jach (review) Read Transcript
06/09/2007
What happens when you take seven characters whose names start with Jean, throw them into the Egyptian desert, meet Napoleon, and then send them off to Australia to do some cartography? The answer is nothing much, but that was part of the appeal for Brendan Gullifer, writer and broadcaster. He read Napoleon's Double by Antoni Jach for the Book Show and he was swept away by the journey.
Nolan on Nolan: Sidney Nolan in His Own Words (review) Read Transcript
05/09/2007
Sidney Nolan is Australia's best known, internationally recognised artist; he created the Ned Kelly series. A new collection of interviews with Nolan and other statements by him seeks to decode the man, the myth and the art. Nolan on Nolan: Sidney Nolan in His Own Words is edited by Nancy Underhill. Art historian Janine Burke gave her take on the book.
Rob Sheffield's Love is a mix tape: One Song at a Time (review) Read Transcript
04/09/2007
Mix tapes, those self-compiled cassettes of favourite songs, might seem quaintly antiquated to today's ipod-obsessed, myspace-addicted music culture. Few people listen to cassettes anymore, but for Rolling Stones music writer Rob Sheffield they represent his love for his wife, whose life was tragically cut short.
Sky Harrison has followed Sheffield's music-writing career, and for the Book Show, she looked at his memoir, a personal tale of love, music and grief called Love is a mix tape: One Song at a Time.
Banned books in Australia: from moral crusaders to national security Read Transcript
24/08/2007
From the moral conservatism that led to the banning of books like Lady Chatterley's Lover to the more recent banning of the book Defence of Muslim Lands, this panel discussion delves into the history of censorship in Australia.
Petra White's debut poetry collection, The Incoming Tide (review)
22/08/2007
One of the good things about a first collection of poetry is its variety, as the poet experiments with theme and style. Reviewer Geoff Page enjoyed Petra White's first book, The Incoming Tide, where he found much that was original and memorable. Geoff begins with a reading of Petra White's poem 'Ricketts Point'.
Jorge Luis Borges - politically blind but a literary visionary
20/08/2007
It's the 108th birthday of Jorge Luis Borges -- the great Argentinian writer known for his short stories and strange mythical creations in The Book of Imaginary Beings.
In his honour, a Symposium on Borges is being held in Sydney from 23 to 24 August. It's a collaboration between Macquarie University, the Argentine Consulate General of Argentina and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. The Symposium is looking at Borges's literary connections with the English world.
Jeff Browitt is giving a presentation at the symposium. Jeff is Senior Lecturer Latin American Studies, University of Technology Sydney, and he joins us on the phone from Sydney.
Australian literature in schools
15/08/2007
Are young people today reading Australian fiction? Last week the Australia Council hosted a round table in Canberra at which authors, publishers, teachers and academics discussed ways to reinvigorate Australian literature in education.
Nick Jose was one of the participants at the round table and he joined The Book Show from our Adelaide studios.
Learning from South Park Read Transcript
14/08/2007
According to a report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority reality TV programs are good for young people. Apparently, shows like Big Brother and Biggest Loser teach teenagers empathy. While this might be hard to believe, as we know, pop culture is not just pop culture - it can be a source of deep intellectual inquiry - the latest issue of the New York Review of Books has a tribute to the Sopranos, there've been countless dissertations on Buffy the Vampire Slayer not to mention the Simpsons.
Now it's the turn of the Simpsons irreverent counterpart - South Park. A book called South Park and Philosophy, subtitled you know I learned something today by academic publisher Blackwell ruminates on the deep philosophical questions posed by this satirical cartoon, which by the way is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Lynne Mitchell has been reading South Park and Philosophy for the Book Show - let's see if she's learnt anything.
What is structural editing? Read Transcript
08/08/2007
Just about every time we speak about the poor state of editing in today's publishing industry, mention is made of the lack of money and about the lack of attention to structural editing. But what exactly is structural editing? At the Byron Bay writers Festival a couple of weeks ago, a workshop on structural editing was given by Freelance editor and writer Shelley Kenigsberg.
Shelley has coordinated and delivered the Macleay Diploma in Book Editing and Publishing in Sydney for 16 years, and has developed and presented courses for the Society of Editors around Australia the Style Council, and language and corporate institutes overseas.
Tom Shapcott's City of Empty Rooms (review) Read Transcript
19/07/2007
Now to the latest poetry collection from prize winning writer Tom Shapcott, The City of Empty Rooms.
For the Book Show, reviewer Geoff Page has been reading this collection.
