Auscast Literature Channel

As Mills and Boon celebrate 50 years of taking readers on journeys of love and lust, Annie speaks with Barbara Hannay about her latest novel, The Wife's Secret, and Michaela discusses medical romance with Amy Andrews, author of The Outback Doctor's Surprise. 

 

Featured books:

 

The Wife’s Secret by Barbara Hannay

The Outback Doctor's Surprise Bride by Amy Andrews

 

Barbara’s recommendations:

Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner

 

Amy’s recommendations:

Working Class Boy and Working Class Man by Jimmy Barnes

In Pieces by Sally Fields 

 

Annie’s recommendations: 

Yellow Face by Rebecca Kuang

James by Percival Everett

 

Michaela’s recommendations:

Other Houses by Paddy O’Reilly

 

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 Amy Stewart paints a powerful portrait of the human passion for plants in “The Tree Collectors” with fifty different tales of people who, for one fascinating reason or another, devote their life to trees. The book is illustrated with Amy’s vibrant watercolours of the trees and their idiosyncratic owners.

Compared in his heyday to Brett Whitely, painter, printmaker, teacher, writer and ornithologist Don Binney (1940–2012) was an artistic icon in New Zealand in the 1960s. His unmistakable, stylised depictions of birds and the Te Henga coastline are imprinted upon the psyche of that nation. Don Binney was a mercurial, eccentric  and often abrasive character whose early brief fame defined his life. In “Don Binney: Flight Path” award-winning author and curator Gregory O’Brien follows the painter from the wild coast of New Zealand through Latin America and Europe, using his letters, journals, and distinctive bird paintings to take us inside Don Binney’s world.

Guests

Amy Stewart, NYT best-selling author of “The Tree Collectors; Tales of arboreal obsession”, “The Drunken Botanist; The Plants that Create the World’s Great Drinks” and “Wicked Plants; The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities”.

Greg O’Brien: Wellington-based poet, painter and curator who has written books on art for young people as well as several other books on artists including Ralph Hotere and Pat Hanly, and co-edited several poetry anthologies besides his solo poetry collections. His most recent book of poems is “House and Contents”, Auckland University Press.

Other books that get a mention

Cath mentions “An Uneasy Inheritance; My family and other radicals” by Polly Toynbee and Shankari Chandran’s new novel “Safe Haven”.

Michaela mentiones “The God of No Good” by Sita Walker.

 

INSTAGRAM

@amystewart

@text_publishing

@aucklanduniversitypress

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A story that is difficult to pin down to a narrative, playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer’s debut novel explores arrivals and departures, time and space, through the experiences of a curious cast of characters. 

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Annie Warburton explores why we read the works of old writers, dissecting the work of Nancy Mitford in the context of her era and the happenings in the world around her. 

 

Guests:

Finnegan Kruckemeyer, playwright whose works have been performed on six continents in 12 languages. 

Annie Warburton, former ABC Broadcaster and reading addict. 

Danny, our Random Reader

 

Danny mentions the following books:

“The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams

Author: Ruth Parks

“1984” by George Orwell

“The Mayor of Casterbridge” by Thomas Hardy

“Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo

“Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts

“The Life Of Pi” by Yann Martel

“The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga

Author: George Monbiot

“Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari

“The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber

“Entangled Life” by Merlin Sheldrake

“The Well Gardened Mind” by Sue Stuart-Smith

“The Secret Life of Trees” by Colin Tudge

“The Argonauts” by Maggie Nelson

“My Gita” by Devdutt Pattanaik

 

INSTAGRAM

@textpublishing

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Cath carries this episode with two great chats; the first with author Sophie Cunningham and the other with self-professed “book snob”, Ron Hoenig.

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Ostensibly a novel about Alice, a woman who’s spent the last 20 years writing the biography of Virginia Woolf’s husband, Leonard, “This Devastating Fever” is an insightful, moving and witty tale of what it’s like to live through a time that feels like the end of days, and how we can find comfort and answers in the past.​

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Meet Ron Hoenig, member of The Jewish Men’s Book Club where weighty tomes such as “The Book of Jacob” by Olga Tokarczuk (all 1,000 pages of it) are discussed.

Guests

Sophie Cunningham, author of “This Devastating Fever” and six other books including “Geography” (2004) and “Bird” (2008)

Ron Hoenig, enthusiastic member of the Jewish Men’s Book Club. Ron mentions “Anti-Judaism”by David Nirenberg, “Not In God’s Name: Con­fronting Reli­gious Violence”by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and “The Book of Jacob”, a novel by Olga Tokarczuk.

Other books that get a mention

Annie mentions “Kings in Grass Castles” by Mary Durack

INSTAGRAM

@ultimopress

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Peeling back the veneer of the New York art scene, Bri Lee takes readers into the background world that fuels the industry. ‘The Work’ follows the lives of two protagonists from vastly different backgrounds: gallery owner, Lally, and antiquities dealer, Patrick, as they each follow a path to success, but at what cost? 

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Victoria Purman takes readers back to the golden years of radio broadcasting in post-war Australia, to the post war world when women were no longer content to sit in the background, instead stepping forward to write radio plays that held a nation captive. 

