So Canada’s public radio book reading program Between The Covers is podcast. One whole channel (BBC Radio 4) for the U.K. is available through Radio Downloader subscription. So what about our friends in Australia? Are they making their shows available?
Yes, they sure aren’t!
ABC Radio National is still in bad shape podcasting wise. They’ve got their terrific non-fiction programs like The Philosopher’s Zone and All In The Mind pleasing everyone all over the world but their book reading program, called Book Reading, isn’t available except via 20th century tech called “streaming audio” (RealAudio or Windows Media). This is really bad.
I’ve said it before, and before and before and before, and most assuredly before – when oh when will ABC Radio National join the 21st century?
I bring this up because they’ve got a terrific sounding novel being broadcast right now:
Wake In Fright is an open-eyed nightmare played out under a scorching outback sun. On one level it’s a great, mad, hallucinatory yarn about landing yourself in the ultimate geographical cul-de-sac – a place without exit. But underneath its compulsively readable surface lurks another, even darker story; a sort of ‘bush existentialist’ tale about the nature of self-entrapment, and the way in which we are often the architects of our own worst dreams.
Wake In Fright
By Kenneth Cook; Read by Gabriel Andrews
15 Broadcasts – Approx. 3 Hours 45 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: ABC Radio National / The Book Reading
Broadcast: 2006 / 2009
An open-eyed nightmare played out under a scorching outback sun, Wake in Fright is on one level a great, mad hallucinatory yarn about landing yourself in the ultimate geographical cul-de-sac, a place without exit. But underneath its compulsively readable surface lurks another, even darker story; a sort of ‘bush existentialist’ tale about the nature of self-entrapment, and the way in which we are often the architects of our own worst dreams.
Sounds great don’t it? Too bad almost no-one will listen to 3.75 hours of story sitting in front of their monitors.
Posted by Jesse Willis