Friday, March 26, 2010

The Eastern Regional Library Show 17th March & 24th March 2010

Library staff members Lesley Conway and Pia Butcher run a radio show each Wednesday 12:05pm-12:45pm on Eastern FM 98.1 called The Eastern Regional Library Show. Tune in Wednesday for a great show.

On Wed 17th March's show

A message from the clouds : a biography of Robert Graham Carey is the story of one of Australia's aviation pioneers. The names of Kingford Smith and Nancy Bird are well known, but the story of Carey's adventurous spirit and entrepreneurial energy was new to me. Robert Carey's grand-daughter Edith Martin was our guest on the radio today, and spoke of the task of bringing research by Des Martin and recollections of her mother Bertha Carey together into an interesting narrative. The book is jam packed with both information about the growth of aviation in Australia from the early 1900's and with the story of an amazing man.

Carey's life span took him form ownership of livery stables to running a Ford car dealership, to flying the same model Bleriot bi-plane which was the first plane to fly across the English Channel. His enthusiasm for new challenges and adventure seem to have passed down the family line, and we will invite Edith back to the program to talk about her own travels, and more about the writing, researching and links with the world of aviation.

On Wed 24th March's show

Lots of new music has been coming through this year, including 'best of' CD's and compilations. Today we played tracks from Chris Isaak : live in Australia, The best of the Easybeats and James Taylor : greatest hits. Some other wonderful music I have been listening to lately is the 3 seperate volumes of Ella Fitzgerald's A-tisket, A-tasket which include a lot of tracks not so well known; Come out swinging (a double CD compilation of great swing songs) and So Frenchy, so chic : the unofficial soundtrack to the 2009 French Film Festival.

CD is the recording medium of the moment, and aside from music our libraries have a wonderful selection of audio books on CD. The readers are professional actors for the most part, and do a wonderful job of bringing the stories to life. Our members relate how they like to listen on long road trips, in the car on the way to work, while ironing, even while having  a long soak in the bath.

I also mentioned that there is some wonderful comedy on DVD in our collections, and one comedian I particularly enjoy Danny Bhoy : live at the Sydney Opera House and Danny Bhoy live at the Atheneum. Low key and about everyday things, yet funny enough to have you laughing till you cry.


---- Lesley

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