Past Programs
Critique and Theory - 2008
Taboos in literature
05/12/2008
It's 50 years since the controversial novel Lolita was published and Nabokov said that there were only three taboos in literature: incest, inter-racial marriage and atheism. What is taboo now?
Ars memorativa - the medieval craft of memory
03/12/2008
In contemporary culture we tend to think of the imagination as the highest creative impulse. The imagination is seen as the ultimate source of originality and original thinking is what marks a true artist. But from the antiquities to medieval times memory was highly valued. Both Aristotle and Chaucer thought memory the most important tool a writer or a reader could have. Renowned medieval scholar Mary Carruthers talks about the lost art of memory.
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (review) Read Transcript
01/12/2008
Christos Tsiolkas burst onto the literary scene in 1995 with the novel Loaded, and in 2006 won the Age Book of the Year fiction award for Dead Europe.
In his latest novel, The Slap, he explores the different reactions of friends at a barbecue to a child being slapped.
The novel is set in Melbourne and for The Book Show, reviewer Patricia Maunder takes a thought-provoking stroll through suburbia, and discovers the diverse, complex realities behind some seemingly ordinary lives.
Holy Warriors: Tim Parks (review)
27/11/2008
It's just over 60 years since India became independent. In her book Holy Warriors: a Journey into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism journalist Edna Fernandes reviews those years and paints a contemporary portrait of the country from its fundamentalist fringes. She begins by looking at Islam, revisits the Catholic Inquisition in Goa, meets Christian Baptist separatists and looks into both Sikh separatism and Hindu nationalism. Tim Parks investigates how much we can learn about India from this book.
EH Carr's What is History? (review)
26/11/2008
EH Carr's contribution to the study of Soviet history is widely regarded as highly distinguished. In all probability, few would argue against the assessment of Carr's 14-volume history of Soviet Russia. For the majority of historians, he pretty much got the story straight.
But for several years there was disagreement about EH Carr's contribution to the analytical philosophy of history. First published in 1961, his ideas were outlined in What is History?
He shifted the focus of history from fact to interpretation.
Jock Given is Professor of Media and Communications at Swinburne University, for The Book Show he explores the relationship between the historian and the past in What is History?
Alan Wearne's The Australian Popular Songbook (review)
24/11/2008
Alan Wearne has been writing poems since his university days in the 1960s. He's published several collections of poetry, two acclaimed verse novels—The Nightmarkets and The Lovemakers volumes one and two—and a prose work, Kicking in Danger, a fantasy/satire on Melbourne and its football culture.
His latest collection of poetry is called The Australian Popular Songbook. It's arranged in three sections: the first has poems that take their titles from Australian popular songs; the second, called 'The Metropolitan Poems', features urban Australian locations; and the last section is made up of a single long free-verse poem, 'Breakfast with Darky'.
Geoff Page reviews The Australian Popular Songbook.
The sister arts in Australia
24/11/2008
Painting and the visual arts, poetry, fiction and music are said to have a family resemblance and the dialogue between the forms has been described as the sister arts. In the early days of Australian writing, authors who incorporated the sister arts in their narratives were considered derivative—even un-Australian. These were writers like Henry Handel Richardson and Eleanor Dark, who today we think of as definitively Australian.
The rivalry and correspondence between the sister arts is the subject of the latest Southerly journal.
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz (review)
11/11/2008
Two debut novelists' books made it on to the Booker shortlist this year.
One of them was the winner -- The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, and the other one was A Fraction of the Whole by Australian writer Steve Toltz.
His novel is a sprawling black comedy about the Deans, a family of outcasts.
For the Book Show, David Astle reviews A Fraction of the Whole.
Robert Silvers, editor of The New York Review of Books
06/11/2008
In 1963 a new publication called The New York Review of Books was launched. One of its founders, who had been an editor at Harpers and The Paris Review, was asked to be the first editor. Forty-five years later Robert Silvers is still its editor. On the day Americans celebrate a new president-elect he talks to The Book Show about elections and anniversaries.
Ian McEwan at the Sydney Opera House (repeat)
04/11/2008
Earlier this year novelist Ian McEwan was a guest at the Sydney Opera House in the International Speakers Series. In his humorous address he explores the boundary between fact and fiction, he talks about the engagement of readers with ideas and characters and he reads from some of the marvellously cranky letters he has received, correcting facts in his novels.
(First broadcast 11 April 2008)
Philip Gourevitch, editor of The Paris Review
30/10/2008
A puritanical hedonist -- this is how novelist and nonfiction writer Marilynne Robinson describes herself. She won the Pulitzer for her 2004 novel Gilead and her new book is called Home. An in-depth interview with her is in the latest Paris Review.
Also on the topic of home, when 40,000 prisoners involved in the Rwandan genocide were released from jail, French journalist Jean Hatzfeld wrote about their homecoming. His article 'Together Again' is in the magazine.
This is a topic close to the editor of the Paris Review, Philip Gourevitch, who wrote about the genocide in We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.
Writing the Future: the first Asia-Pacific festival of writing
29/10/2008
Professor Rukmini Bhaya Nair, poet and editor of the Indian Literary journal Biblio, is one of the organisers of the first Asia-Pacific Festival of Writing, held this month in New Delhi and the Indian hill-station town of Shimla.
American political books for kids
28/10/2008
Putting politics in the mouths of babes is nothing new. The Dr Seuss books have been brimming with political lessons and allegories for decades. But now there's some very different bedtime reading on offer. In the lead-up to next week's US presidential election, partisan authors have been peddling their opposing liberal and conservative views to an audience which is much too young to vote, children. Political propaganda or an early civic lesson? For copyright reasons this story is not available as audio on demand or podcast.
Public figures, private lives
28/10/2008
Is the private life of a public figure a proper subject for biography? And how does a biographer decide what to reveal and what to screen from public gaze? Historian David Day has written biographies of three public figures: Ben Chifley, John Curtin and Andrew Fisher. He discusses balancing the need to explore the private landscape of subjects with a duty to be discreet about other people's lives.
The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood (review) Read Transcript
27/10/2008
Rachel Power is a writer, artist and musician. She's also a mother of two young children. In her book The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood she writes about her own experience and that of 26 other artist-mothers, who talk about balancing motherhood with finding the space to continue their creative lives. Clare Wright, also a writer and mother, read Rachel Power's book with particular interest.
