Good Reading Podcast

In 1977 Vera 'Toddie' Hays and Florice 'Beezie' Bessire thought they were about to embark on the trip of a lifetime when Vera's nephew Vern Jr made them an unbelievable offer: drive a camper van from Stuttgart to Bombay and finally to Australia. Little did they know the van was packed with two tonnes of hashish. Betrayed is the fascinating inside story of Toddie and Beezie...

In the 1990s Phil Barker left the male-dominated world of the Daily Telegraph to work on magazines such as NW and Woman's Day . It was the golden age of Australian magazines with circulation at an all-time high. But along came the internet. A failure to deal with the challenges of the digital world saw a once great industry fall into decline. In Axed! Who Killed Australian Magazines , Phil Ba...

A violent workplace attack nearly 30 years ago left Wendy Davis with trauma that has permeated her entire life. The police investigation at the time was woefully inadequate and Wendy found herself virtually ignored while the perpetrator faced only relatively minor consequences. Despite being plagued by anger and guilt, Wendy tried to bury the incident and move on with her life. The experience resu...

Dr John Tickell is a medical doctor, health researcher and author who has spent decades studying the health and longevity of people around the world. His formula of Activity, Coping and Eating, draws on his medical experience, extensive international research, and the lifestyle patterns of the longest living people on earth. Your Best Immunity: Build Resistance the ACE Way is your guide maintainin...

Adam Bowman, a second-string journalist at a Sydney newspaper, may be the only person with enough inside knowledge to uncover the links between a murder on the grounds of a private school and the notorious 'Blue Moon Killer'. But Bowman will have to venture into the darkest places of his childhood to piece together a series of shocking crimes. Detective Sergeant Rose Riley is part of the...

Margaret Cunneen worked for 30 years as a Crown Prosecutor on cases involving murder, pedophiles and rapists and became a specialist in child sexual assault law. In 2019 Margaret took up practise as a defence counsel. The Boxing Butterfly is Margaret Cunneen looking in the rear-view mirror. It chronicles an eventful career which included cases such as the Skafs gang rapes, the Robert “Dolly” Dunn...

Carolina Fonçeca is a lonely sixteen-year-old girl confined to a remote Brazilian sugar plantation in the 1850s. Her life changes when the French explorer, naturalist and diplomat, the Count de Castelnau stumbles out of the Amazon rainforest, delirious and near death. With a head full of Balzac and dreams of Parisian life, she nurses him back to health and makes the decision to follow him back to...

Austria, 1936. Esther Simpson works for a British organisation that rescues academics from the cruel Fascist and anti-Semitic regimes taking hold in Europe. On a dangerous trip to Vienna, Esther falls in love with Harry Singer, a young Jewish academic and musician. When Harry is detained on the Isle of Man while waiting for news of his parents, Esther pleads with the government for his release. Wh...

By the age of twenty-five, Sophie Cachia was a happily married mother and digital marketing expert with a very successful business powered by by documenting her every move online. Then, in a single moment, everything changed. Sophie met a woman who prompted her to question her own life and relationship. 'And Then There Was Her' is a frank and deeply honest memoir, documenting Sophie&apos...

May 1915. As war rages in Europe, Australian nurse, Sister Cora Barker, leaves her home in Adelaide for England, determined to make her own contribution. She arrives at Harefield House – a stately home donated by its expatriate Australian owners. There she helps transform it into a hospital that is also a little piece of home for recuperating Australian soldiers. As casualties mount, the hospital...

When Chloe Hooper's partner is diagnosed with an aggressive and deadly cancer she had to find a way to tell their two sons. Could the news be broken as a bedtime tale? To find out, Chloe Hooper went on a quest to find the book that might help. From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett to Tolkien and Dahl, Hooper followed the trail of the world's favourite authors. The result is...

You might know them as Isabelle, Kerry and Emmie Silbery from Foxtel’s and Channel 10’s series Gogglebox , a program where they share their thoughts on the week’s TV offerings. But even from the comfort of the couch it was clear that the Silbery's were a connected, supportive and loving family. In 'Out of the Box', these three strong, independent women open up, sharing intensely per...