John Berger's political way of seeing Read Transcript
18/07/2007
John Berger is a novelist, storyteller, poet, screenwriter, and art critic. His 1972 BBC series and book Ways of Seeing made an enormous impact as a reaction to Kenneth Clark's series on art Civilisation. Now 80, his new book is Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance and it's a series of reflections written between 2001 and 2006, arising from contemporary political moments -- London in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings, New Orleans after its destruction by Hurricane Katrina, New York after 9/11, and the Middle Eastern troubles, from Bagdad to Gaza.
Excess Baggage and Claim (review) Read Transcript
16/07/2007
Excess Baggage and Claim is a literary cross-cultural pairing of the poets, Singaporese Cyril Wong and Australian Terry Jaensch. It pounds the pavement of Singapore's karaoke scene and evokes gay love and desire.
Cyril Wong was winner of the Singapore Literature Prize last year. He is the author of five poetry collections published by Firstfruits Publications.
Terry Jaensch is a poet, playwright and actor. He has been published both in Australia and overseas, with his work broadcast on radio and television.
Poet, writer and broadcaster Alicia Sometimes has been reading Excess Baggage and Claim for The Book Show.
Comic book appreciation
16/07/2007
Poet Dorothy Parker confessed to loving them, novelist John Updike was greatly influenced by them and EE Cummings said they were a 'living ideal' superior to 'mere reality'. And they were talking about comics!
Comics are popular again and cultural theorists have turned their gaze to the world of good and evil and subversion that some comics represent. Like Jeet Heer, he is an Indian born Canadian and learned to speak English by reading comics.
From that early interest he developed a lifelong passion for this type of storytelling and has written about it for the Boston Globe and the Literary Review of Canada.
Jeet Heer's writing about comics is described as ingenious and imaginative and he joins us on the phone from Toronto.
Dave Eggers' What is the What (review) Read Transcript
04/07/2007
The American writer Dave Eggers has a cult following, especially with younger readers. He came to international fame with his part-fiction, part-memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and in his latest novel, Dave Eggers has also blended genres; What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng is based on a real-life story. It's told by Valentino, a Sudanese refugee in the USA.
Ryan Paine is editor of Voiceworks magazine, and a fan of Dave Eggers. For the Book Show he's been reading What is the What which he received as a parcel in the mail recently.
David Astle reviews Granta's Best of Young American Novelists #2 Read Transcript
29/06/2007
How do know who the latest and greatest new writers are? Well you can read reviews, or play lucky dip at the book store, or, of course you can listen to the Book Show. But another good way is to browse books of collections for a sneak peak into the creative worlds of different writers in a sort of one-stop-shop.
Our reviewer David Astle has been doing just that, and for the Book Show, he's been reading Granta's latest collection called Best of Young American Novelists #2.
An intimate relationship: editors and writers Read Transcript
29/06/2007
Editors are like invisible menders. If they're good at what they do their tracks are invisible but without their contribution, the work would fray at the edges. So how is this invisible work done? What goes on between writers and editors? What are the politics and protocols of the editorial relationship?
On the Book Show today we're joined by a writer/editor pair who have consented to reveal all! By hearing the perspective of both author and writer, hopefully we'll get some insight into what it's like to edit, and be edited.
Judith Lukin-Amundsen is one of Australia's leading editors, she's worked with the likes of Tim Winton, Robert Dessaix, Delia Falconer, Rodney Hall and Charlotte Wood, who also joins us today. The two have collaborated on all three of Charlotte Wood's novels - one which is forthcoming in October: The Children.
We're also joined by Jacquie Kent, an editor herself, and biographer of the late Beatrice Davis (1909-1992), the legendary editor at Angus and Robertson from 1937 to 1970 - the woman who practically invented the idea of the professional editor in Australia.
Literary knighthoods with Peter Stothard
28/06/2007
A fortnight ago Britain awarded a knighthood (for services to literature) to the author of The Satanic Verses -- one of the world's most lauded and most divisive writers, Salmon Rushdie. The Satanic Verses, 18 years ago, caused such offence to Muslims that a bounty was placed on his head and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill him. Rushdie went into hiding and the British government spent millions protecting him.
To find out more about the decision, the editor of the Times Literary Supplement, Peter Stothard, joins me on The Book Show from our London ABC studio.
Ideology in children's fiction
27/06/2007
You don't have to look too far to find examples of ideology in children's literature. Feminist revisions of fairy tales, for instance and you might say that When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs in an example of a kids' book with a strong ideological anti-nuclear message.
John Stephens has made the production of ideology in children's fiction the focus of his research. He is Professor in English at Macquarie University, and he's won the 11th International Brothers Grimm Award for his outstanding body of research into children's literature.
