The Eastern Regional Library Radio Show 2nd March 2011

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 tomorrow for a great show.

On last week's show

 

Lyn Baines hosted the radio show this week with a new mystery novel & some old books in fresh new covers.

 

Ann Cleeves wrote the very successful Shetland Quartet but her latest novel, Silent Voices, features her other series detective, Vera Stanhope. When Vera reluctantly joins her local gym in an effort to lose some weight, she doesn't expect to find a dead body in the sauna. The Vera Stanhope novels have been made into a TV series in the UK starring Brenda Blethyn. Hopefully we'll see the series on Australia TV soon. 

 

Lyn also highlighted some novels that have recently been reprinted. Gladys Mitchell is a mystery writer from the Golden Age of detective fiction. If you've read all of Agatha Christie, you might like to try her novels featuring psychologist Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. Persephone Classics have reprinted some wonderful novels & short stories including Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski & The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Capuchin Classics have reprinted We, The Accused by Ernest Raymond, a suspenseful novel about a man who kills his wife & goes on the run. Everything old is new again with these revivals of great fiction from the past.

---- Lyn

The Eastern Regional Library Show 24th June & 1st July

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 next Wednesday for a great show. We've got two updates today

On 24th June show

Pia had some delightful new books on hand today. Frog Princess is a picture book by Rosalind Allchin which is a very different version of the classic tale of the Frog Prince. When a lady frog finds the Princes' golf ball she insists that he kiss her so she can turn into a Princess. Cleverly the prince suggests that she try being a princess for a day and if she still wants to, he will kiss her at midnight. Through a series of funny misunderstandings the Frog discovers that being a princess isn't quite what she thought it would be and leaves her somewhat disappointed.

A book for young adult readers is Beastly by Alex Flinn, another book which takes a fresh look at at a fairy tale. Kyle Kingsbury had it all , money and popularity. Unfortuantely it didn't make him a nice person. One day he goes a bit too far and tries to humiliate a witch. For his punishment she changes him into a beast, only to be changed back if he finds love's true kiss. Kyle quickly finds that his popularity was only superficial. Life as a beast changes Kyle in ways he could never imagine. A movie is currently being made of this story. Will it be the next Twilight?

With this year being the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, a number of books have come out telling his story. Several for children...What Mr Darwin saw by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom is a wonderful account of Darwin's momentous trip on the Beagle. We follow Darwin as he voyages around the world exploring the Andes, the Brazillian rainforest and last but not least the Galapagos islands. This story allows the reader to learn how Darwin fomulated some of his theories. The facts come in diary format as well as illustrations with little boxes on the side containing more facts. One beetle too many: the extraordinary adventures of Charles Darwin By Kathryn Lasky and Matthew Trueman is another wonderful account of Charles Darwin's travels on the Beagle. This is what is called faction or an information novel. There are some wonderfully detailed illustrations emulating some of Darwin's scientific drawings as well as some funny illustrations.

We also talked about podcasts and how there are some that I enjoy listening to.

Adult book shows
The Radio National Bookshow with Ramona Koval http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/
BBC World Bookclub http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/

Children's Book show
Just one more book http://www.justonemorebook.com/


On 1st July show

Lyn Baines has been sleeping poorly lately. The blame for this can be laid at the door of writers who write genuinely scary novels. Sarah Waters The Little Stranger has received some rave reviews, and Lyn testifies to the great writing and intriguing plot. It centres around the decaying grand house of the village, refuge for the last three members of a family, which becomes disturbed by mysterious sounds, writings on the wall, and eventually murder. The narrator is the doctor who grew up in the village,and now lives uneasily between the working class and gentry. The novel has many threads to it, including class friction, the dramatic social changes in post WW II Britain, and the supernatural.

A Perfect Death by Kate Ellis is a novel set in contemporary Britain which combines Lyn's love of history and detection. It is the latest in a series of crime novels which bring together a police detective and his archaeologist friend. The author skilfully draws the discovery of the archaeological dig into the crime mystery, and in this case it centres around some Roman ruins threatened by housing development, and the murder of a woman which almost replicates a medieval murder in the same location.

Music today was from Great voices of the Twentieth Century : John McCormack, and Lyn recommends another CD by the voice of our time Bry Terfel, which includes several of the same lovely British folk songs, Scarborough Fair.

---- Lesley

The Eastern Regional Library Show 5th November 2008

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 next Wednesday for a great show.

