Saturday Morning for Saturday 24 December 2011

Saturday Morning with Kim Hill: 24 December 2011

8:12 Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens was a writer for Slate, and a contributing editor to The Atlantic and to Vanity Fair. In 2010, he published his memoir, Hitch-22 (Allen & Unwin, 978-1-741759-62-4). He died on 15 December.
Interview from the programme of 22 May 2010

9:05 Carmen

Carmen was a transsexual nightlife entrepreneur in 1970s Wellington, and spent most of her later life in Sydney. She died on 15 December.
Interview from the programme of 25 January 2003

9:35 Sonny Rollins

American bebop saxophonist Sonny Rollins has been recording and performing since the mid 1940s, and was described as a "saxophone colossus" at age 26, playing alongside jazz greats Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. He was one of ten recipients of the 2010 National Medal of Arts for outstanding achievements and support of the arts in the United States, and continues to perform 20 to 25 dates a year, including a New Zealand concert in June lats year at the Wellington Jazz Festival.
Interview from the programme of 7 May 2011

10:05 Kate De Goldi and Laura Kroetsch: the year in books

New Zealand writer Kate De Goldi is the author of a number of books, including the multi-award winning novel, The 10pm Question. Laura Kroetsch is the Director of Adelaide Writers’ Week at the Adelaide Festival (2-18 March 2012). They discuss the year in publishing and their books of 2011. A list of the books can be found at the bottom of this page.

11:05 Joe Schwarcz

Professor Joe Schwarcz is Director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a best-selling author and television presenter. He visited New Zealand for the Talking Heads series of lectures organised by the Royal Society and broadcast by Radio New Zealand.

Music played on the programme

Norma Jean: Saturday (Dimitri from Paris remix)
The 1978 track from the 2011 box set: Chic Organisation Vol 1 “Savoir Faire”
(Rhino France)
Played at around 8:50

Sonny Rollins: Mona Lisa
From the 1996 album: +3
(Milestone)
Played at around 9:58

Paul Simon: Getting Ready for Christmas Day
From the 2011 album: So Beautiful Or So What
(Universal)
Played at around 10:05

The Unthanks: Starless
From the 2011 album: Last
(Rabble Rouser/EMI)
Played at around 10:55

Norman Meehan, Bill Manhire, Hannah Griffin: Across the Water
From the 2011 live album: Making Baby Float
(Rattle)
Played at around 11:55

 

The Books of 2011

Books recommended by Laura Kroetsch and Kate De Goldi on the Saturday Morning programme of 24 December 2011, and others they have enjoyed or are keen to read.
(Not all books are mentioned during the broadcast.)

Book of the Year

A Visit from the Goon Squad
by Jennifer Egan
(Corsair, ISBN: 978-1780330969)

“Southern Men”

Serena
by Ron Rash
(Text Publishing, ISBN: 978-1921656828)

One Foot in Eden
by Ron Rash
(Text Publishing, ISBN: 978-1921656965)

Burning Bright
by Ron Rash
(Text Publishing, ISBN: 978-1921758508)

The Cove
by Ron Rash
(Text Publishing, ISBN: 978-1921758867)
- to be published in 2012

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
by Tom Franklin
Macmillan, ISBN: 978-0230753051

Winter's Bone
by Daniel Woodrell
(Sceptre, ISBN: 978-0340897980)

True Grit
by Charles Portis
(Bloomsbury, ISBN: 978-1408814000)

Other Adult Novels

Galore
by Michael Crummey
(Doubleday Canada, ISBN: 978-0385663144)

The Sisters Brothers
by Patrick DeWitt
Granta Books, ISBN: 978-1847083739)

Come, Thou Tortoise
by Jessica Grant
(Knopf, ISBN: 978-0-307-39755-3)

Sea Hearts
by Margo Lanagan
(Allen & Unwin, ISBN: 978-1742375052)
NB. to be published in 2012