Hunter S. Thompson in words and on film Read Transcript
23/10/2008
There are some phrases and concepts that are forever enshrined in the mythos of a writer. For the iconoclastic Hunter S. Thompson, it's Gonzo journalism, freak power and fear and loathing. Since his suicide in 2005, there have been many memoirs, many of them authored by his friends keeping the mythology of the cult writer alive. But when it comes to a subject as complex as Hunter S.Thompson, there's always room for more.
Mike Ladd's Transit (review) Read Transcript
22/10/2008
Mike Ladd is the presenter of Radio National's Poetica. He is also a poet in his own right. In the 80s he was part of a group called the Drum Poets who made music from collected objects. He travelled around Africa and recorded Senegalese poets, and he's published six books of poetry, the latest one being the collection Transit.
Poetry reviewer Geoff Page has looked at this collection.
He begins with a reading of one of the poems, called 'Last Thoughts of a Famous Dog'.
Murray Bail's The Pages (review) Read Transcript
21/10/2008
Ten years ago, Murray Bail wrote the internationally acclaimed Eucalyptus.
A decade on, his new offering is The Pages.
It's an intricate story about an enigmatic philospher who dies and leaves his work in-progress in a shed on his family's property in New South Wales.
For the Book Show Geordie Williamson reviewed The Pages.
Thirteen Tonne Theory by Mark Seymour (review) Read Transcript
20/10/2008
For eighteen years Mark Seymour fronted the band Hunters and Collectors, through the songs that made it, like 'Throw Your Arms Around Me', 'Talking to a Stranger' and 'Holy Grail' and the years of hard work playing festivals and overflowing pubs. Ten years after Hunters and Collectors disbanded Mark Seymour wrote about his experiences with the band in Thirteen Tonne Theory: Life Inside Hunter and Collectors, reviewed here by David Astle.
Thoughts on the Booker -- Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement
17/10/2008
Peter Stothard discusses the Man Booker celebrations and his ideas about the winner -- Aravind Adiga's debut novel The White Tiger. He also discusses the latest TLS, which includes an article on Katherine Mansfield.
Book collecting
14/10/2008
If you enjoy walking through a bookstore, taking a book off the shelf, holding it in your hands, buying it and adding it to your collection at home, you're probably passionate about books. But does that necessarily make you a book collector? The process for an avid collector can involve logistical planning, research, networking and appraisals, as Anthony Knight explains.
Life in Seven Mistakes by Susan Johnson (review) Read Transcript
13/10/2008
The Bartons are a dysfunctional family living on Queensland's Gold Coast. They are the focus of Australian writer Susan Johnson's latest black comedy Life in Seven Mistakes. For The Book Show, reviewer Jo Case read this, Susan Johnson's seventh book, and identifies with its portrayal of messy family relationships and what she calls generational blindness.
Frank Moorhouse -- The control of the imagination
10/10/2008
The fallout from the Bill Henson photos of teenagers continues.
The Australia Council recently asked for submissions on the depiction of children in art. It plans to develop protocols for artists around this subject.
Frank Moorhouse has long been involved in anti-censorship campaigns.
This is part of a presentation he gave at the National Young Writers' Festival about the control of the imagination.
In this speech, Frank Moorhouse looks into what he sees as the implications for arts, literature and freedom of expression of these possible Australia Council protocols.
2008 Nobel Prize for Literature winner
10/10/2008
The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature was announced last night. This year the prize has gone to French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio. Speaking to reporters in Paris, Le Clezio said he was very honoured and when asked if he deserved the prize he replied "Why not?". Dr Jacqueline Dutton, head of French Studies at the University of Melbourne, has met Le Clezio and written a book about his work. She and Professor James English, author of The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards and the Circulation of Cultural Value, discuss the prize with Ramona Koval.
Il Gattopardo - The Leopard Read Transcript
09/10/2008
Fifty years ago when an Italian novel appeared describing the life and death of an intellectual Sicilian aristocrat, critics didn't know what to make of it.
Il Gattopardo, which the English-speaking world knows as The Leopard, was attacked almost immediately, with critics dismissing it as either deeply reactionary or anti-Italian. But Italy's reading public was quick to make up its mind, and since then the novel hasn't stopped selling.
Submarine by Joe Dunthorne (review) Read Transcript
08/10/2008
Teen novels with the meerest whiff of teen angst are often promoted as the next Catcher in the Rye.
And yes, Joe Dunthorne's book Submarine has been compared to JD Salinger's classic. Dunthorne wrote it for his creative writing course at the University of East Anglia. He's 26 years old and his main character is Oliver Tait -- he's 15 and is struggling to deal with his parents' failing marriage.
For The Book Show Ryan Paine reviewed Submarine, and doesn't think it lives up to the promise of Catcher in the Rye.
Romance writing in the 21st century
06/10/2008
We delve into the world of square jaws and ripped bodices and ask how romance writing has changed over the years. How different are romance titles of the 21st century from those published during the First World War for instance?
Nicola Bowery's Goatfish (review)
06/10/2008
There are not, perhaps, as many Australian poets from small towns as there once were. It seems that the pastoral has given way to the inner city. Nicola Bowery from Braidwood NSW is an exception to the rule, an exception to quite a few rules, as Geoff Page discovered in reviewing her second collection of poetry, Goatfish.
The legacy of Mahmoud Darwish Read Transcript
02/10/2008
When Palestinian poet and author Mahmoud Darwish died in August three days of mourning were declared and Darwish was accorded the equivalent of a state funeral. Mahmoud Darwish published over thirty volumes of poetry and eight books of prose. His work won numerous awards and has been published in many languages, including Hebrew.
Examining the Booker prize
30/09/2008
How significant are literary prizes? We examine the much-hyped Man Booker Prize, awarded to a novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or Republic of Ireland. This year's winner will be announced on October 14th and Australia's claiming two writers on the short list, Steve Toltz and Aravind Adiga.
Fine Just the Way It Is: Annie Proulx (review) Read Transcript
30/09/2008
Three years after Annie Proulx's short story 'Brokeback Mountain' lit up the silver screen, and four since her previous book, she's back with another collection of short stories, Fine Just the Way It Is. Patricia Maunder saddles up for this Pulitzer Prize-winning author's latest look at the American Midwest, past and present, and soon finds herself touched by its relentless snow, dust and despair.
