Five Favourite Books

19 November 2020

  Lawyer, opinion columnist at The Australian and all round Superwoman Dr Janet Albrechtsen discusses her five favourite books with the IPA’s Bella d’Abrera. Listen to Janet and the IPA’s Bella d’Abrera use books to springboard a wide-ranging discussion on what inspires us to become the people we are, what happens when passing fads and classic literature collide, what can

19 July 2020

  Greg’s final pick is The Everlasting Man which was published in 1925. Chesterton, who was an historian, a writer, a philosopher, a lay theologian and an art critic, was a prolific author, penning approximately 80 books, several hundred poems, 200 short stories and 4000 essays. Listen to Greg explain why this particular work, out of all the books Chesterton

18 July 2020

  Greg explains why this particular Wodehouse is his favourite of all Wodehouse’s comic novels. It follows the adventures of Ronald Psmith (“the ‘p’ is silent, as in pshrimp”) who is always willing to help a damsel in distress. ‘Leave it to Psmith’ is, as Greg says, the moment in which Wodehouse declared himself a genius. The plot is farcical,

16 July 2020

  Find out why American author Willa Cather’s 1918 novel about immigrants’ experience in Nebraska, told through the memorable character of Ántonia Shimerda makes Greg’s favourite five books, even though he doesn’t like landscape writing, claims that he has no visual imagination, and normally chooses books with both rich dialogue and intellectual content. Five Favourite Books is a regular IPA

15 July 2020

  This is a discussion of Evelyn Waugh’s masterful and epic work which follows Guy Crouchback’s experience of World War Two. Greg loves this book because it’s a celebration of Guy’s decency. Guy is not a superhero, he doesn’t have a particular high IQ, he doesn’t win the war and he doesn’t even win the girl.  But there is a

14 July 2020

  Listen to Greg’s take on Christopher Koch’s 1978 novel set in Jakarta during the events leading up to the coup attempt led by the Communist Party of Indonesia in 1965. The story is a rollicking adventure, political thriller and love story wrapped into one enduring novel. The characters are memorable, and the language is so evocative that its words