It’s 1917, shop assistant Dora Black has been found dead on a city beach, and Adelaide’s legendary early 20th century policewoman Kate Cocks is on the case. Mixing real history, a strong sense of place, and with World War 1 as a backdrop, The Death of Dora Black is the first in Lainie Anderson’s “Petticoat Police Mystery” series.

+

Caro and Danny were children and later young lovers at their secret hangout, the local waterhole. Caro thought they would be together forever, but grief and Danny’s self-destructive spiral after his mother’s death complicates that dream. A poetic exploration of first love and loss, grief and addiction, Frogsong takes the reader inside Caro’s world, back to the joy and pain of growing up.

Guests

Lainie Anderson, author of “The Death of Dora Black” and “Murder on North Terrace”

Melissa Manning, author of “Frogsong”

Author contacts

@lainie.anderson

@lissmanning

Books that get a mention

Cath recommends “Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark” by James Bailey

and “Domination” by Professor Alice Roberts

Annie loved “Euphoria” by Lily King

and our reviewer Maddie enjoyed “Yesteryear” by Caro Claire Burke

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Caleb Tasker’s grim and gripping Just Like the Night + Elisabeth Storr’s Fables and Lies

Lena has only really known a life of petty crime after spending her childhood on the road with her charismatic card sharp father Ray. Now in adulthood and just out of prison she finds herself in much deeper water, tangling with the dark Sydney underworld in an attempt to save her daughter. Michael Caleb Tasker’s first novel Just Like the Night delivers a gripping and gritty story with great literary style.

+

Historical fiction writer Elisabeth Storrs sets her new book Fables and Lies in World War 2 Germany. The racy romantic thriller, about the Aryan myth, Nazi archaeology and the race to save the Trojan gold as Berlin falls, is based on a true story, and brings a little known aspect of the Nazi Regime to life.

Guests

Michael Caleb Tasker, author of “Just Like the Night”

Elisabeth Storrs, author of “Fables and Lies”

Author contacts

https://michaelcalebtasker.com/

@elisabethstorrsauthor

Books that get a mention

Michael Caleb Tasker recommends works by Raymond Chandler, particularly “The Long Goodbye” , and “Song of the Lark” by Willa Cather. He is also a fan of Kierkegaard, Michael Farris Smith, Ron Rash, Walter Mosely, Jim Harrison and John Steinbeck.

Annie loved “Heart the Lover” by Lily King and Sarah recommends “On the Calculation of Volume” by Solvej Balle

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2023 Afghan single mother Laila was desperate to get herself and her five daughters out of Iran. The chances were slim, but she was willing to try anything. When she called an Afghan contact in Adelaide, Mij Tanith was in the room and decided to try and help. What ensued was a growing long distance friendship that overcame the barriers of language and culture, fought through the bureaucratic hurdles and has led to Laila and her daughters being safely settled in Australia. Using poetry and prose, writer and refugee activist Mij Tanith has now told Laila’s story

Guest:

Mij Tanith, author and poet

INSTAGRAM

@mijtanith

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A serial killer is on the loose in Melbourne in Sarah Bailey’s ‘Click’. Three women, a journalist, a cop and a politician are on the case. The approaching pandemic is a dark hovering presence in this gripping story which also shows how modern technology has become a force for good and for evil.

+

Literary academic Kylie Cardell lays takes us through the life and achievements of Charmian Clift, writer and trailblazer of the 1950s and 1960s. She lived in the shadow of her famous husband, writer George Johnston, and died too early from suicide. Her writings, including her unfinished memoir “The End of the Morning”, are a remarkable treasury of observations about life for women in the mid 20th century.

Guests:

Sarah Bailey, author

Kylie Cardell, Associate Professor of Literature, Flinders University

Other books that get a mention:

Annie mentions “Frogsong” by Melissa Manning and the 2010 Booker winner “The Finkler Question” by HowardJacobson

Sarah recommends the fantasy trilogy “His Dark Materials” by Philip Pullman

INSTAGRAM

@sarah_bailey_author

@kyliesays

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Award-winning poet Michael Farrell’s latest book is a foray into storytelling through the medium of the short story. In “The Victoria Principle” his playful fictions, some autobiographical, deal with everything from the concept of ornithophobia to a nude writers’ retreat in Nova Scotia. His stories reflect and warp the absurdities of modern life.

Guest:
Michael Farrell, author of the Victoria Principle and six other books of poetry.

INSTAGRAM

michaelfarrell@limechax

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cath is entertained by Penny Tangey’s tale of murder, motherhood and caffeine as a group of unlikely sleuths solve a crime at the local library.

+

Michaela talks to Lisa Hannett about the fierce and fantastical women of Norse mythology who star in her riveting new book “Yet She Lives”.

Guests:
Penny Tangey, author of “What Rhymes with Murder?” and a number of books for younger people including “As Fast As I Can” and “Music Camp”,

Associate Professor Lisa Bennett, author of “Yet She Lives” and “ Viking Women: Life and Lore” and “The Fortunate Isles”. Lisa writes under the pen name of Lisa Hannett.

Other books that get a mention:

David Malouf’s “Remembering Babylon”, “Johnno”, “An Imaginary Life” and “The Great World”.

INSTAGRAM

@simonandschuster
@thamesandhudsonau

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adelaide poet Miriel Lenore didn't take to poetry until two thirds of her way through an adventurous life. She was over her many years a botanist, researcher, traveller, student, teacher, activist, feminist, mother and grandmother. Miriel spent twenty years in Fiji, forty years in the Australian women's movement and the Adelaide writing scene, and ten years as a regular visitor to a Ngaanyatjarra community in the Western Desert of Western Australia.

Miriel died in 2024 aged 96. Cath discusses Miriel’s final collection, with the poet’s longtime friend and curator, author Margaret Merrilees.

Guest: Margaret Merrilees

“Driving to Mulberrygong” published by Wakefield press

@wakefieldpress

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the midst of the anxiety-ridden chaos of late-stage capitalism, is it really possible to lead a plain life? Philosopher, essayist and yogi Antonia Pont’s book is far more a philosophical analysis of our modern existence than it is self-help, but she offers advice on being true to oneself and ignoring the ‘noise’ of our current social media driven culture.

+

The Tsundoku team have a revealing chat about their summer reads; from erudite literature to cosy murder mysteries, from self-help to the secrets of the British Royals.

Guest:
Antonia Pont, author of ‘Plain Life’

Other books that get a mention:

‘Organising from the Inside out’ - Julie Morgenstern

‘Let them’ - Mel Robbins

‘Paperboy’ - Christopher Fowler

‘A long winter’ - Colm Toibin

‘What Rhymes with Murder’ - Penny Tangey

‘The Names’ - Florence Knapp

‘Mad Mabel’ - Sally Hepworth

‘The Palace Papers’ - Tina Brown

‘The Vanity Fair Diaries’ - Tina Brown

‘A Different Kind of Power’ - Jacinda Ardern

‘The Lady in Gold’ - Anne-Marie O’Connor

INSTAGRAM

@newsouthpublishing
@newsouthbooksau

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.