The reading life of Anita Heiss
25/09/2008
From the recent Melbourne Writers' Festival, Anita Heiss speaks about the books that have made a lasting impression on her and the authors who've inspired her.
Anita Heiss is a novelist, poet, activist and social commentator who describes herself as 'a concrete Koori with a Westfield dreaming - a city chick whose idea of Survivor is a night in a caravan'.
Her published works include the poetry collection Token Koori, Sacred Cows, a work of satirical social commentary, and the chick lit novel Not Meeting Mr Right.
In 2003 she received an Australian Society of Authors medal for under 35s for her contribution to the Australian community and public life and in 2007 she won a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Deadly Award for outstanding achievement in literature.
Remembering David Foster Wallace
23/09/2008
Geordie Williamson considers the legacy of David Foster Wallace, American novelist, essayist and short story writer, who was found dead earlier this month. David Foster Wallace was perhaps best known for his novel Infinite Jest published in 1996, but he also wrote short fiction, which appeared in a range of publications, including GQ, The Paris Review, Harper's Magazine, and The New Yorker. In obituaries David Foster Wallace has been compared to Thomas Pynchon, James Joyce and Laurence Sterne. His contemporaries include Dave Eggers, Jeffrey Eugenides and Rick Moody.
David Foster Wallace's first novel, published in 1986, was The Broom of the System. His latest collection of essays is Consider the Lobster. His last book, a work of non-fiction, was published in June. It's called McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope. He has also written about Rap music and about tennis player Roger Federer.
Posthumous publishing - Janet Frame's poetry
17/09/2008
New Zealand writer Janet Frame died in 2004 at 79 years of age. That, however, hasn't stopped the publication of 'new' work by Janet Frame. Two previously unpublished works, a novel and a collection of poetry, have recently been released. This raises all sorts of questions about posthumous publication of literary works, and about who decides what should or shouldn't be put in the public domain. One of the people given the job of managing the literary estate of Janet Frame is her niece, Pamela Gordon, who's in Australia for the local release of the new poetry collection, called The Goose Bath.
Christopher Kremmer on greed
12/09/2008
Christopher Kremmer, author of Bamboo Palace, The Carpet Wars and Inhaling the Mahatma, begins the 2008 Sydney PEN '3 Writers' series of talks with an address on the subject of greed.
PEN is an international organisation that exists to highlight the plight of writers and journalists who are being persecuted because of their work. The organisation also works with writers to highlight wider injustices and inequities in society. It's with this in mind that Sydney PEN have used this series of talks to focus on greed, survival and courage.
The second speaker in the series will be Melissa Lukashenko tackling the topic of survival and then Anna Funder on the subject of courage. All three talks will be published as an essay collection in the first half of 2009.
On fragments and dust: Nicolas Rothwell Read Transcript
10/09/2008
As a journalist Nicolas Rothwell has travelled to the Americas, Western and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In 2005 he was The Australian newspaper's correspondent in Iraq. He passed through the landscapes of a country at war and visited the ruins of past civilisations, such as the capital of Queen Zenobia. When he came back home to Darwin, he travelled again to the desert, to the Kimberley and Pilbara, which is a landscape he's been travelling through for many years. He has written about these desert journeys, and the thoughts they inspired, in an essay called 'On Fragments and Dust'.
James Bond and Sebastian Faulks meet in Devil May Care (review) Read Transcript
08/09/2008
Decades after Ian Fleming's death his James Bond novels remain so popular that Sebastian Faulks has written a new addition to the spy-thriller series, Devil May Care. Patricia Maunder looks at this latest attempt to recreate Fleming's pulp-fiction magic and discovers that 007 not only likes his martinis shaken, not stirred, but also prefers his pepper cracked, not ground.
The adventurous world of Hannah Tinti Read Transcript
04/09/2008
The American town of Salem, Massachusetts, provides plenty of stimulation for a budding writer's imagination. After all, Salem was famous for its witch trials, and it's where Nathaniel Hawthorne was born. Hannah Tinti grew up there and says that because of this gothic heritage, stepping back into that period in history was quite natural for her. Her debut novel The Good Thief is set in the 1840s and revolves around the illicit work of body-snatchers who were known as Resurrection Men. Like her 2004 short story collection Animal Crackers, it's attracting considerable praise.
Lisa Gorton: Press Release (review) Read Transcript
03/09/2008
The Mallee district in Victoria is given a painterly rendition in Lisa Gorton's paean to her grandmother, who's from that region. This first collection of poetry Press Release is also about death and drought and uses imagery of intergalactic travel. Lisa Gorton won this year's Victorian Premier's Literary award for poetry for this collection.
Her writing's been described as showing a serious wit. Reviewer Geoff Page was transported by this wit and imagery.
Sophie Cunningham, editor of Meanjin
02/09/2008
Most Australians live in the suburbs, yet the suburbs have not fared well in Australian literature. Frequently portrayed as desolate, the dead zone between the cosmopolitan city and the romance of the bush, the suburbs are usually a place from which to escape to a more interesting life. But the suburbs have found a champion in the literary journal Meanjin, with an essay arguing that the urban fringes could be the wellspring of renewal for a greener, more caring Australia.
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (review) Read Transcript
27/08/2008
The judges for the world's richest short story prize, the Frank O'Connor Award, thought Jhumpa Lahiri's latest collection Unaccustomed Earth was so good they didn't bother making a shortlist -- they just gave her the prize outright.
And it seems they did pick a winner, because the book has reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
This isn't the first prize Jhumpa Lahiri has won for her short stories. She won a Pulitzer for her collection Interpreter of Maladies. She's also written a novel called Namesake which was made into a film.
Anna Hedigan reviews the latest collection.
Philip Gourevitch, editor of The Paris Review
27/08/2008
Italian novelist and scholar Umberto Eco has 30 000 books in his Milan appartment and another 20 000 volumes in his country manor.
The author of Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose is a man of prodigious intellect, fluent in several languages, with an encylopedic knowledge of medieval history.
So you'd never guess what il professore likes to watch on TV. He likes Starsky and Hutch - the clunky, at times slapstick 1970s police buddy drama featuring two badly dressed Califorian cops in need of a good haircut.