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When a car veers off the road with devastating consequences, the small wheatbelt town of Garringarup is left reeling, but no one's worlds are more shattered than those of Hannah and Freya, the partners of the passengers. On a day when wedding bells should have been ringing, their lives are torn apart by the web of lies the accident has exposed.

Think Jodi Picoult meets Liane Moriarty and you have an idea of the fast-paced, page turning ethical dilemmas explored by Fiona Lowe in “The Accident”.

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Dumped by her husband of twenty-five years, Jo Peck—smart, successful and sixty—is totally floored. She’s hurt, angry and devastated…but not for long! In this candid memoir Jo discovers the comfort and support of friends, newly forged connections with extended family, good therapy…and internet dating!

 

Annie loved Jo’s raunchy rediscovery of self because, as Jo explained, “The unvarnished truth is very compelling”.

 

Guests

Fiona Lowe, author of 37 books. Her latest is “The Accident”

Jo Peck author of “Suddenly Single at Sixty”

Our random reader is Sameer

Other books that get a mention

Samir mentions “Master of the Game” by Sidney Sheldon, “Le Miserables” by Victor Hugo, “Cultural Heritage of India” six volumes gathered under the guidance of the Ramakrishna Institute of Culture.

Sarah mentions “The Animals in that Country” by Laura Jean McKay.Annie mentions “Long Island” by Colm Toibin. He is the author of 7 books, including “Brooklyn”.

 

INSTAGRAM

@fionaloweaustralianauthor

@text_publishing

@goyougoodthing57

@harpercollinsaustralia

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The outwardly comfortable life of mother and wife, Winona Dalloway, has dark currents running beneath. "Thunderhead" is her interior monologue as she navigates the everyday acts of collecting the children from school, shopping and preparing for a dinner party when in fact she is a woman in peril. A homage to Virginia Woolf’s "Mrs Dalloway", "Thunderhead" is a reminder of the terror that can lurk unseen in the lives of others.

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Bet Schenk brings a poet’s pared-down style and awareness of the power of language to this story set in a small country town where the local teen hero is actually anything but - and his brother knows the truth. "The Most Famous Boy in Town" is billed as teen fiction but it’s a story for all ages.

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Our regular leading literary light Kylie Cardell reviews "Lioness" by Emily Perkins, winner of the 2024 New Zealand Ockham Book Awards.

Guests

Miranda Darling, author and poet

Bel Schenk, author and poet

Kylie Cardell, Associate Professor , English and Creative Writing, Flinders University

 

INSTAGRAM

@mirandadarling13

@belschenk

@kyliecardell

@scribepub

Spineless Wonders Press https://shortaustralianstories.com.au/

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In a move away from investigative journalism and her previous deep diving non-fiction
titles, Louise Milligan delves into crime fiction with debut novel, Pheasants Nest.
It tells the story of Kate Delaney, a journalist who finds herself bound and gagged and
being driven somewhere by a strange man. As someone haunted by the crimes she has
had to report on, Kate knows her chances of survival are slight.

Guest:
Louise Milligan

INSTAGRAM
@milliganreports

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Miles Franklin Award winner, Shankari Chandran takes Cath to Cinnamon Gardens, an aged care home established by Tamil refugees and now run by their daughter. It’s run with love and dignity and has become an oasis for its culturally diverse residents…but the tensions of past wars and the prejudices of present day Australia which have long remained at a simmer ultimately boil over.

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Associate Professor Lisa Bennett shares her passion for stories soaked in mist and old magic with “Storyland”; a masterful, unique and utterly compelling illustrated mythology of Britain. Be transported to a time when England was considered the furthest outpost on any map and half remembered characters such as Brutus, Albina, Scota and Bladud roamed the earth …and our imaginations.

Guests

Shankari Chandran, author of “Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens” which won the 2023 Miles Franklin Award. She’s also the author of “Song of the Sun God” and “The Barrier”.

Associate Professor Lisa Bennett, from the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University discusses “Storyland; A new mythology of Britain” by Amy Jeffs.

 

Other books that get a mention

“Wild; Tales from Early Medieval Britain” by Amy Jeffs, “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, “The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman and “Pheasant’s Nest” by Louise Milligan.

 

INSTAGRAM

@Ultimopress

@Hachetteaus

@lisalhannett

@amyjeffs_author

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Poetry seems a solitary pursuit but not for well known Australian poets Peter Bakowski and Ken Bolton - they recently released two new collections ‘On Luck Street’ and ‘Waldo’s Game’ in which they have collaborated from afar, co-telling stories using a ’call and respond’ writing technique.

And former ABC Radio National broadcaster Mike Ladd has made a career as a poet and also helped put poetry on the map with the long running radio program ‘Poetica’. He makes the case for why poetry should matter to us all. 

 

Guests: 

Peter Bakowski

Ken Bolton 

Mike Ladd

 

Annie mentions the poems ‘Funeral Blues’ by WH Auden and ‘The Second Coming’ by WB Yeats

Peter and Ken read selections from ‘On Luck Street” and ‘Waldo’s Game’

Mike Ladd reads “The End and the Beginning” by Polish poet Wisława Szymborska and his own recently penned poem ‘Prove That You’re a Human’ .

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