Judging a book by its cover
24/06/2007
Do you ever wonder how much thought writers give to the way their books are packaged, especially the covers of the books? Tim Parks, our Italian scribe, has given this subject quite a lot of thought.
The passion and pain of literary translation Read Transcript
21/06/2007
Who would have thought that translating 19th century literary greats would be an activity infused with the possibility for passionate debate over a word used by Emile Zola -- and even global outrage over how to organise a collaboration between translators of the multivolume Remembrance of things Past by Marcel Proust?
Translators are considered to be cultural mediators and ambassadors of foreign literature, but what do we really know of the pain and suffering that goes into their work; and how well recognised are they? The English language translators for Emile Zola and Marcel Proust who are based in Australia will be speaking about the art of translation at an event organised by PEN Sydney next Wednesday 27 June, at the NSW State Library. They join me to discuss contemporary debate in literary translation.
Judging a book by its cover
21/06/2007
Do you ever wonder how much thought writers give to the way their books are packaged, especially the covers of the books? Tim Parks, our Italian scribe, has given this subject quite a lot of thought.
Tim Parks: Umberto Saba's poem 'Goal ' Read Transcript
18/06/2007
Few things engage the minds of Italians like the sport of football -- or soccer. 'Love' may inflame Italian passions, but football animates Italians like little else. And if we think passionate writing about sport is a recent phenomenon; writer, essayist and translator Tim Parks is about to set us straight.
Here is one of five poems by Umberto Saba (which was the pseudonym of Italian poet and novelist Umberto Poli) written at the time of the 1938 World Cup, held in Italy during the time of the Fascists.
9/11 fiction: does it work? Read Transcript
12/06/2007
In the six years since the September 11 attacks on America, the large-scale violence and chaos forced many American and British novelists to reconsider the value of their work and its relation to understanding current events. The 9/11 episode has made its way into more than one work of fiction -- but how successful have the various attempts been in capturing it? Robert Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books, discusses this, and the most recent attempt to deal with the issue by American author Don DeLillo and his new novel Falling Man.
Lorien Kay reviews Ten Days in the Hills Read Transcript
05/06/2007
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, that medieval story of a bawdy party in the countryside around Florence, provides the inspiration for Jane Smiley's latest work Ten Days in the Hills, which is essentially a story about a Hollywood house party and the conversations of the guests.
For the Book Show, Lorien Kay has been reading Smiley's latest offering: Ten Days in the Hills.
The novel gene - literary Darwinism
25/05/2007
From the selfish gene to the literary gene, can evolutionary theory explain great literary works, our love of storytelling and the behaviour of characters in novels? In an article for the New Scientist, Jonathan Gottschall argued that the present state of literary criticism is outdated, and he has applied what he terms 'Darwinian literary theory' to works like Homer's Iliad, and to Jane Austen's novels. Today on the Book Show we explore whether there is a relationship between natural selection and our penchant for storytelling.
Samina Yasmeen reviews President Musharraf's best-selling memoir
03/05/2007
In November last year Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf released his memoir In the Line of Fire. It's a first-hand view of the war on terror in its central theatre, and the full story of the events that brought Musharraf to power in 1999. The memoir is one of the biggest selling books in Pakistan.
Dr Samina Yasmeen is a Pakistani born associate professor in political science and international relations at the University of Western Australia, where she teaches world politics, strategy and diplomacy, and Islam and world politics. Simina Yasmeen has been reading In the Line of Fire, for The Book Show.
Vale Vonnegut
01/05/2007
Today we're going to hold a festive wake for Kurt Vonnegut, who died last month.
We all know him for Slaughterhouse Five and he's probably one of the most influential post-war American writers.
This is a man who kept saying he was never going to write any more, but kept on doing just that.
Joining the Book Show to consider Vonnegut and his unique writing is Chris Palmer, who teaches in the School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry at La Trobe University in Melbourne. And Terry Lane, broadcaster and writer well known to Radio National listeners. He's a Kurt Vonnegut fan as well.
Margo Kingston reviews Pauline Hanson's autobiography Read Transcript
30/04/2007
Pauline Hanson is in the media spotlight once again. Not only has she announced that she will contest a Queensland Senate seat in this year's federal election but her autobiography, Untamed and Unashamed, has shot into the top 10 bestsellers list.
Journalist Margo Kingston has been reading Pauline Hanson's autobiography. In 1998 Margo Kingston went on tour with Pauline Hanson on her federal election campaign, and wrote a book about it all called Off the Rails: the Pauline Hanson trip. For The Book Show, Margo Kingston reviews Untamed and Unashamed.