Umberto Eco's taste in TV is one of the more trivial things to emerge from a long and fascinating interview with the author published in the current edition of the literary magazine The Paris Review.
The latest issue also includes a moving recollection of a friendship by novelist and children's writer Paula Fox and the diary of fire lookout, who spends his summers watching for smoke a tower on top of a mountain in a New Mexico national park.
Barry Maitland in conversation at the Melbourne Writers' Festival Read Transcript
25/08/2008
Barry Maitland is known for his forensic police procedurals featuring the investigative pair of Detective Chief Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard's Serious Crime Unit, but his latest work breaks the mould. The novel, called Bright Air, is set in Australia and, unlike his other work, it's written in the first person, making it a more personal and interior narrative that explores psychological conflicts along with investigating the crime.
Books for children Read Transcript
22/08/2008
There's currently a major emphasis on getting children to read, engaging them in the written word through initiatives like premiers' reading challenges and Children's Book Week. Most of us who read for pleasure can name books and stories we loved when we were young, books that helped to shape our sense of identity and our sense of place, books that opened our minds to alternative worlds and new possibilities. Award-winning writer Sonya Hartnett, children's literature specialist Professor John Stevens and illustrator and author Tina Matthews discuss writing for children.
Times Literary Supplement editor Peter Stothard
21/08/2008
Peter Stothard discusses three histories of women in the ancient world, a new edition of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, published fifty years after the first book Justine appeared, and the collected letters of writer Penelope Fitzgerald, who was in her sixties before her first book was published and who went on to win a Booker prize.
The role of the literary critic - Daniel Mendelsohn Read Transcript
19/08/2008
This year's Sydney Jewish Writers' Festival has attracted a number of prominent international guests, including leading US writer and critic Daniel Mendelsohn. Daniel Mendelsohn is the author of three books, including The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million in which he investigates the story of what happened to his family during World War Two. He is also a professor of humanities at Bard College and a leading critic, writing regularly for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and The Paris Review.
His latest book, just published in the US and due for release here in Australia in a matter of weeks, is a collection of his essays called How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken.
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.
Beyond rhyme - the art of writing poetry Read Transcript
14/08/2008
If you ask children what makes something a poem, the chances are they'll tell you that poetry rhymes. That's not necessarily the case of course, but if a piece of writing rhymes then we do tend to call it poetry. So what is the place of rhyme in poems? And what is the relationship between rhyme and other features of poetry, like rhythm? These are questions that interest the noted US poet Susan Stewart, who is also a professor of English at Princeton University.
Who wrote Frankenstein? (repeat) Read Transcript
08/08/2008
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.
(First broadcast 26/10/2007)
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Writers as readers: Helen Garner Read Transcript
30/07/2008
At the recent Sydney Writers' Festival a number of prominent Australian authors talked about what they read and the books that have inspired them. This week we hear from Helen Garner.
Helen Garner's award-winning books include novels, short-stories, screenplays and works of non-fiction, such as The First Stone (1995) and Joe Cinque's Consolation (2004). Her new book is The Spare Room, her first novel in 15 years.
Terry Castle on female critics - an endangered species? Read Transcript
30/07/2008
Virginia Woolf said there's no such thing as the female sentence. But is there a female critical point of view? In answer to this, perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, Terry Castle says the female critic is an endangered species and that no one really likes her. Terry Castle is a professor of English at Stanford University, holding the Walter A. Haas chair. She's a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement and New York Times Book Review with her humorous, penetrating, intelligent and personal reviews.
She's the author of many books including Boss Ladies, Watch Out! Essays On Women, Sex, And Writing and The Literature of Lesbianism.
Terry Castle's been in Australia for the Australasian Association for Literature conference on Literature and History.
A Paddock in his Head by Brendan Ryan (review) Read Transcript
23/07/2008
Australian poet Brendan Ryan's work is informed by his experience of growing up on a dairy farm in the 1960s and '70s. His first collection, Why I Am Not a Farmer, was published in 2000. Since then his poems have appeared in a number of journals including Best Australian Poetry 2006. Brendan Ryan's latest book, A Paddock in his Head, has poems about the inner suburbs, the Bellarine Peninsula, and travelling overseas, but the central theme is his family's farm. It's reviewed for The Book Show by Geoff Page.
Fan fiction - the creative and legal pitfalls
21/07/2008
The adulatory, and sometimes legally risky, world of fan fiction, where readers who can't get enough of their favourite books, TV series and movies, create new stories and take the characters to new places.
The beginnings of fan fiction are strongly identified with Star Trek in the 1960s when fans started writing their own episodes of the series. It's a case of fans having a creative response to stories with which they identify. Fans have also written back with Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter and even with Of Mice and Men.
What are the literary precedents for fan fiction and, because it is so derivative, are there copyright issues Australian fansters need to know about?
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam (review) Read Transcript
10/07/2008
It seems our lust for hospital TV dramas is as great as it is for crime series, but is there a parallel in fiction? We know crime fiction is hugely popular, but is there the same thirst for emergency room writing?
Well if Margaret Atwood has anything to do with it, a Canadian doctor-turned-writer has a good future ahead of him. Margaret Atwood has become somewhat of a literary patron for Vincent Lam.
She wrote the foreword to his medical guide The Flu Pandemic and You, and she's also responsible for bringing his book of short stories, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures to the attention of a publisher. It draws on his experience as a doctor and it's now an award winning book, taking Canada's top literary honour, the Giller.
Reviewer Kirsten Alexander tells the story of how Vincent Lam met Margaret Atwood.
The Endangered List by Brian Westlake (review) Read Transcript
07/07/2008
After Steve Irwin died from a stingray spear through his heart, academic and commentator Germain Greer said that 'The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin'. She was broadly criticised for these comments. Perhaps that's why the author of The Endangered List -- a parody of Irwin, his family and Australia Zoo -- chose to write under a pseudonym. He called himself Brian Westlake, which is actually the name of a crocodile and it's the name of the main character in this book.
For the Book Show Voiceworks editor Ryan Paine read The Endangered List.
Lapham's Quarterly: Book of Nature
02/07/2008
From Adolf Hitler's affection for animals to Rachel Carson's warning about dangerous chemicals to Walt Whitman's ode to the city, the latest Lapham's Quarterly charts the rocky terrain of our dealings with nature. The editor, Lewis Lapham, excavates the relationship between poetry, nature, morality and the future of the planet.
