Nine To Noon

David Hill reviews Haven by Emma Donoghue, published by Macmillan

Author Lauren Roche has lived a life of constant reinvention. She was a high school drop out, who stowed away on a ship to the US at the age of 16. After being deported home she turned to prostitution - and it was an overdose that finally led her to get help for depression. She returned to high school at 20 - then medical school - where she graduated and worked for many years as a GP. She was also an elite athlete, competing in Ironman events until a back injury robbed her of the ability to continue. Lauren has written about the events in her life in two autobiographies - Bent not Broken which was published in 2000 and its sequel Life on the Line. She joins Lynn to talk about her latest book, Mila and a Bone Man - a novel about guilt, forgiveness and finding your way home.

The US President attends the Queen's funeral in London, meanwhile there's a renewed focus on Taiwan after the President told CBS News the U.S. would defend Taiwan with troops, not just aid. Ron Elving is Senior Editor and Correspondent on the Washington Desk for NPR News.

New legislation addressing sexual harassment in the workplace will extend the time a person has to report sexual harassment from three months to a year. The Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill is currently at select committee stage. It's the first piece of workplace legislation resulting from the local #metoo movement and has been introduced by Labour MP Deborah Russell. Lynn speaks to Zoe Lawton, a barrister and an advocate for victims of workplace sexual harassment. In 2018 she set up a blog for legal professionals to report their experiences of sexual harassment. She later set up The MeToo Collective, a legal charity which aims to match people who have been sexually harassed or assaulted by the same perpetrator so they can report in groups.

In 2011 the Ministry of Education embarked on a 10 year strategy to rejuvenate New Zealand's ageing classrooms. Millions of dollars were spent building open plan classrooms and implementing student led learning strategies. But in his report for The New Zealand Initiative, Dr Michael Johnston, found there was little evidence the policy has worked at all, and in some cases may be making learning even more difficult for some students. He says schools are now left with a legacy of a policy based on ideology.

The second Elizabethan era drew to a close with the state funeral overnight for the 96-year-old monarch, attended by the royal family and 500 world leaders and dignitaries. Hundreds of thousands of people crammed into central London to watch the elaborate and solemn procession as her coffin was taken from Westminster to the royal vault in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, where she was laid to rest beside her husband, sister and parents. Among those watching the day's ceremonies closely was someone who's written extensively about the royal family. Journalist and author Robert Hardman spoke to Nine to Noon just a few months ago about his latest biography of Queen Elizabeth, Queen of our Times. He was at Westminster Abbey earlier in the day and joins Lynn to describe the occasion.

Kennedy takes us off the beaten track to Bruny Island, off the coast of Hobart, and returns to Uluru, where climbing of the sacred rock ceased in 2019, but tourism is bigger than ever.

Linda Duncan was an accountant for 25 years before turning her budgeting skills to writing a best-selling series of cookbooks, called The World's Easiest Recipes. All her recipes are designed to have just a couple of steps, and use common, everyday ingredients you usually have in the pantry and fridge. Linda's hope is to make cooking as easy and affordable as possible, and crucially, with minimal wastage. She's got a heap of ideas for keeping the grocery bill down. Her top tips include only shopping once a week; aiming to spend $20 under budget so you have wiggle room if you run out of something during the week, and also to never purchase an odd ingredient that you're only going to use in one recipe. Lynn speaks to Linda Duncan about her tips and shares her recipe for 'Four-Ingredient Shepherd's Pie'.

Political commentators Neale Jones and Tim Hurdle join Lynn to talk about the Prime Minister joining other world leaders at the Queen's funeral, the latest Curia-Taxpayers' Union poll and will the hip pocket pressures of inflation and interest rates drown out any story around headline data re GDP and unemployment? Neale Jones was Chief of Staff to Labour Leader Jacinda Ardern, and prior to that was Chief of Staff to Andrew Little. He is the director of public affairs firm Capital. Tim Hurdle is a former National party advisor and was campaign director for National at the 2020 election.

Gail Pittaway reviews The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman, published by Penguin Random House NZ.