Kirsten Alexander reviews The Emperor's Children
26/04/2007
Claire Messud is a writer of fiction, primarily novels, and the author, most recently, of The Emperor's Children. It's described as an astute and poignant evocation of hobnobbing glitterati in the months before and immediately following September 11. Reviewer Kirsten Alexander had a look at the novel for the Book Show.
The examined life
25/04/2007
Biography and storytelling are brought to life in a discussion about the skills required to be a good observer of life. Earlier this year we heard Robert Dessaix on observation, wisdom and narrative. He was one of the speakers at The Examined Life at the State Library of NSW. Today we bring you more from The Examined Life, titled 'The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion, The Writer, The Writing and the Narrative Powers of Transformation', in which the speakers were Alice Spigelman and Arnold Zable. First we hear from Dr Vera Ranki, from The Examined Life Institute, who chaired the event and is the author of The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion.
Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach and England's richest literary prize
23/04/2007
Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and Book Show regular, Peter Stothard, talks about Ian McEwan's new novel On Chesil Beach, the much anticipated follow-up to Saturday. It tells the story of a young couple's wedding night, but what McEwan has created here is a social and political portrait of Britain in 1962, on the verge of major social change. We also find out about the controversy surrounding England's richest literary prize – the David Cohen – which was awarded to the Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon.
Stefan Collini: 'Intellectual' is not a dirty word!
11/04/2007
Today we've been talking about how women and young people can get their ideas into the public sphere, to engage in the public debate. And if you have been following the way people argue in newspapers and other media, for example, you have to ask yourself why the term 'intellectual' has become a pejorative in many places these days? And it's not something that happens only in Australia, but in Britain too.
Stefan Collini is a professor of intellectual history and English literature at Cambridge University. His book Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain is a historical critique of claims made about intellectuals and analysis of the way they are discussed. Stefan spoke at last year's Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Rex Butler reviews Modernism and Australia
09/04/2007
Modernism is said to have come to Australia a little late, perhaps some time around the First World War. The University of Melbourne's Miegunyah Press has recently put out an anthology taking up the story of the arrival and reception of Modernism in Australia.
Modernism and Australia: Documents on Art, Design and Architecture 1917-1967, edited by the curator Ann Stephen and the academics Andrew McNamara and Philip Goad, assembles a vast array of writings treating not only the visual arts, but architecture and design (both commercial and industrial) more generally.
The University of Queensland's Rex Butler reviews it for the Book Show.
Kate Bochner reviews The Shoe Queen
29/03/2007
Radio National's own Kate Bochner reviews a book about a tale of forbidden love and must-have shoes set in 1920s Paris. It's the fourth novel by author Anna Davis, it's called The Shoe Queen, and it's part chick-lit, part historical saga.
Imagining alternative Australian histories Read Transcript
28/03/2007
Historians seem to enjoy imagining history as it might have been, and it's this 'what if' theme that is taken up by prominent Australian historians, in a collection of counterfactual histories edited by Sean Scalmer and Stuart McIntyre. It's called What if: Australian History as it might have been.
Kevin Murray is the director of Craft Victoria and he has developed a number of counterfactual art exhibitions himself. He enjoyed reading the book and reviews it for the Book Show.
Life of an anthropologist: Edie Turner
28/03/2007
Edith Turner, or Edie as she prefers, has travelled the world with her husband, the famous anthropologist Victor Turner. They've been studying pilgrimage, healing rituals and rites of passage in Zambia, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Alaska and England - where they're both from originally.
Edie continued travelling and studying after her husband's death, and is an anthropologist in her own right. Edie has gathered all her amazing experiences, like taking part in shaman rituals, in her autobiography Heart of Lightness: The Life Story of an Anthropologist.
The Book Show's Sarah L'Estrange spoke to Edie Turner in a studio at Virginia University, USA.
Charles Dickens and the international copyright act
20/03/2007
Today, we look at the legacy on present day copyright laws of the debates between Mark Twain and Charles Dickens about the need for international copyright in the 19th century. This debate raged across the Atlantic between England and America before America drew up its international copyright act to protect the work of foreign writers like Dickens.
Matthew Pearl joins us to discuss this influential debate. Matthew Pearl is a visiting lecturer at the Harvard Law School, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA, and he has written two novels: The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow.
Carnival in Suburbia: The Art of Howard Arkley Read Transcript
30/01/2007
The late Australian painter Howard Arkley was as much famous for his death by drug overdose in 1999 as he was for his pop-art take on Australian suburbia. Arts writer and academic Rex Butler surveys a new monograph on Arkley. Titled Carnival in Suburbia: The Art of Howard Arkley, it's been released on the occasion of a major travelling exhibition.
