AustLit

'Beloved ABC broadcaster and bestselling author of Ghost Empire and Saga Land, Richard Fidler is back with a personally curated history of the magical city that is Prague.

'In 1989, Richard Fidler was living in London as part of the provocative Australian comedy trio The Doug Anthony All Stars when revolution broke out across Europe. Excited by this galvanising historic, human, moment, he travelled to Prague, where a decrepit police state was being overthrown by crowds of ecstatic citizens. His experience of the Velvet Revolution never let go of him.

'Thirty years later Fidler returns to Prague to uncover the glorious and grotesque history of Europe's most instagrammed and uncanny city: a jumble of gothic towers, baroque palaces and zig-zag lanes that has survived plagues, pogroms, Nazi terror and Soviet tanks. Founded in the ninth Century, Prague gave the world the golem, the robot, and the world's biggest statue of Stalin, a behemoth that killed almost everyone who touched it.

'Fidler tells the story of the reclusive emperor who brought the world's most brilliant minds to Prague Castle to uncover the occult secrets of the universe. He explores the Black Palace, the wartime headquarters of the Nazi SS, and he meets victims of the communist secret police. Reaching back into Prague's mythic past, he finds the city's founder, the pagan priestess Libussa who prophesised: I see a city whose glory will touch the stars.

'Following the story of Prague from its origins in medieval darkness to its uncertain present, Fidler does what he does so well - curates an absolutely engaging and compelling history of a place. You will learn things you never knew, with a tour guide who is erudite, inquisitive, and the best storyteller you could have as your companion.' (Publication summary)

'A gripping blend of family mystery, contemporary stories and the beautiful and bloody Viking tales, set against the starkly stunning landscape of Iceland.

'Broadcaster Richard Fidler and author Kari Gíslason are good friends. They share a deep attachment to the sagas of Iceland - the true stories of the first Viking families who settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages.These are tales of blood feuds, of dangerous women, and people who are compelled to kill the ones they love the most. The sagas are among the greatest stories ever written, but the identity of their authors is largely unknown.

'Together, Richard and Kari travel across Iceland, to the places where the sagas unfolded a thousand years ago. They cross fields, streams and fjords to immerse themselves in the folklore of this fiercely beautiful island. And there is another mission: to resolve a longstanding family mystery - a gift from Kari's Icelandic father that might connect him to the greatest of the saga authors.' (Publication summary)

'Ghost Empire is a rare treasure - an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, realised by a master storyteller.

In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire - centred around the legendary Consantinople - we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilizations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder. Turbulent stories from the past are brought vividly to life at the same time as a father navigates the unfolding changes in his relationship with his son.

'Ghost Empire is a revelation: a beautifully written ode to a lost civilization, and a warmly observed father-son adventure far from home.' (Publication summary)

'Susan Swingler's father was Leonard Jolley, the man who was married to revered Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley.

'It took Susan decades to unravel the lies Leonard told the family he'd left behind in England when he moved to Australia to make a new life with Elizabeth and their children.

'The deceptions were sustained by Elizabeth Jolley too, deceptions that left Susan hurt, bewildered and incredulous when she eventually discovered them.

'Her memoir of this strange but true family story is called House of Fiction, published by Fremantle Press.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Conversations with Richard Fidler takes you into the exceptional lives of people you′ve never met... people who were living ordinary lives when Something Happened. There′s an explorer who mapped Antarctica in the fifties, with heavy woollen clothing and dog sleds under the shimmering polar sky; a principal who brought philosophy to every part of her primary school′s curriculum and saw the children benefit academically and emotionally; the casting director who discovered as a schoolgirl that her father had been importing large amounts of heroin when police raided the family home; the cartoonist and artist Bill Leak who recounts his bizarre hallucinatory experience of recovering from a head injury ; a community activist and former gangster who experienced a religious moment when a gun was put to his head; and a man who decided to set off in a kayak one day from the Victorian border and kept going all the way to Papua New Guinea.

'In this collection of fifteen stories, Richard Fidler skill as an interviewer is revealed as he draws out people′s deepest hopes and fears, and their stories of ingenuity, failure, triumph and loss.' (From the publisher's website.)

Richard Fidler began presenting his Conversations program while employed at 612 ABC, Brisbane. The show is heard each weekday around Australia on ABC Local Radio and re-re-broadcast on ABC Radio National. Each day’s program is also podcast, making it available to anyone anywhere in world with a digital device. As the program's website notes, 'Conversations is an immersive experience. The format is simple: an hour spent in the life of someone else. Stories from scientists, carers, musicians and philosophers; from boxers, prisoners, princes and prime ministers. Some strange, some sombre, some funny; some mind-bending and many, unforgettable.'

Conversations with Richard Fidler is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s most downloaded podcast.