1
00:00:07,133 --> 00:00:10,493
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

2
00:00:10,613 --> 00:00:11,973
Speaker 1: from newstalk SEDB.

3
00:00:12,773 --> 00:00:15,333
Speaker 2: News Talk said b Katharine Rains has our book picks

4
00:00:15,333 --> 00:00:19,173
Speaker 2: for this weekend and is with us now Yoda morning Jack. Okay,

5
00:00:19,253 --> 00:00:22,293
Speaker 2: let's begin this morning with Precipice by Robert Harris.

6
00:00:23,133 --> 00:00:26,253
Speaker 3: So this novel is based on the original love letters

7
00:00:26,293 --> 00:00:31,093
Speaker 3: between then British Prime Minister has Asquith and Vanicia Stanley.

8
00:00:31,373 --> 00:00:34,373
Speaker 3: So you get this very intimate insight into their love

9
00:00:34,413 --> 00:00:37,573
Speaker 3: affair because the letters weren't only about love but also

10
00:00:37,693 --> 00:00:40,093
Speaker 3: and trust. But they actually boarded on treason as their

11
00:00:40,133 --> 00:00:42,973
Speaker 3: correspondence took place during World War One. And so the

12
00:00:42,973 --> 00:00:46,053
Speaker 3: book itself begins in the summer of nineteen fourteen and

13
00:00:46,093 --> 00:00:48,693
Speaker 3: in London, twenty six year old Vanicia Stanley is part

14
00:00:48,733 --> 00:00:51,373
Speaker 3: of this group of very aristocratic young people who like

15
00:00:51,413 --> 00:00:53,693
Speaker 3: to party, but she has the secret she's having an

16
00:00:53,733 --> 00:00:56,973
Speaker 3: affair with Asquith, and he's married, he's in his early sixties,

17
00:00:57,013 --> 00:01:00,213
Speaker 3: and they write to each other constantly, three times a day,

18
00:01:00,333 --> 00:01:03,533
Speaker 3: and then as the wardrobe draws closer, he starts to

19
00:01:03,813 --> 00:01:07,373
Speaker 3: share some incredibly sensitive information with her in top secret

20
00:01:07,693 --> 00:01:10,813
Speaker 3: coummits from various sources, including Believe it or Not government

21
00:01:10,853 --> 00:01:15,333
Speaker 3: battle plans, and eventually the British government wants to work

22
00:01:15,373 --> 00:01:17,293
Speaker 3: out where these leaks are coming from, and this guy

23
00:01:17,373 --> 00:01:19,773
Speaker 3: Vandema is tasked with finding the source of it, and

24
00:01:19,813 --> 00:01:23,213
Speaker 3: he discovers this love affair and this obsessive nature of

25
00:01:23,333 --> 00:01:25,853
Speaker 3: Asquith in their relationship, and of course it's a matter

26
00:01:25,893 --> 00:01:28,453
Speaker 3: of national security. And so what you have is this

27
00:01:28,493 --> 00:01:32,453
Speaker 3: book that's a mix of fact and fiction because Harris

28
00:01:32,533 --> 00:01:35,573
Speaker 3: uses the actual letters and telegrams, athquests and Venetia sent

29
00:01:35,693 --> 00:01:38,373
Speaker 3: to each other, and so you can see him constantly

30
00:01:38,453 --> 00:01:41,573
Speaker 3: being distracted from the office of Prime Minister and some Yeah,

31
00:01:41,893 --> 00:01:45,613
Speaker 3: it's just as a bizarre and almost unbelievable story. And

32
00:01:45,693 --> 00:01:48,973
Speaker 3: the letters from Asquith are at his actual words, hers

33
00:01:49,093 --> 00:01:52,453
Speaker 3: are invented because he destroyed her correspondence, and just this

34
00:01:53,013 --> 00:01:55,533
Speaker 3: anonymity that he manages to do things around things. You know,

35
00:01:55,573 --> 00:01:59,933
Speaker 3: he walks around unrecognized, and he rarely seems to realize

36
00:01:59,933 --> 00:02:01,973
Speaker 3: that he's out of his depth his role of Prime Minister,

37
00:02:02,133 --> 00:02:04,573
Speaker 3: and his wife Margo seems to be the really strong,

38
00:02:04,653 --> 00:02:07,533
Speaker 3: ambitious one in the relationship. You know, he comes to

39
00:02:07,613 --> 00:02:10,693
Speaker 3: this this role is through her networking, and Vanesshia herself

40
00:02:10,733 --> 00:02:14,933
Speaker 3: is very interesting. She's clearly intelligent, she's bored, she wants

41
00:02:14,973 --> 00:02:17,333
Speaker 3: to she's of the lifestyle that she's living. And so

42
00:02:17,373 --> 00:02:19,413
Speaker 3: the beginning of this affair is she's able to use

43
00:02:19,453 --> 00:02:21,373
Speaker 3: her mind and she seems to enjoy her stuff at

44
00:02:21,373 --> 00:02:23,973
Speaker 3: the start, but it's changed. He a fascinating read and

45
00:02:24,053 --> 00:02:25,013
Speaker 3: glimpse into history.

46
00:02:25,213 --> 00:02:27,413
Speaker 2: Great. Okay, so it's a novel, but it sounds.

47
00:02:27,173 --> 00:02:30,453
Speaker 3: Yeah, based on those historical documents.

48
00:02:30,573 --> 00:02:33,213
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, So that's Precipice by Robert Harris. I'm

49
00:02:33,213 --> 00:02:37,213
Speaker 2: excited about your next book, Billionaire nerd Savior King Bill

50
00:02:37,293 --> 00:02:39,973
Speaker 2: Gates in His Quest to Shape Our World by Anu

51
00:02:40,053 --> 00:02:41,853
Speaker 2: Preta dars So.

