I have loved Tim Winton’s books and thought this interview might be interesting.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2008/2236106.htm

Tim Winton is on song again .. Breath is great … but then I loved The Turning, too.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/default.htm

This week they have been listening to and talking about some magnificent poems.

Five Bells by Slessor on Monday and today, A.D. HOpe about the death of a bird.

It’s worth putting up with Clive James for this last one … also in the mix is Judith Wright … I wanted it to be her poem, “letter”, but no-one ever chooses it. :)

and courses of study online … :)

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/studying/home_study/

I love the ABC!

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2246995.htm

May 2008

David Rieff live at the Sydney Writers’ Festival

Listen Now/ – 23052008/ <http: www.abc.net.au="" cgi-bin="" common="" player_launch.pl?s="rn/bookshow&amp;d=rn/bookshow/audio&amp;r=bsw_23052008_2856.ram&amp;w=bsw_23052008_28M.asx&amp;t=23%20May%202008&amp;p=1"> |Download Audio/ – 23052008/ <http: mpegmedia.abc.net.au="" rn="" podcast="" current="" audioonly="" bsw_20080523.mp3="">

David Rieff is the author of seven previous books on immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism.

He’s been a literary editor, a journalist and is now a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research, a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch and a board member of the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Institute.

But his new book, /Swimming in a Sea of Death/, is very much rooted in his position as the only son of writer Susan Sontag.

Its subtitle is ‘A Son’s Memoir’ and it concerns his mother’s final experience of cancer — a disease she had overcome three times before.

Susan Sontag was a novelist and an essayist and a writer of non-fiction books like , /Regarding the Pain of Others/, /Illness As Metaphor/ and /Aids and Its Metaphors/.

David Rieff is a special guest of the Festival and joins Ramona Koval for the Book Show.

Further Information

Sydney Writers’ Festival <http: www.swf.org.au=""/>

Publications

Title: /Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir/
Author: David Rieff
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing, 2008
ISBN 9780-5228-5544-9

Presenter

Ramona Koval