Audiobooks narrated by Gillian Bickley

"A poetry collection in three parts. Home is events, situations, descriptions, and attitudes about Hong Kong, which is now Vaughan's home. Away contains poems about events, situations, descriptions, and attitudes about Aotearoa (New Zealand), in particular from a Maori (marginalised) perspective and also about all the other places where Vaughan has lived – The Republic of Nauru, Brunei Darussalam, The People's Republic of China, Australia, The United Arab Emirates (UAE), The Philippines. Elsewhere is emotions (the entire gamut), relationships (marriages, family, friends), deaths (parents, children), reflections – some wry, etcetera – not specifically tied to physical locations. Vaughan does not write to any set forms/formats but attempts to utilise type-face/shape/what a poem looks like on a page to reflect what he attempts to say. He writes to stay sane. 'These poems express what I am, and what I also think people I see are, within. They are not mere academic or literary exercises. They are lived experiences, I guess.' Poems with attitude. … passionate, uncompromising and sardonic. …there is darkness here … also wit in abundance and a playfulness in language and thought … at times laugh-out-loud funny…. a compelling voice and Vaughan uses it skillfully to tell us his stories, make his often pungent points, and take us places few of us have seen. — James Norcliffe, Robert Burns Fellow (2000), Aotearoa-New Zealand. These poems are pieces of an intricately interlinked multi-cultural and multi-lingual world, in which the poet must learn to live. In fact the poet relishes this confusing richness. His verses celebrate the graphic possibility of words, their visual appearance and sounds. So one must come to them with big eyes, big ears and a limitless imagination. — Muhammad Haji Salleh, National Laureate, Malaysia."

Vaughan Rapatahana (Author), Gillian Bickley, Vaughan Rapatahana (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hilary and David

"David, a lonely elderly struggling novelist, contacts Hilary, with whom he has a friend in common, via Facebook, and an unlikely friendship develops via a series of messages. The two begin to share details of their past and current lives. Hilary is a solo mother with two children. One of the children has Down's Syndrome and the other has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Both are struggling. David, who suffers from agoraphobia, is wrestling with his sixth novel, and is under pressure from a publisher to complete it. Hilary feels the pressure of raising two young children alone, whilst also trying to complete a distance degree./Although they are on opposite sides of the world (David in London and Hilary in New Zealand), the two provide support and friendship for one another via their messages. Each shares secrets from their past./Through a series of messages, Hilary and David share their thoughts on life, the universe, men, women and everything else in between and provide companionship and advice for one another. 'Absolutely unputdownable. Once you commence reading this England-New Zealand based novel you will find yourself carried on quickly via the impelling momentum generated by all the relationship and emotional hassles the two main characters have in their distinct yet interwoven lives on two sides of the World. Well-written. Interesting. Clever. Well done, Laura Solomon.' —Vaughan Rapatahana, author of the poetry collection, Home, Away, Elsewhere (2011) 'I found myself caught up in the story and read the book in one sitting.' — Member, International Proverse Prize 2010 Judging Panel 'A nice one or two-day holiday read' – Helen Watson White, 'Making a connection', Sunday Star Times, Auckland, New Zealand, 22 January 2012."

Laura Solomon (Author), David Allen, Gillian Bickley, Stephanie Frewen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Celestial Promise

"In this collection of poetry, written over half a lifetime, Hayley Ann Solomon focuses primarily on the pursuit of excellence, immortality achieved through finite life, love in all its forms, and social justice. As it waxes and wanes, the collection cycles through sequences of lyrical ballads, sonnets, elegies, haiku, snippets of nonsensical verse; all blended with a substantial dose of existential philosophy and social comment. The collection covers a full spectrum, from the darkest psycho-social moments, to zeniths of absolute joy. The liberal use of consonance, assonance, alliteration, echoes and half-echoes, rhyme and cross-rhyme make for a style rich in sound-play. This, together with strong metrical awareness – very often iambic or trochaic pentameter and tetrameter – evokes a flow that is quite typically euphonic. There is therefore a sense of lyricism despite a broad diversity of topics and moods. The anthology evolves to become a promise of regeneration, in synchrony with the phases of the moon, from which it takes its celestial title. "

Hayley Ann Solomon (Author), Gillian Bickley, Hayley Ann Solomon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Man's Last Song