52
00:02:41,933 --> 00:02:44,213
Speaker 3: Dars is the finance eder of the New York Times.

53
00:02:44,213 --> 00:02:46,933
Speaker 3: So she's clearly had a bit to do with gill

54
00:02:46,973 --> 00:02:50,333
Speaker 3: Gates overline, and so she looks at a more holistic

55
00:02:50,373 --> 00:02:52,813
Speaker 3: story than just him. So money and government and wealth

56
00:02:52,853 --> 00:02:55,613
Speaker 3: and power and media and image. You know, the fortunes

57
00:02:55,613 --> 00:02:58,373
Speaker 3: of the richest people in the world, and with wealth,

58
00:02:58,413 --> 00:03:01,893
Speaker 3: of course comes great power. And often in our society,

59
00:03:01,933 --> 00:03:04,533
Speaker 3: billionaires have found their way around, you know, years of

60
00:03:04,813 --> 00:03:08,373
Speaker 3: systems of democratic oversight. They dodge tax has been politics

61
00:03:08,453 --> 00:03:12,733
Speaker 3: and create monopolies and yeah, it's fascinating. So she starts

62
00:03:13,013 --> 00:03:16,933
Speaker 3: with him in nineteen seventy five as a young man

63
00:03:17,093 --> 00:03:21,493
Speaker 3: with his school friend Paul Allen writing the first loads

64
00:03:21,533 --> 00:03:24,293
Speaker 3: of code for the company we all know now as Microsoft,

65
00:03:24,493 --> 00:03:27,973
Speaker 3: and that blooms and talks about Gates as America's youngest

66
00:03:27,973 --> 00:03:30,533
Speaker 3: billionaire at thirty one, focus probably a little bit too

67
00:03:30,613 --> 00:03:34,053
Speaker 3: much on how nerdy he is. But then as Microsoft

68
00:03:34,093 --> 00:03:39,533
Speaker 3: competition starts to grow, and he excludes products from software platforms.

69
00:03:39,573 --> 00:03:42,213
Speaker 3: And then there's the anti trust legislation in the States

70
00:03:42,213 --> 00:03:44,893
Speaker 3: in the nineties that's used against Microsoft. So he starts

71
00:03:44,933 --> 00:03:47,893
Speaker 3: to move away from the country a company sorry, And

72
00:03:47,933 --> 00:03:51,053
Speaker 3: then him and his wife Melinda decide to launch the

73
00:03:51,053 --> 00:03:56,133
Speaker 3: Gates Foundation, and they apply a lot of data and results,

74
00:03:56,213 --> 00:03:58,653
Speaker 3: same practices which he excelled at in Microsoft. And it's

75
00:03:58,733 --> 00:04:01,893
Speaker 3: quite interesting as he pledges other billionaires to pledge money

76
00:04:02,013 --> 00:04:06,293
Speaker 3: and this light, massive, filant, tropic enterprise and they have

77
00:04:06,493 --> 00:04:09,013
Speaker 3: prevented millions of deaths, you know, the billions of dollars

78
00:04:09,053 --> 00:04:12,613
Speaker 3: into fighting AIDS and tuberculosis, and their vaccine alliance which

79
00:04:12,653 --> 00:04:15,813
Speaker 3: is vaccinated almost half of the world's children. But it

80
00:04:15,813 --> 00:04:18,733
Speaker 3: also talks about his other contacts like Jeffrey Epstein when

81
00:04:18,853 --> 00:04:21,333
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen he admitted that he had met him

82
00:04:21,333 --> 00:04:24,773
Speaker 3: on several occasions and he said that he was introduced

83
00:04:24,773 --> 00:04:27,893
Speaker 3: to them by the aim of raising funds for his foundation.

84
00:04:28,093 --> 00:04:30,573
Speaker 3: So it varies, you know, but it also talks about

85
00:04:30,573 --> 00:04:34,413
Speaker 3: his other contemporaries like Warren Buffet and the public perception

86
00:04:34,493 --> 00:04:37,373
Speaker 3: of billionaires. But it varies away from being a typical

87
00:04:37,413 --> 00:04:41,613
Speaker 3: biography and interviews people very much on the fringes of Gates' life,

88
00:04:41,613 --> 00:04:43,493
Speaker 3: and so he gets this very differing viewpoint of him.

89
00:04:43,533 --> 00:04:46,053
Speaker 3: And yeah, as I doesn't read as a typical biography,

90
00:04:46,053 --> 00:04:47,573
Speaker 3: and it jumps around and talks about him and his

91
00:04:47,653 --> 00:04:50,533
Speaker 3: wife as ex wife now and early life and contemporaries.

92
00:04:50,533 --> 00:04:52,933
Speaker 3: So it's quite an interesting viewpoint and to the world

93
00:04:52,973 --> 00:04:53,693
Speaker 3: of a billionaire.

94
00:04:53,893 --> 00:04:56,733
Speaker 2: Ah, sounds so good. Great, Thank you, Catherine. Okay, that's

95
00:04:56,773 --> 00:05:00,453
Speaker 2: Billionaire Nerds Savior King Bill Gates and his quest to

96
00:05:00,493 --> 00:05:03,613
Speaker 2: shape our world. And Catherine's first book is Precipice. That

97
00:05:03,653 --> 00:05:05,613
Speaker 2: one's by Robert Harris. Both of those will be up

98
00:05:05,653 --> 00:05:07,333
Speaker 2: on the News Talks the website

99
00:05:07,773 --> 00:05:10,853
Speaker 1: For more From Saturday Morning with Jack Tame listen live

100
00:05:10,973 --> 00:05:13,773
Speaker 1: to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or

101
00:05:13,853 --> 00:05:15,733
Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio