Tall And True Short Reads

Season Two: Episode 55 (10 July 2022)

Cloudstreet by Tim Winton – Omen or Inspiration is a blog post from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read post on Tall And True: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/blog/cloudstreet-timwinton-omen

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

• Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
• Apple Books:     https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
• Rakuten Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead

Episode Insight

I received Tim Winton’s The Shepherd’s Hut for my fifty-sixth birthday in 2018. Given my long affection for Winton’s works, dating back to Cloudstreet in 1992, was the book another omen or more inspiration? Perhaps both, because it inspired me to write this blog post in March 2018.

I was pleased I’d kept the Sydney newspaper cutting, slipped inside my copy of Coudstreet, and enjoyed digging out my diary entries from my trip to Australia in 1992.

It was tempting to re-read Cloudstreet. But I’ve done this with other books I loved as a twenty-something, only to be disappointed by them as a fifty-plus-year-old. (One of these was The Great Gatsby.)

So, I didn’t re-read Cloudstreet when I wrote the blog post in 2018. However, recently, I listened to an audiobook version of Cloudstreet, narrated by Peter Hoskin, and again felt the joy I had reading my paperback back in 1992. And laughed aloud when Hoskin voiced Oriel Lamb’s stern reminder to her family, “Remember, we’re Lambs, not sheep!”

By the way, it took me twelve months to work through my towering to-be-read pile and reach The Shepherd’s Hut. But when I finished reading it, I shared another blog post on Tall And True about the book, aptly titled Tim Winton Wows Again.

In the post, I observed that Winton’s writing was in another league to mine back in 1992 and still is today. And how when I finished reading the last sentence of The Shepherd’s Hut, I exhaled the breath I’d held for the final paragraph and exclaimed, Wow!

I hope you enjoyed Cloudstreet by Tim Winton – Omen or Inspiration.  You can read this and all my blog posts, short stories and other writing at TallAndTrue.com. You can also buy my short story collections from the Amazon Kindle and Kobo online bookstores.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, please check your feed or the podcast website for earlier episodes from Seasons One and Two.

And follow or subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite app — doing so helps me share my writing and memories with other listeners.

You can support this podcast financially by making a small one-off or regular donation via the Acast Supporter Page.

And finally, please tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org.

• Plane Landing: https://freesound.org/people/bigpickle51/sounds/262753/
• Clock Ticking: https://freesound.org/people/blukotek/sounds/412751/
• Computer Keyboard: https://freesound.org/people/D4XX/sounds/567266/

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

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Support this show https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.