Love and Friendship

Duration: 60 minutes

Bridie Jabour: The Way Things Should Be

Claudia is getting married in a week. Well, she’s 85% sure she is getting married in a week. Maybe 75%… First, she must return home to spend the week with her siblings Zoe, Phinn and Poppy who, despite their best intentions, are quick to return to long-established battle lines.

The arrival of her best friend Nora, desperately trying to keep her own demons quiet, does nothing to soothe the possessive sisters. Meanwhile, their parents George and Rachel, long estranged from each other, are struggling with how different their children turned out to what they’d imagined. Taller, maybe?

The Way Things Should Be is a warm, funny and genuine novel about the conflicting joys and disappointments of millennials. It explores the complex relationships between parents and adult children, what we expect and what actually receive, and the complicated terrain that is the relationships with our siblings, best friends, and ourselves.

Sally Piper: Geography of Friendship

When three young women set off on a hike through the wilderness they are anticipating the adventure of a lifetime. Over the next five days, as they face up to the challenging terrain, it soon becomes clear they are not alone and the freedom they feel quickly turns to fear. Only when it is too late for them to turn back do they fully appreciate the danger they are in. As their friendship is tested, each girl makes an irrevocable choice; the legacy of which haunts them for years to come.

Now in their forties, Samantha, Lisa and Nicole are estranged, but decide to revisit their original hike in an attempt to salvage what they lost. As geography and history collide, they are forced to come to terms with the differences that have grown between them and the true value of friendship.

Helen Jukes: The Honeybee Heart has Five Openings

A fascinating, insightful and inspiring account of a novice beekeeper's year of keeping honeybees. 

Chair: Alex Adsett