"In MAN'S LAST SONG, Tam’s first full-length novel the human race faces imminent extinction. The year is 2090. The global population has shrunk to less than half a million; median age about sixty. After forty years of near-universal sterility, humanity is vanishing while the rest of the planet makes a healthy comeback. A few survivors in Hong Kong face the challenge of adjusting to life as post-modern savages, rediscovering instincts that have long been suppressed by civilization. To these post-modern cavemen and cavewomen dwelling in the concrete remains of an empty metropolis, life has become a lonely journey of self-discovery in which they reassess also mankind. Their relationships with nature, each other, and themselves have fundamentally changed. The dilemma, pain and pleasure of love, friendship, compassion, ageing, and loneliness have been heightened by pragmatic dictates. The unknowable - God, Dao, death, even reality - has assumed new and shifting dimensions in man's dying world. How did Homo sapiens reach this dire situation? Looking back with hindsight borrowed from the future, readers may join characters in this book in finding today's world absurd, even suicidal. Others may hang on tenaciously to one thing that has not changed: hope. The author, JAMES TAM, was born in Hong Kong. He lived and studied in Canada in the 70s and returned to Hong Kong in the mid-80s to work as an environmental engineer and started his own environmental engineering practice. In 2008, he realised his long-term plan to leave business before too late, and sat down to write. As a scientific realist often mistaken for a morbid cynic, he sees abundant evidence that 21st Century Homo sapiens is a delusional and self-endangered species. Nevertheless, he remains irrationally optimistic."

James Tam (Author), George Watt, Gillian Bickley (Narrator)

Audiobook

Under the shade of the feijoa trees: and other stories

"Under the shade of the feijoa trees offers a representative sample of Hayley Ann Solomon’s particular brand of high quality, emotionally resonant short stories. The styles and intensities vary extensively, but the common denominator is humanity in all its complexity, woven with philosophy. “This eclectic and very personal collection of short stories by successful writer of genre fiction and emerging poet, Hayley Ann Solomon, describes in lyrical detail widely dispersed places and situations. The stories are well-constructed and intensely-felt and the author’s joy in the sounds and sequencing of beautiful words is evident.”—Philip Chatting, Winner of the Proverse Prize 2014, author of The Snow Bridge and Other Stories (Proverse, 2015). Hayley Ann Solomon is an award winning author and poet. A Librarian by training, Hayley has been a full time author for some years, winning repeated recognition in commercial genre fiction. In 2017—a new departure—her first poetry collection, Celestial Promise, received a Proverse Publication Prize. She travelled to Hong Kong for the launch of her book in November 2017 and was interviewed on Radio Television Hong Kong on Phil Whelan’s Morning Brew programme."

Hayley Ann Solomon (Author), Gillian Bickley, Hayley Ann Solomon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Vera Magpie

"VERA MAGPIE explores the gap between childhood fantasies of adult life and the stark reality of life in a women's prison. The eponymous narrator, Vera Magpie herself, is serving time for the murder of her three husbands, including Larry, a good man whom she loves, but doomed to die at Vera's hands because she has acquired a taste for murder. In prison, Vera experiences the reality that here are politics and a pecking order, just as in society at large, but here also she finds redemption through literature. Like many women who kill, Vera is a product of her own flawed past. But aspects of this past also count towards her early release from prison, as her new female lawyer successfully argues Battered Women’s Syndrome as a defence. LAURA SOLOMON was Joint-Winner of the inaugural international Proverse Prize (2009) with her novella, Instant Messages, subsequently published by Proverse Hong Kong in 2010. Also published by Proverse are Hilary and David (an epistolary novel) (2011) and The Shingle Bar Sea Monster and Other Stories (2012). Of Solomon, Maggie Gee wrote, when Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, United Kingdom, 'Witty, clear-edged, both lemon-sharp and seductive, Laura Solomon is a writer to watch.' Solomon has published two novels in New Zealand, Black Light (1996) and Nothing Lasting (1997). Born in New Zealand, Solomon spent nine years in London before returning to New Zealand in 2007. She has an honours degree in English Literature (Victoria University, 1997) and a Master's degree in Computer Science (University of London, 2003). She has travelled internationally for her work in IT, including working in Norway, for Fast Search and Transfer, now owned by Microsoft."

