Saturday Morning for Saturday 24 March 2018

 

8:09  Alex Perry - The Good Mothers 

Alex Perry is a writer and foreign correspondent. His latest book, his fourth, is The Good Mothers: the True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia. His journalism, which has won numerous awards, has appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, TIME, Newsweek, and others. Perry lived and worked in Asia and Africa for 15 years. He now lives in Hampshire, England.

 

9:05 Cenk Uygur - The Young Turks 

Turkish-American Cenk Uygur (said 'Jenk You-Gur') is the host and founder of The Young Turks, the largest online news show in the world, with over 12 million subscribers.  A trained lawyer, Uygur launched The Young Turks as a talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio in 2002. The show then became the first daily video show on YouTube in 2005, and now streams daily on its website and can also be heard as a podcast. As well as hosting the news programme and becoming CEO of the TYT Network, Uygur has also hosted shows including one on MSNBC, has written books and continues to speak widely on progressive issues.

 

9:40 Gigi Fenster - Feverish

Wellington author Gigi Fenster pitched an unusual PhD proposal to the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University: she would induce a fever in herself and the result would be both an analysis of the process of  inducing that fever, and whatever work that came out of it. Feverish is her memoir of that attempt, a family story, and a study in empathy. Fenster's first book, The Intentions Book, was shortlisted in the fiction category of the 2013 NZ Book Awards. She has a number of law degrees, and teaches creative writing at Rimutaka Prison. 

10:05 Dr Marcus Davey - The Artificial Womb 

Dr Marcus Davey, is a Developmental Physiologist and Senior Research Investigator in the Centre for Fetal Research at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Australian born and trained, Davey has been part of a team working on cutting-edge studies aimed at treating a wide variety of genetic disorders before birth. Since 2013, he's served as co-investigator and "lead-tinkerer" on the study of an extra-uterine support device and co-developed a unique womb-like, fluid-filled environment to provide prolonged (up to four weeks) support for extremely premature babies. Davey will be a key speaker at the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand's Annual Scientific Congress, March 25 - 28. 

11.05 Catherine Callaghan - Taking Silk

Catherine Callaghan is the daughter of the late physicist, Sir Paul Callaghan. She's qualified as a barrister and solicitor in New Zealand and has been practicing at the English Bar since 2000.  As a UK barrister, she acted for the Government and regulatory bodies, as well as individual claimants, in the Administrative Court, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court. She has recently been appointed a Queen's Counsel (QC) in London ("taking silk") - the first New Zealand woman practising at the bar to have done so - despite an arduous battle with illness. On March 24, it is exactly six years since Sir Paul died from colon cancer at 64.   

11:25 David Stratton - A Cinematic Life 

David Stratton was born and educated in Britain, migrating to Australia in 1963. He served as director of the Sydney Film Festival for 18 years, during which time he was credited with being a prime figure in the renaissance of Australian cinema. In 1986 he and co-presenter Margaret Pomeranz launched The Movie Show, which had a 28-year run on Australian television, ending in 2014. Stratton has also worked as a film critic for The Australian from 1988 until the present and for a range of other titles, including Variety.  He's written five books, three of those on film: The Last New Wave (1980), The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry (1990), and I Peed on Fellini: Recollections of a life in Film (2008). A documentary about him, called David Stratton: A Cinematic Life, will have its NZ television premiere on the Rialto Channel on March 28. 

 

 

 

 

Books mentioned in this episode

 

The Good Mothers

by Alex Perry

ISBN 9780062655608

HarperCollins

 

Feverish

by Gigi Fenster

ISBN 9781776561803

Victoria University Press

 

The Last New Wave

by David Stratton 

ISBN 0207141460

Angus & Robertson Publishers 

 

The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry 

by David Stratton 

ISBN 0732902509

Pan Macmillan

 

I Peed on Fellini: Reflections of a life in Film

by David Stratton

ISBN 9781741666199

William Heinemann

Music played in this show

Artist: H.E.R.
Song: My Song
Composer: H.E.R.
Played at: 10:05

Artist: Bob Dylan
Song: Not Dark Yet
Composer: Bob Dylan
Album: Time Out of Mind
Label: Columbia
Played at: 10:50