Cardigan drama or cutting edge? Australian political theatre Read Transcript
01/07/2008
Playwright Louis Nowra describes some political theatre as 'cardigan dramas' and says that rather than breaking boundaries it has become conformist.
This was his assessment after reading Hilary Glow's book on the state of political theatre in Australia called Power Plays: Australian Theatre and the Public Agenda.
So what is the state of political theatre in Australia?
Cion by Zakes Mda (review)
30/06/2008
South African born novelist and playwright Zakes Mda says the end of apartheid made it easier for him to write.
He lived in exile in the US until 1995 when he was able to return to South Africa. That was the year his first novel Ways of Dying came out and he has since won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for The Heart of Redness in 2001.
He is now based in the US where he teaches creative writing at the University of Ohio.
His latest book is Cion and reviewer Kevin Murray has been reading this novel for the Book Show.
Documenting writers' lives: what should be in the archives? Read Transcript
29/06/2008
Should archival material on writers include lovers' journals, and if so why? How are documents like these useful in determining the critical status of an author's work? Harvard University has stirred up controversy by buying the personal papers of Norman Mailer's long-term mistress Carole Mallory. Scholars and writers alike are asking where institutions should draw the line as to what's important and what isn't when building an archive.
The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block (review) Read Transcript
24/06/2008
Young American writer Stefan Merrill Block's debut novel, The Story of Forgetting, is another addition to the growing genre of Alzheimer's literature. It's a tale told from the perspectives of an old man and a teenage boy, embroidered with fairytale and science. For the Book Show, Patricia Maunder has some thoughts on why this exploration of forgetting is so memorable.
All In The Mind's Natasha Mitchell interviews Stefan Merrill Block at the Sydney Writers' Festival. Find audio and transcript here.
Cover design -- Meanjin
24/06/2008
The discovery of a cupboard full of gems from another world is reminiscent of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from CS Lewis's Narnia series. Sophie Cunningham recently had a 'Narnia moment' when she opened a stairwell cupboard at the old Meanjin office. Inside were 68 years worth of past Meanjinjournals all stacked up in rows.
The first Meanjin under her editorial guidance has come out. Sophie Cunningham said that opening that cupboard was like opening a door on the history of Australian book design, and this Meanjin has a feature on cover design. It is, of course, destined to join those towering columns of history too.
Colonial Australian crime fiction Read Transcript
20/06/2008
Crime fiction was popular in 19th century Australia and there was plenty of raw material to inspire writers - bushrangers, convicts, lawlessness on the goldfields, mysterious outback deaths. Ken Gelder has helped to revive some of this literature for 21st century readers in a collection he has co-edited called The Anthology of Colonial Australian Crime Fiction.
The future of the Miles Franklin Read Transcript
20/06/2008
Literary critic Geordie Williamson reflects on the impact of the Miles Franklin award on Australian literature in its 51-year history. He says that a part of Miles Franklin's dream for this award remains unrealised. In an article in The Australian he said he'd like to see the past winners reprinted before the close of the award's 51st year.
Nury Vittachi - Asia Literary Review update
19/06/2008
Nuri Vittachi, comic author and founding editor of the Asia Literary Review, talks about various happenings around the region -- an edible books festival in Hong Kong, a lucrative new Asia-Australia book prize and a mass gathering of authors in New Delhi. These events have one thing in common and that's Nuri Vittachi himself -- he's got a finger in every literary prize.
Kieran Tapsell - a passion for translating Read Transcript
10/06/2008
Translating literature is not something for the faint-hearted. It's time consuming, painstaking work and it throws up dilemmas about the use of language that can tax the most highly developed literary skills. Retired Australian commercial lawyer Kieran Tapsell began teaching himself Spanish in his early fifties and, driven by intellectual curiosity, a love of language, and a desire to share good books with friends who don't speak Spanish, he's now translating the work of major Latin American authors.
Documenting writers' lives: what should be in the archives? Read Transcript
06/06/2008
Harvard University recently bought the personal papers of Norman Mailer's long-term mistress Carole Mallory. Mallory herself approached Harvard and while the amount she received remains secret the acquisition is causing controversy among scholars and writers alike. Should archival material include lovers' journals, and if so why? How is it useful in determining the critical status of the literature itself? Where should institutions draw the line as to what's important and what isn't when preserving the work of famous writers?
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.
Why Not Catch 21? Gary Dexter looks at the stories behind book titles Read Transcript
25/05/2008
Coming up with the perfect title for a book can be a challenge for writers. In his collection Why Not Catch 21: the Stories Behind the Titles Gary Dexter has compiled some explanations for how our favourite works ended up with their names.
From Plato's Republic to Catch 22, he uncovers the debate and the lingering questions about titles we now take for granted.
So how did Joseph Heller come up with the title Catch 22? Gary Dexter explains.
Why Not Catch 21? Gary Dexter looks at the stories behind book titles Read Transcript
20/05/2008
Coming up with the perfect title for a book can be a challenge for writers. In his collection Why Not Catch 21: the Stories Behind the Titles Gary Dexter has compiled some explanations for how our favourite works ended up with their names.
From Plato's Republic to Catch 22, he uncovers the debate and the lingering questions about titles we now take for granted.
So how did Joseph Heller come up with the title Catch 22? Gary Dexter explains.
Rotten English: writing in the vernacular Read Transcript
18/05/2008
'A howl, a shout, or a machine-gun, or the wind or a wave', this is how Caribbean poet Kamau Brathwaite describes writing in the vernacular.
While dialect, creole, pidgin, broken English and patois have been thought of as corrupt versions of English, for writers who use the vernacular and who embrace the language of the street and the bars, the creative possibilities can be liberating and even revolutionary.
Each colonial outpost of the British empire created its own English and today many Man Booker winners have written in the language of the street.
While it may be paradoxical to anthologise writings that are often anti-institutional, Dohra Ahmad has put together an anthology called Rotten English—it's a term taken from the novel Sozaboy by Ken Saro Wiwa, the assassinated Nigerian writer.
In her collection of this 'rotten' English literature, she features works from Robert Burns, Irvine Welsh, Rohinton Mistry, and also from the African diaspora.
