Conversations

A new conversation with the Irish novelist, on what it means to be a grown up, and standing her ground on Ireland’s moral questions

Young Robert Lukins modelled himself on the fictional character Adrian Mole, a prodigious reader and writer (R)

Sandy was teaching at a school in the English countryside when he set off in a Mirror dinghy, intending to sail as far as Gloucester (R)

How a group of financiers from a poor and damp island on the outer rim of Europe created a private company which came to rule India (R)

Tony Wilson was always drawn to the world's great speeches. Then, without warning, he was called on to make the most difficult speech of his life

Naomi is an American poet and author living in San Antonio, Texas. Her family story is marked by life-changing coincidences, and narrow escapes

How Shannon Molloy survived the worst year of his life, as a gay teenager at an all boys' school on the coast of Central Queensland

A much-loved performer digs into the challenging truth of her father's past (R)

While confined to a hospital room for months with a rare form of tuberculosis, Christiaan found love and an entirely new path in life

Tom Keneally with the story of Edward 'Plorn' Dickens who was sent to live in Australia when he was sixteen in the hope he might redeem himself

In 2015, Sydney boxer Davey died of brain swelling after he was knocked out in the ring. When journalist and boxer Stephanie Convery reported on the inquest, she found a sport in a collective state of denial

When therapist Lori Gottlieb found herself in therapy after a devastating breakup, she began to rethink her own life story

A songwriter's songwriter, John turned his often bemused view of people and politics into songs for fifty years (R)

Astronaut Jim Bagian on working, eating and sleeping in micro-gravity while orbiting the earth at 28 000 kilometres an hour

Kate Leaver became fascinated by the curative qualities of dogs after her Shih Tzu Bertie helped her through her darkest days

Biographer Ann Blainey with the tale of Smithy, king of the Milky Way, and his audacious flight across the Pacific in his plane the Southern Cross (R)

How a lifetime exploring different landscapes inspires the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, who's also one of the world's most prolific writers (R)

Walking the Sahara, towards the fabled city of Timbuktu and into Niger (R)

A breathtaking Saharan adventure: camels, bandits and one fearless woman (R)

A writer recalls the precious stretch of time between the birth of his son, and the death of his father (R)

The author of bestselling novel, Pachinko, explores the lives of generations of Koreans in Japan (R)

Thanks to her dad’s hand-drawn map, a shopping trip Sarah Kanowski made for her parents during the Covid-19 crisis gladdened hearts on social media around the world. In this father-daughter chat, meet Sarah’s dad, 89-year-old Peter Kanowski

Social researcher Hugh Mackay on the many ways Australian society can pull together while we're meant to live apart

Australia's storyteller in song on poems he's loved since childhood, and how reading and learning great poetry has changed his song writing (R)

Ray was a coal miner when an accident underground left him lying prone in a tunnel a kilometre beneath the earth. What he did next changed the course of his life