Laura Solomon (Author), Gillian Bickley, Stephanie Frewen (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Reluctant Terrorist: In Search of the Jizo

"The Reluctant Terrorist: In Search Of The Jizo is set in Twentieth Century Hong Kong and Japan, with flashbacks to the Second World War. A Japanese businessman takes a deliberately modest revenge against another Japanese family which damaged his own family during the Second World War. His surprising act of terrorism is a paradoxical gesture for peace. We meet again characters from Kavon's first novel, The Monkey in me: Confusion, Love and Hope under a Chinese Sky (2009). Caleb Kavon was raised in Hong Kong and the Philippines and has the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Third World History. He has received advanced specialized training, including in management. A former US army officer deployed in Central and South America, Kavon lived and worked in China from 1994 up to several years ago. He has travelled the world and remains an avid student of all things. He is fluent in Chinese and Spanish. At the time of writing 'The Reluctant Terrorist' he was living in Chengdu, China, eagerly awaiting the positive changes on our planet which he knew to be possible. His first novel, The Monkey in Me: Confusion, Love and Hope under a Chinese Sky (Proverse Hong Kong, 2009) is dedicated, 'To the Chinese people, who have taught me so much and given me such kindness from my youth to the present day'. Disclaimer: Any resemblance to living persons or real events (other than historical events) is unintentional and coincidental. This is a work of fiction. The presentation of Hong Kong Police etiquette and practices and of the Hong Kong legal system is to be understood as taking place within a work of fiction."

Caleb Kavon (Author), George Watt, Gillian Bickley (Narrator)

Audiobook

Adam's Franchise

"In the land of Daoistan, freedom has arrived at last. The revolution liberated all, then enslaved everyone, and now it was liberating them again by allowing people to own credit cards. And a man with credit is a man who has the world at his fingertips, or at least a trip into town where the temptations are pretty much as they have always been, only more people can afford them. ADAM’S FRANCHISE is a story about Adam and his Franchise. He is not quite sure what that means, but he is a modern man, embracing the economic miracle and taking up a gift shop franchise at a new hotel. There he will sell much the same things that he always sold: baskets, pots, cultural artefacts of various kinds, except at a modern price to foreigners, should they ever care to come to the hotel. The desert that he lives in is not the most beautiful of places, policed by Omar who has to learn how to get out of his hammock, fuelled by Castrol who just loves the smell of petrol and the visions it gives him, and terrorised by nomads and Adam’s volatile brothers-in-law. But if it ever rids itself of the last vestiges of barbarism, both pre-revolutionary and revolutionary, as epitomised by Adam’s indolent, lustful, embittered, rapacious, cynical, superstitious father, Saleem, then harmony – both spiritual and economic –might assert itself. Or maybe, just air-conditioning. Daoistan exists everywhere, or has done at some time or other. And there have been many Adams."

Lawrence Gray (Author), George Watt, Gillian Bickley (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Snow Bridge and Other Stories

"The settings of the stories in The Snow Bridge and Other Stories are drawn from a life spent in many countries. Several focus intently on a particular relationship: that between a husband and wife, mother and daughter, brothers, friends, partners, climbing-buddies, employer and employee; the relationship with an inner self; putative relationships that never quite begin, and relationships with a location, or the inhabitants of a small town. Other stories explore the long-term expatriate’s dilemma of engaging with a place not his or her own at the price of diminishing intimacy with the country of his or her birth. Described in Philip Chatting’s, ‘Author’s Introduction’, as, “entertainment”, the impact of the collection may prompt readers to reflect on the nature of their own relationships and the place we each occupy in our own worlds.“Philip Chatting is a master stylist…. He invests himself in the traumatic conflict, character identification, and ethical complication that sit at the heart of the heart of necessary and affecting social fiction.”--Jason S Polley (from his 'Advance Response' to 'The Snow Bridge and Other Stories')“The range of locations and…variety of characters…rarely come together in a single volume…. A unique collection reflecting the author’s varied history and his interests in the countries and cultures of the people among whom he has lived and travelled. It will appeal to those who share or would like to share similar experiences, as well as those who are curious to know about them.”--Mike Rowse (from his 'Preface' to 'The Snow Bridge and Other Stories')"