A Caribbean writer in the anthology is M. Nourbese Philip—known as Nourbese—and she joins me this morning from the CBC studios in Toronto, Canada, where she lives; and Dohra Ahmad joins me from a studio in New York.
Poetry special: The Glugs of Gosh by CJ Dennis Read Transcript
14/05/2008
CJ Dennis is best known for The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke but for many readers The Glugs of Gosh is a favourite. The chance to relish the political satire, to take delight in the rhyme—Gosh and Splosh, profundity and rotundity, Ogs and Podge—and to recite such full-bodied words explains the joy many take in this work. Once again Lyn Gallacher is our guide through this world of Gosh.
After this program went to air one of our listeners, Greg Hall from Hobart, kindly sent us pictures of his own 1917 copy of The Glugs of Gosh. You can see them by downloading the pdf files below:
Dust jacket
Hard cover
Illustrated Frontispiece
Printed details
Cover of special edition for use in the trenches
Poetry special: Rockpool by Judith Wright Read Transcript
13/05/2008
In the second in this special series dedicated to classic Australian poems Lyn Gallacher focuses on 'Rockpool', one of Judith Wright's later works. It's a dramatically unsentimental poem which is unflinching in its view of life and death.
JG Ballard's autobiography (review) Read Transcript
11/05/2008
Although British writer JG Ballard has been very prolific, both as a novelist and a short-story writer, he's most widely known outside the circle of Ballard enthusiasts for two books which have been made into films: Crash, in which the characters become increasingly obsessed with the violent psychosexuality of car crashes, and the autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, based on Ballard's childhood in Shanghai and his experiences in a Japanese civilian internment camp during World War 2.
This year JG Ballard published an autobiography, Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton. David Astle reviews it for The Book Show.
Rotten English: writing in the vernacular Read Transcript
07/05/2008
'A howl, a shout, or a machine-gun, or the wind or a wave', this is how Caribbean poet Kamau Brathwaite describes writing in the vernacular.
While dialect, creole, pidgin, broken English and patois have been thought of as corrupt versions of English, for writers who use the vernacular and who embrace the language of the street and the bars, the creative possibilities can be liberating and even revolutionary.
Each colonial outpost of the British empire created its own English and today many Man Booker winners have written in the language of the street.
While it may be paradoxical to anthologise writings that are often anti-institutional, Dohra Ahmad has put together an anthology called Rotten English—it's a term taken from the novel Sozaboy by Ken Saro Wiwa, the assassinated Nigerian writer.
In her collection of this 'rotten' English literature, she features works from Robert Burns, Irvine Welsh, Rohinton Mistry, and also from the African diaspora.
A Caribbean writer in the anthology is M. Nourbese Philip—known as Nourbese—and she joins me this morning from the CBC studios in Toronto, Canada, where she lives; and Dohra Ahmad joins me from a studio in New York.
CK Stead: poet, novelist and literary critic Read Transcript
05/05/2008
Christian Karlson Stead is one of New Zealand's most distinguished literary figures. He is an eminent poet, literary critic, novelist and academic. He was awarded the CBE in 1985 for services to New Zealand literature, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1995, and received an honorary doctorate in letters from the University of Bristol in 2001. His most recent book of poems is The Black River and he has also published a collection of essays and reviews called Book Self.
JG Ballard's autobiography (review) Read Transcript
05/05/2008
Although British writer JG Ballard has been very prolific, both as a novelist and a short-story writer, he's most widely known outside the circle of Ballard enthusiasts for two books which have been made into films: Crash, in which the characters become increasingly obsessed with the violent psychosexuality of car crashes, and the autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, based on Ballard's childhood in Shanghai and his experiences in a Japanese civilian internment camp during World War 2.
This year JG Ballard published an autobiography, Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton. David Astle reviews it for The Book Show.
Robert Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books
04/05/2008
Robert Silvers talks about a new book from writer, naturalist and co-founder of The Paris Review, Peter Matthiessen. It's called Shadow Country and revolves around the real-life, although somewhat mythological, figure of Edgar J. Watson. Plus a man whose writing is an adjunct to his view of the world and his philanthropic ambitions—George Soros is a billionaire who sees making money as having meaning only when it can make positive changes in the world around him.
Robert Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books
30/04/2008
Robert Silvers talks about a new book from writer, naturalist and co-founder of The Paris Review, Peter Matthiessen. It's called Shadow Country and revolves around the real-life, although somewhat mythological, figure of Edgar J. Watson. Plus a man whose writing is an adjunct to his view of the world and his philanthropic ambitions—George Soros is a billionaire who sees making money as having meaning only when it can make positive changes in the world around him.
John Updike's Due Considerations (review) Read Transcript
29/04/2008
Few people in America can compare with John Updike in the art of short-form non-fiction writing -- essays, reviews, critiques and introductions. Updike's prodigious output over more than half a century has, periodically, been brought together in published collections, and the sixth of these is titled Due Considerations. Literary critic Don Anderson reviews this new collection.
Writing about fear: Gabrielle Lord Read Transcript
28/04/2008
Gabrielle Lord says she writes about children being abused by grown-ups—either consciously or unconsciously—because when she was at boarding school she discovered what it's like to be defenceless at the hands of angry adults. It's a lesson she's never forgotten and one that has influenced her writing.
Steam punk Read Transcript
23/04/2008
Thomas Pynchon, Jules Verne or HG Wells as punk icons, or punk authors for that matter? It sounds bizarre, but steam punk enthusiasts have embraced their work as part of the genre. Steam punk is a subgenre of science fiction. It usually takes place in a Victorian setting, involving industrial investions such as steam powered engines. It's a writing subculture that, in the view of award winning fantasy writer Jeff VanderMeer, was once on the fantasy fringe but is now entering the mainstream.
Ian McEwan at the Sydney Opera House
20/04/2008
Recently novelist Ian McEwan was a guest at the Sydney Opera House in the International Speakers Series. In his humorous address he explores the boundary between fact and fiction, he talks about the engagement of readers with ideas and characters and he reads from some of the marvellously cranky letters he has received, correcting facts in his novels.
A criminal conversation: Ruth Rendell and Ian Rankin
18/04/2008
At the 2007 Edinburgh International Book Festival one of England's best-selling and most awarded crime novelists, Ruth Rendell, joined Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin to talk about her work. In this recording they discuss where she finds ideas for plots, how her characters have developed over the years and how she manages to keep up with three different strands of writing: the Wexford series, her psychological crime stories and the novels she writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine.