Bury Me Deep
by Megan Abbott
(Pocket Books, ISBN: 978-1847396334)

The End of Everything
by Megan Abbott
(Picador, ISBN: 978-0330533829)

The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
(Jonathan Cape Ltd, ISBN: 978-0224094153)

So Much Pretty
by Cara Hoffman
(Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 978-1451616750)

The Cook
by Wayne Macauley
(Text Publishing, ISBN: 978-1921758690)

The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides
(Fourth Estate Ltd, ISBN: 978-0007441280)

African Crime

Nairobi Heat
by Mukoma Wa Ngugi
(Melville House Publishing, ISBN: 978-1935554646)

Thirteen Hours
by Deon Meyer
(Paragon, ISBN: 978-1445854243)

Mixed Blood
by Roger Smith
(Serpent's Tail, ISBN: 978-1846687587)

Short Stories

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It
by Maile Meloy
(Text Publishing, ISBN: 978-1921656279)

Bird North and Other Stories
by Breton Dukes
Victoria University Press, ISBN: 978-0864736901)

Essays and Collections

Pulphead
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Farrar Straus Giroux, ISBN: 978-0374532901)
(NB. paperback coming in 2012)

The Professor
by Terry Castle
(Harper Perennial, ISBN: 978-0061670923)

Listen to This
by Alex Ross
(Picador USA, ISBN: 978-0312610685)

Book of Days
by Emily Fox Gordon
(Spiegel & Grau, ISBN: 978-0385525893)

Best Australian Essays 2011
edited by Ramona Kovel
(Black Inc, ISBN: 978-1863955478)

Landfall 222: Christchurch and Beyond
edited by David Eggleton
(Otago University Press, ISBN: 978-1877578410)

Lady Churchill Rosebud Wristlets
(Small Beer Press series)

Neck Deep and Other Predicaments
by Ander Monson
(2007, Graywolf Press, ISBN: 978-1555974596)

Non-Fiction Books About Books

Merchants of Culture: the Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century
by John B. Thompson
(Polity, ISBN: 978-0745647869)

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts
by Simon Garfield
(Profile Books Ltd, ISBN: 978-1846683022)

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination
by Margaret Atwood
(Virago Press Ltd, ISBN: 978-1844087112)

Other Non-Fiction Books

Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
by Wade Davis
(The Bodley Head Ltd, ISBN: 978-1847921857)

Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War
edited by Harry Ricketts
(Chatto & Windus, SIBN: 978-0701172718)

A Micronaut in the Wide World: The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy
by Greg O'Brien
(Auckland University Press, ISBN: 978-1869404703)

The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Faultline Between Christianity and Islam
by Eliza Griswold
(Allen Lane, ISBN: 978-1846144219)

Tinderbox: the Past and Future of Pakistan
by M. J. Akbar
(Harper Perennial, ISBN: 978-0062131799)
NB. to be published in paperback in 2012
Venetian Navigators: the Voyages of the Zen Brothers to the Far North
by Andrea di Robilant
(Faber, ISBN: 978-0571243778)

Young Adults and Children

Pretty Monsters
by Kelly Link
(Text, ISBN: 978-1-921656-36-1)

The Young Grave
by Kelly Link
(Text, ISBN: 978-1921520730)

Steampunk
edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant
(Small Beer/Walker, ISBN: 978-0763656386)

The Golden Day
by Ursula Dubosarsky
(Allen & Unwin, ISBN: 978-1742374710)

Will Grayson, Will Grayson
by David Levithan
(Text Publishing, ISBN: 978-1921656231)

Moon Over Manifest
by Clare Vanderpool
(Thorndike Press, ISBN: 978-1410437808)

The Borrower
by Rebecca Makkai
(William Heinemann Ltd, ISBN: 978-0434021000)

Authors of Solace

John Galsworthy
Dorothy L. Sayers
Graham Greene
Ross Thomas
Georgette Heyer
William Carlos Williams
Mary Oliver