Philip Chatting (Author), Gillian Bickley, Philip Chatting (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Day They Came

"The gripping story of a teenager and young adult's adventures in the South of France and the African Congo. Gérard meets and forms an unbreakable bond with the alien Eudoxus, who becomes his mentor and guardian angel. He recounts the fisherman Etienne's story about a terrifying and extraordinary storm off Le Grau du Roi in the French Camargue, when six men lost their lives. The story ends when Gerard is twenty-one. Like the writer, whose name he shares, he joins the hospitality industry to see the world. Throughout the narrative and as he grows up and matures, Gerard struggles to remain true to himself, and to find the correct path in life. 'I liked this tale of a teenager's close encounters with an alien who becomes his guardian angel, rescuing him from various scrapes, once in the guise of an ageless Jesuit missionary in the Congo. An imaginative and delightful read, even if you're not a ufologist.' – John Russell, SJ, formerly long-time Warden of Ricci Hall, University of Hong Kong. 'Breissan's tale poses many questions for readers puzzled by UFO phenomena. – Alien from another world? Angel from Heaven? Who, or what is the mysterious but benign Eudoxus?' – Margaret Clarke, acclaimed translator of the future fiction classics, The Last Man and The World As It Shall Be and formerly lecturer in English at Notre Dame College of Education, Glasgow, United Kingdom. GERARD L. BREISSAN tells us that many extraordinary events occurred throughout his early years, which he has always felt a compulsion to divulge. In The Day They Came he finally speaks out. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, but you, the reader, must decide."

Gérard L. Breissan (Author), George Watt, Gillian Bickley (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Village in the Mountains

"THE VILLAGE IN THE MOUNTAINS is set in a fictional, southern European country in the middle of the twentieth century. After a brief period of democratic reform, the nation has once again become a totalitarian state under the rule of the Colonel, whose overriding creed is 'Loyalty to the State, the Church, the Family'. The narrator of the book is a left-wing poet from a prominent family, whose personal story is intertwined with the political events of his birthplace. During the days of the old dictatorship he lived abroad as a fêted émigré. During the interim period of democratic reform he returned to the country. Now that the New Régime has become established, he is sent to live as an exile to the mountains in the northeast. The village he is exiled to, Cagot—an isolated, primitive place high up in the border country—has a tragic history. Eight years earlier, four hundred pilgrims, paying homage to the statue of the Dark Virgin, were buried alive when the cave, housing the statue, collapsed. It is against this mountainous backdrop that a psychological drama is played out between the poet and the people with whom he comes into contact. There is Bernard, the manipulative, chess-playing Police Chief, to whom the poet must report every day; Isabella, the religiose brooding widow, who provides his meals in the ramshackle hotel where he is the only guest; Angela, the wife of the innkeeper; Henry, the schoolteacher; and Hubert Duval, the local aristocrat. It is Hubert who organises a fresh expedition to the cave of the Dark Virgin to see if, with the modern equipment now available, he can find a way to retrieve the bodies and provide them with a proper burial. The journey to the cave and the ensuing events compel the poet to make a decision which will change his life forever. THE AUTHOR was born and brought up in the English Midlands and spent most of his working life in Asia. As well as writing, he is interested in natural history and photography."

David Diskin (Author), George Watt, Gillian Bickley (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hong Kong Rocks

"Nick Powell, arriving in Hong Kong with his soon-to-be-ex-wife Lennox, finds himself drawn into the political machinations affecting the city as the Occupy movement of 2014 takes root. A fatal accident exposes the factions vying for control of the SAR and gives Nick the second chance desired by many Hong Kong expats. Will he make the most of the opportunity, or find himself on the wrong side of history? Shifting between a variety of unique voices, HONG KONG ROCKS (a Hong Kong Proverse Prize finalist) is part thriller, part creative exploration of the challenges facing a special administrative region punching above its weight. Though rooted in experience and influenced by real-life events, this novel represents an alternative version of Hong Kong’s recent history and takes regular liberties within this parallel world for the benefit of satire. The book was completed after the Occupy protests of 2014 but before the escalation of protests in the territory beginning June 2019, the action taking place in a notional 2018. —Peter Humphreys, Author."

Peter Humphreys (Author), Gillian Bickley, Peter Humphreys (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Gillian Bickley

Join Our Community