Ricky Bird loves making up wild stories for her little brother Ollie. Her outlandish plots and whimsical characters help fortify them against the hopeless reality of their lives. Her father has abandoned her and her family has moved to a bleak new neighbourhood. Worse still, her mother's new boyfriend has come with the furniture. Ricky's greatest weapon is her imagination and she uses it...

The small town of Nannine was once a thriving outback centre but years of punishing drought taken their toll. Nannine still has one remaining claim to fame: the unsolved disappearance nineteen years ago of Evelyn McCreery from the bedroom she shared with her twin sister Mina. Mina McCreery's life has been defined by intense and ongoing public interest in the case. That reaches a whole new lev...

Soar into a world where unicorns are real but also deadly and can only be tamed by the riders who hatch them. Skandar Smith has always wanted to be a unicorn rider but when the terrifying Weaver steals the most powerful unicorn in the world, becoming a unicorn rider soon becomes a lot more dangerous. And what if Skandar turns out to be the villain rather than the hero? In this episode Gregory Dobb...

When writer Catherine Deveny faced the end of a seventeen-year relationship with the father of her children she knew she had to create space for a new life. She had no idea what lay on the other side of months of tumult but it wasn't the first time Catherine had taken a plunge into the unknown. In this heartfelt memoir, Catherine traces the path of a tumultuous life from a chaotic childhood t...

Jackie Huggins and Ngaire Jarro are sisters from the Bidjara and Birri Gubba Juru nations. One hundred years since the birth of their father John Henry 'Jack' Huggins III, they decided to research and write about about a man they hardly knew. Jack Huggins was one of only fifty indigenous servicemen to enlist in the Australian Armed Forces in WWII. 'Jack of Hearts QX11594' is a...

Mark Tedeschi AM QC has worked as a Barrister and Crown Prosecutor on some of Australia's most significant criminal cases. He led the prosecution in the conviction of Bruce Burrell for the brutal murders of Kerry Whelan and Dorothy Davis. Together these cases were a high watermark in the Australian criminal justice system and resulted in important reforms around how a jury makes decisions. In...

At the age of seventy Ruth Wilson found herself grappling with both a physical diagnosis that affected her hearing and balance and unfathomable feelings of sadness. Ruth took the radical decision to leave her conventional life and reclaim her voice in search of personal healing. In this poignant and insightful memoir of love and self-acceptance Ruth discovered the curative power of reading. From a...

Jo Baaker is drawn back to the island of Texel to investigate the provenance of a 17th century silk dress unearthed by a local diving team. It offers a tantalising opportunity to explore the way people lived during Holland's Golden Age. Jo's research leads her to artist and intellectual Catharina van Shurman and her companion Anna Tesseltje and the mystery deepens as she delves into Anna...

When writer and musician Eliza Hull fell pregnant her excitement was tempered by the thought of the complexities she was about to face as a person of disability. More than fifteen percent of Australian households have a parent wth a disability but their stories are rarely shared. Eliza set out to gather stories from a diverse range of people on the disability spectrum and in the process, created a...

In a lonely farmhouse in Norfolk, 1703 Thomas Treadwater is a rational, modern man but he is hiding a terrible secret. Upstairs is a woman locked in an endless sleep, but she is beginning to stir and the powers she holds have the potential to unleash horrific consequences. As Thomas tries to unravel the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers a tale of superstition, of something dark and ancient...

Miriam Duffy is a respectable North Shore widow, real estate agent and devoted mother. When her youngest daughter Ally finds true love, Miriam is cautiously happy. As time goes by Miriam watches in disbelief as Ally's 'perfect' husband begins a campaign of controlling behaviour that cuts them off from her family. In response to escalating reports of horrifying family violence, fearl...

In 1845 Eliza Acton produced the first cookery book for domestic use, 'Modern Cookery In All Its Branches Reduced to System of Easy Practice for the Use of Private Families'. It revolutionised cookery in the home and introduced the concept of the recipe as we know it. But the details of Eliza Acton's life are a mystery. Her recipes, informed and styled by her poetry, are the narrati...

Sophie Carlton is an understudy of great promise just waiting for her moment in the spotlight. When star soprano Margaret Gardiner suddenly disappears right before the opening night of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Sophie's greatest wish may have come true. But sometimes dreams come with a price. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Julie Bennett about growing up in the Sydney Opera Hous...