On Wednesday's show

There is always a lively debate when a novel is turned into a film as to whether justice has been done to the original story. At the moment the film Brideshead revisited has sparked a lot of comment, some that it was impossible to better the TV series made in the 1980's, others that it doesn't do justice to the novel. The only way to find out is to go and see it, which Lyn Baines did last week, and feels that it was an entertaining and well made film. Lyn has admitted that she can be very hard on re-makes of the Austen stories or Jane Eyre on film or TV. But then we all have a personal take on what we read and see, and what will please one, will upset another. So it's worth checking out the many versions of classic stories we hold in our library collection to see what you think. There are any number of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Bronte, Thomas Hardy which have made it onto film, and of course the Brideshead Revisted TV series, and Lyn's great favourite Cold Comfort Farm. There is not currently a copy of Cold Comfort Farm on DVD in ERL at present, but it can be ordered from a Consortia library, and Lyn has rushed off to order new copies for our library collection.

Call me old-fashioned, you can even call me a Luddite, but I do prefer a book every time, and Lyn had some new titles with her today. Susan Hill's new novel The Beacon is a departure from her detective novels. This is the story of a family challenged by the revelations of a book written by one of the siblings, accusing the father of childhood abuse. It is a study of character, of how individuals cope differently with the conflict and has a dramatic finish.

Blood in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope on the other hand is very much in the 'cosy crime' genre. The crime or crimes in question are old, a skeleton in fact, and the investigator a young woman who is house sitting in that most beautiful of English regions, the Cotswolds. Her boyfriend is a police detective, but he's laid up with a slipped disc, so our heroine decides to work out the mystery herself.

Music today was from the CD As time goes by : the best of Jimmy Durante

---- Lesley

The Eastern Regional Library Show - 5th and 12th March 2008

I've got recaps of the last two radio shows today. 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 next Wednesday for a great show.

On the 5th March show

A librarian loves to share their particular passions in reading, and Lyn Baines love of history and mystery were to the fore today. She has discovered a first novel by Owen Shears, Resistance, which tackles the theme of 'what if' the German army successfully invaded Britain during Word War II. The story unfolds in a remote Welsh valley, where the men have all left to join the resistance, and the women must struggle alone, until the arrival of five German soldiers. Lyn says this is an intriguing read which does not resort to cliches, and is very evocative of the time.

Meetings in no man's land by Marc Ferro and others is about the remarkable truce during the first winter of World War I, when soldiers not only lay their weapons aside, but met on No Man's Land, sang carols, shared food and even played soccer. The book includes perspectives from the Russian, German, French and British armies, and draws on letters and diaries of the time for a full and fascinating picture of this period.

And for a true meeting of history and mystery, the third in a detective series set in Henry the VIII's England, Sovereign by C.J.Sansom. The central character is Richard Shardlake, an honest lawyer in difficult times, who is called on by powerful men in the government , such as Cromwell and Cranmer, to work for the king. The novels are full of rich period detail, and the stories are narrated by an engaging central character. If you are interested, the first two of the series are Dissolution and Dark fire.

On the 12th March show

Mysteries from the past are eternally fascinating. How genuine is the Turin shroud, how was Stonehenge constructed and why, what is the truth about the Knights Templar, and what myth? Spurred on by interest following the review of The secret of the spear : the mystery of the spear of Longinus, I have delved into the books on shelf at 001(knowledge), 133(parapsychology and the occult), and 366(associations).

The seven ordeals of Count Cagliostro : the greatest enchanter of the Eighteenth Century by Ian McCallman reveals the complex layers of a man whose name is now synonymous with 'magic', but who in his lifetime was considered a faith healer, lead an exotic branch of freemasonary, was accepted by Catherine the Great of Russia and Louis XVI of France, and became involved in the revolutionary politics of the time. Was he a healer and mystic, or a dangerous charlatan? Read the book to find out.

If you thought everything about Nostradamus was published that could be, think again! In the mid 1990's an unpublished manuscript of Nostradamus' quatrains accompanied by 80 paintings, probably done by his son, was found in the National Library of Rome. The author is a former program analyst with the Italian National Police, and created a software program to help him decode the quatrains and suggest what they might mean for the future. There is some very detailed commentary on how the associations are made which is complex but interesting. The book is Nostradamus : the lost manuscript by Ottavio Cesare Ramotti.

The fog : a never before published theory of the Bermuda Triangle Phenomonen is a collaboration between writer Rob MacGregor and pilot Bruce Gernan. Bernan has first hand experience of flying in the area, and has put together eyewitness reports and scientific research to come to an intriguing conclusion. And I'm not going to give it away.

Finally, two very readable books which give a guided tour through some fascinating mysteries, Ghosts of war : restless spirits of soldiers , spies and saboteurs by Jeff Belanger, and Hidden History : lost civilizations, secret knowledge, and ancient mysteries by Brian Haughton.

---- Lesley