Lewis Lapham looks at past thinkers on money Read Transcript
17/04/2008
Lewis Lapham is the editor of Lapham's Quarterly. The second edition of this new enterprise focuses on the history of money and what people have said about it.
Talking about books you haven't read Read Transcript
15/04/2008
French literature professor Pierre Bayard created a stir when he released his book How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read. Luckily for Bayard, his university colleagues are accustomed to his sense of humour. While you may take away useful tips from Bayard's book, his more serious aim is to provide an alternative understanding about what is meant by 'reading'.
He argues that we can consider books we've skimmed, read but forgotten, or only heard about as part of our literary knowledge, and that perhaps a less strict view of what is meant by reading will encourage more young people to pick up books and be less intimidated by the world of literature.
What animals mean in fiction Read Transcript
15/04/2008
Dr Philip Armstrong, associate professor of English at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, looks at what animals mean in fiction. He argues that animals should not simply be treated as metaphors or mirrors for human meaning, as they often are in literary studies, but should also be granted meaning in and of themselves.
Mark Davis: the health of Australian literary publishing Read Transcript
14/04/2008
Mark Davis is a non-fiction writer and lecturer in publishing and communication at the University of Melbourne. In an article in Overland magazine he discusses evidence that, despite gloomy predictions, Australian publishing is surprisingly healthy. He argues that small independent publishers are crucial if literary publishing is to be kept alive.
Translating Aesop's fables Read Transcript
13/04/2008
'The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing', 'The Tortoise and the Hare', 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' and 'The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg' are fables commonly told to children, but did you know that Aesop's fables weren't originally intended for children? Aristotle was drawn to them and Socrates put them into verse while he was awaiting execution. Willis Regier, director of the University of Illinois Press, has discovered that English language translations of Aesop's fables have had a colourful history, as he outlines in his essay 'No Children's Tale' in the online journal Chronicle Review.
Nine translators have dominated English versions of these stories. One of the translators brought the printing press to England and another was caught up in royalist battles at the time of Cromwell. His versions were denounced for polluting the minds of children.
Ian McEwan at the Sydney Opera House
11/04/2008
Recently novelist Ian McEwan was a guest at the Sydney Opera House in the International Speakers Series. In his humorous address he explores the boundary between fact and fiction, he talks about the engagement of readers with ideas and characters and he reads from some of the marvellously cranky letters he has received, correcting facts in his novels.
Translating Aesop's fables Read Transcript
31/03/2008
'The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing', 'The Tortoise and the Hare', 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' and 'The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg' are fables commonly told to children, but did you know that Aesop's fables weren't originally intended for children? Aristotle was drawn to them and Socrates put them into verse while he was awaiting execution. Willis Regier, director of the University of Illinois Press, has discovered that English language translations of Aesop's fables have had a colourful history, as he outlines in his essay 'No Children's Tale' in the online journal Chronicle Review.
Nine translators have dominated English versions of these stories. One of the translators brought the printing press to England and another was caught up in royalist battles at the time of Cromwell. His versions were denounced for polluting the minds of children.
Memoirs - distinguishing fact from fiction Read Transcript
28/03/2008
The misery memoir has become the 'sexy' genre of the new century, but how much of what we're being told happened to the authors is made up or exaggerated? The American writer James Frey is about to publish his first novel. Frey first came to public attention with his memoir A Million Little Pieces, about his addiction to drugs and alcohol, his incarceration and rehabilitation; a memoir later found to be suspect. Margaret B Jones, author of Love and Consequences, has admitted that she's not of mixed race and was not involved with the Bloods gang. She's a caucasian woman from Los Angeles by the name of Margaret Seltzer. So how far can we trust a memoir to be accurate?
Aurealis award winner: David Kowalski's The Company of the Dead (review)
18/03/2008
Australia is well known for the calibre of its scientists -- eight of whom have received Nobel prizes over the years. What we're not as well known for is our science fiction writers. But one emerging novelist is determined to change all that. David Kowalski's debut sci-fi thriller The Company of the Dead has won two prestigious Aurealis awards. The plot involves time machines, the Titanic, and nuclear catastrophe.
ABC Science journalist Peter Lavelle has read The Company of the Dead for the Book Show.
The phenomenon of mobile phone novels
17/03/2008
The New York Times and The Japan Times recently reported that half of the best selling novels in Japan last year were originally composed on mobile phones. That tiny device is apparently responsible for books that are outselling everything else, including a recent Japanese translation of Dostoevsky's classic The Brothers Karamazov. Is it a fad or is it a revolution?
History, geography and culture of the novel Read Transcript
16/03/2008
Franco Moretti, professor of literature at Stanford University, has an innovative approach to examining fashions and styles in literature. It's led to accusations of literary heresy, but Franco Moretti maintains his way of understanding literary history helps the rest of us understand why Sherlock Holmes has endured -- while others of his time gather cobwebs in musty libraries.
Damien Wilkins Read Transcript
13/03/2008
New Zealand novelist, short story writer and poet Damien Wilkins has received the Whiting Award for promising young writers and his work is winning wide praise. He's also known for his astute literary reviews and critical essays. Damien Wilkins talks to Ramona Koval from the New Zealand Post Readers and Writers Festival in Wellington.
The Elephanta Suite by Paul Theroux (review) Read Transcript
11/03/2008
In his latest book Paul Theroux turns his critical eye on Western tourists in India, in particular on the cringeworthy things tourists say and do when they're far away from familiar social settings. The Elephanta Suite is a collection of three novellas. George Dunford reviews it for the Book Show.
Tim Parks: The Fighter
03/03/2008
Tim Parks is a novelist, journalist and essayist. His most recent collection of essays covers topics from DH Lawrence to Thomas Bernhard to Mussolini.
The history, geography and culture of the novel Read Transcript
28/02/2008
Franco Moretti, professor of literature at Stanford University, has an innovative approach to examining fashions and styles in literature. It's led to accusations of literary heresy, but Franco Moretti maintains his way of understanding literary history helps the rest of us understand why Sherlock Holmes has endured -- while others of his time gather cobwebs in musty libraries.
