Past Programs
Death - 2008
True crime writing
28/11/2008
Recently The Law Report's Damien Carrick moderated a conversation with two authors of true crime books, Helen Garner and Kara Lawrence. Helen Garner is well known for both fiction and non-fiction. Her latest novel is The Spare Room, but in this discussion she revisits her 2004 non-fiction book Joe Cinque's Consolation. Kara Lawrence is a crime writer with The Daily Telegraph. The event was part of the National Investigations Conference, a gathering of professional investigators who work for various police forces, anti-corruption watchdogs and ombudsmen's offices.
Italian author in hiding from Mafia threat
10/11/2008
There's a price you pay for attacking the Mafia and Italian author and journalist Roberto Saviano is paying that price. Two years ago he exposed the Neapolitan Mafia in his bestselling book Gomorrah, an up-close account of the inner workings of the crime group that's operated around Naples for more than a century.
The book became a bestseller, was translated into 47 languages, and has now been made into an award-winning film. But Gomorrah's success has driven Roberto Saviano into the shadows, with the Neapolitan crime bosses threatening to kill him before Christmas. The Book Show's Linda LoPresti spoke to Roberto Saviano, who's in hiding under state protection
Tribute to Jacob Rosenberg
31/10/2008
Poet, memoirist and Holocaust survivor Jacob Rosenberg died yesterday at the age of 86. He was born in Poland, in Lodz, a city known as the Polish Manchester because of its textile industry. With the German occupation of Poland, Jacob and his family were confined to the Lodz ghetto until they were sent to Auschwitz. Within a few days of arriving there, he was the only one of his family still alive. Jacob Rosenberg came to Australia in 1948 and in the years after that wrote six volumes of poetry, a book of stories called Lives and Embers and two memoirs, East of Time and Sunrise West.
East of Time won both the National Biography Award and the 2006 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
Jacob Rosenberg talked to the Book Show when Sunrise West was published last year and we're replaying part of that interview today as a tribute to him.
Morris Lurie's To Light Attained Read Transcript
20/10/2008
Australian writer Morris Lurie was the winner of the 2006 Patrick White Award. His new novel is To Light Attained. In it we meet Herschel Himmelman, who tells us the story of his daughter, his marriage, his state of mind and his search to understand why his troubled daughter has suicided in her early twenties. It's a father's anguish in words.
On death row with Luke Davies Read Transcript
22/09/2008
What do the condemned think about while they're on death row? This is one of the questions Luke Davies wanted to ask when he spent time with two men on death row at Bali's Kerobokan Prison, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. They are two of the 'Bali 9' who were arrested in 2005 and charged with drug trafficking. They have one more legal option to have their sentences reduced and their case is currently before the Supreme Court. Luke has made his name as a novelist, poet and screen-writer. This is his first foray into journalism.
Luke Davies has written about his time at Kerobokan Prison in the essay 'The Penalty is Death' which is in the latest Monthly magazine.
Poetry and politics in Joel Deane's Magisterium Read Transcript
10/07/2008
Joel Deane lives his life alternately as a poet and as a political speechwriter. He talks to writer Michael Gurr about his latest collection of poetry, Magisterium, where these two worlds collide.
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.
Steven Galloway's The Cellist of Sarajevo Read Transcript
17/03/2008
In his new novel The Cellist of Sarajevo Canadian writer Steven Galloway looks at the extraordinary stresses that war, and particularly siege warfare, place on ordinary people. The story is based on the real-life figure of Vedran Smailovic and his very moving response to the massacre of people queuing for bread outside his apartment.
The living end
06/03/2008
By day Dr Guy Brown works at the University of Cambridge, but by night, he tells us, he lies awake and thinks about his death. He's a molecular scientist so he's very aware of how each cell in his body is changing and what's looming for him as he ages. This may sound bleak, but Guy Brown also has suggestions for tackling the approach of death. He speaks to Kirsten Garrett about his book The Living End.
