Life Sentences Podcast

• Best Biographies

  In a first for Life Sentences, host Caroline Baum welcomes a panel of four Australian biographers to discuss the biographies they have read and enjoyed recently. -Ryan Butta chooses Anthony Sharwood’s hybrid travelogue biography of Polish freedom fighter Tadeusz Kosciusko and also mentions Didion and Babitz, by Lili Anolik, which compares the lives of two gifted writers on the LA scene of the Sixties. -Susan Wyndham chooses Vicki Hastrich’s The Last Days of Zane Grey about the flamboyantly successful American big game fishing legend who was also a bestselling author with a complicated love life. -Bernadette Brennan chooses Drusilla Modjeska’s important new group biography of European and American modernist female artists who have been largely overlooked or eclipsed by male partners. -Anthony Sharwood chooses Ryan Butta’s The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli, about the mysterious Harry Freame, an Australian war hero who was half Japanese and raised in the code of the samurai. Caroline makes reference to the new biography of former Governor General Quentin Bryce, and to reading the doorstop epic new biography of Mark Twain by Ron Chernow. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Pillow Talk Part 2

  Past biographies have always dismissed Pamela Harriman as a socialite who slept her way to the top, in a series of affairs and marriages that boosted her thirst for power. But Sonia Purnell argues persuasively that Harriman was in fact one of the most significant diplomats of the 20th century and that her motives were always those of ensuring peace and the best possible outcomes for the UK, the US and the world. She deployed her charms and incredible power of seduction on everyone from Randolph Churchill to Gianni Agnelli, the Aga Khan, Ed Murrow, Bill Paley and Averell Harriman, moving from politics to the world of Broadway by marrying producer Leland Heyward and hosting a salon in Washington that became the epicentre of the world of intelligence and refinement. Even the Russians were not immune to her charms. How did a minor British aristo with no formal education come to be so influential? Purnell’s juicy biography, Kingmaker, is a fascinating and deliciously gossipy but serious portrait of a bygone world of glamour and intrigue, high stakes secrets, scandalous love affairs and strategic partnerships in and out of the bedroom of one of the world’s most intriguing women.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Pillow Talk Part 1

  Past biographies have always dismissed Pamela Harriman as a socialite who slept her way to the top, in a series of affairs and marriages that boosted her thirst for power. But Sonia Purnell argues persuasively that Harriman was in fact one of the most significant diplomats of the 20th century and that her motives were always those of ensuring peace and the best possible outcomes for the UK, the US and the world. She deployed her charms and incredible power of seduction on everyone from Randolph Churchill to Gianni Agnelli, the Aga Khan, Ed Murrow, Bill Paley and Averell Harriman, moving from politics to the world of Broadway by marrying producer Leland Heyward and hosting a salon in Washington that became the epicentre of the world of intelligence and refinement. Even the Russians were not immune to her charms. How did a minor British aristo with no formal education come to be so influential? Purnell’s juicy biography, Kingmaker, is a fascinating and deliciously gossipy but serious portrait of a bygone world of glamour and intrigue, high stakes secrets, scandalous love affairs and strategic partnerships in and out of the bedroom of one of the world’s most intriguing women.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• The Good Wife

  Race Matthews had a distinguished career as a federal politician and Victorian state Minister, but the highlight of his career was his time as Gough Whitlam’s Principal Private Secretary. A joiner from a very early age, he understood the power of working within an organisation to bring about change but his ambitions for reform and social justice were often thwarted years ago factional in-fighting. He remained a passionate advocate for Fabian values and collectivism. His second wife, Iola, a journalist with several books to her name, decided to complete her husband’s memoir as a biography when ill health made the task impossible for him. The result is a loving, considered account of Race’s career and her experience of being a political wife.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Love Is Blind

  Painter Charles Blackman described himself as a guttersnipe when he met and fell in love with partially sighted poet Barbara Patterson. Together, the couple became part of a bohemian crowd of artists who moved between Sydney and Melbourne, and helped shape Australian art for decades. Now their daughter Christabel has documented a significant, passionate and fruitful decade of their early years and marriage, thanks to her parents love letters and her mother’s diaries. The result is a uniquely personal and intimate perspective on a creative partnership. To see images from Charles and Barbara Blackman a decade of love and art, go to: @carobaumlifesentences on InstagramSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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