Jonathan Coe's <em>The Rain Before It Falls</em> (review) Read Transcript
21/02/2008
British author Jonathan Coe's books have traditionally been written with a sharp satirical eye and have been marked by a strong musical bent. His latest work The Rain Before It Falls is somewhat different, however, and reviewer Jo Case has been reading the novel for The Book Show.
Searching for novel writers
21/02/2008
In the 1950s the journal Overland published novels and distributed them to subscribers. The rationale at the time? Big Australian publishers weren't set up to deal with Australian writers. Sounds very like some of the arguments we're hearing now about the difficulties facing literary writers in the current publishing climate. With that in mind, two independent publishers who are not usually associated with novels have decided to get into the novel publishing business.
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.
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.
Writing lyrics ... the poetry of Paul Simon
12/02/2008
Please note that for copyright reasons we are unable to include this part of today's Book Show in the podcast. Today we begin a series of programs about writing song lyrics and what gives great songs enduring appeal.
The first program looks at the work of Paul Simon, the singer and lyricist who, with Art Garfunkel, created the 60s song which became an anthem for its time, 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'.
Together Simon and Garfunkel produced a series of memorable hits and, since the duo split, Paul Simon has continued to have a very successful music career, with influential albums like Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints.
Paul Simon has been writing songs for more than 40 years. His influences range from the Everly Brothers and South African music to Broadway musicals, and he's still reinventing his sound, his stance, his style and his stories.
For the Book Show Fiona Croall produced this exploration of Paul Simon's writing.
Scar Revision by Tracy Ryan (review) Read Transcript
11/02/2008
Scar Revision is the latest book from Western Australian poet Tracy Ryan.
She now lives in Cambridge, where she has worked as a bookseller, tutor, editor and writer. There's a strong autobiographical narrative to this book: it's about mother–daughter relationships, her relationship with Britain, and other emotional scars she's picked up along the way.
Geoff Page reviews Scar Revision.
Peter Hoeg's The Quiet Girl (review) Read Transcript
08/02/2008
Peter Hoeg has worked on ships, he's been a ballet dancer, he's into fencing and mountaineering, and he's also the noted Danish writer who came to prominence after his Arctic thriller hit the best-seller shelves about 10 years ago. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow is a thriller with elements of magical realism thrown in and his latest book, The Quiet Girl, also has these elements.
The Danish critics were split on The Quiet Girl: some dismissed it for being too postmodern; others think it's innovative writing.
So what does our reviewer Anna Hedigan think about it?
William Gibson's Spook Country (review) Read Transcript
05/02/2008
Do you ever get the feeling that the future is already here? In the high-tech society we live in, all those futuristic fantasies and gadgets we were told about when we were growing up have become part of our everyday lives -- except maybe the fridge that does everything.
Science fiction writer William Gibson, who is known for his futuristic novels, feels the same way, so he's taken to writing novels set in the high-tech present.
His latest book, Spook Country, is billed as a sequel to his earlier book Pattern Recognition.
Spook Country is a spy-novel-cum-thriller that engages with the paranoid politics of our time and is peopled with strange characters like Bobby Chombo who doesn't sleep in the same place twice, and a Russian-speaking Cuban-Chinese criminal.
Simon Cooper reviews Spook Country for the Book Show.
Writing from the grave -- franchised authors
04/02/2008
The best known of the 'writers from the grave' or 'ghostwriters' in the literal sense is Robert Ludlum. At the time of his death in 2001 he had sold 210 million books (only outsold by JK Rowling). No wonder his publishers have released 12 new works bearing his name since he died. Other notable 'franchised authors' who have been ghostwritten include Lawrence Sanders and Theodor (Dr Seuss) Geisel.
But it's not just dead authors who are being franchised, the living are there too. Tom Clancy is the best example. All his works are simply from ideas he creates, the rest is left up to another writer. However, it's his name that gets all of the credit.
Is this legal and is it ethical? Nic Pullen dissects this question on the Book Show.
Will Self and Philip Gourevitch on Orwell
01/02/2008
On the Book Show today, a fabulous conversation from last year's Edinburgh International Book Festival between one of Britain's edgiest and most potent observers of modern life, Will Self, and Philip Gourevitch, editor of the Paris Review. Gourevitch is author of a number of books, most famously of the chilling reportage portrayal of the Rwandan genocide, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.
Both writers had been part of the Isle of Jura Writers' Retreat program supported by the Scottish Book Trust. Jura was the place where George Orwell wrote his novel 1984. Barnhill was the name of the house that Orwell moved into in April 1946. He was eventually diagnosed with TB and it's said that the strain of typing out the book taxed him so severely that he deteriorated rapidly. In due course he became too ill to remain on Jura and he had to move back south. George Orwell died in January 1950.
The discussion between Philip Gourevitch and Will Self orbits, initially, around the influential figure of George Orwell, and then more broadly about the problems facing non-fiction writers when it comes to issues of truth and clarity.
Robert Silvers, editor, New York Review of Books
30/01/2008
Noel Coward corresponded with some of the mightiest pens in literature and show business throughout the 20th century. Today, Robert Silvers from the New York Review of Books reviews the publication of the personal letters of the actor and dramatist which expressed the hopes and fears of a society and of an age.
He also talks about Wernher von Braun - the American rocket scientist, born in Germany, who served as an SS officer during the second world war but was taken in by American's to assist in the big space race. And he reflects on a wonderful piece in the Review by Indian novelist Pankaj Mishra, who met, in Beijing, with the dissident writer who goes by the name of "Woeser", and whose voice the Chinese authorities are trying their best to silence.
Mining Sue Stanford's poetry collection (review) Read Transcript
25/01/2008
Mining her family history, her childhood and her grandparents' experiences during the Depression, Sue Stanford's first collection of poetry called Opal comes up with some gems. And poetry reviewer Geoff Page enjoys the narrative that weaves through this collection.
He begins with a reading of one of the less autobiographical poems in the collection called the 'Unknown Soldier'.
Gunter Grass's Peeling the Onion (review) Read Transcript
22/01/2008
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.
John Berger's political ways of seeing Read Transcript
14/01/2008
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.
An intimate relationship: editors and writers Read Transcript
11/01/2008
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.
Napoleon's Double by Antoni Jach (review) Read Transcript
10/01/2008
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.
