Experience ANU

Hugh Mackay was in conversation with Alex Sloan on his new book Just Saying. Exploring twenty-five remarkable quotations to enlighten, challenge and inspire, in which Hugh reflects on profound sayings, ancient and modern. Warm, witty, wise – and occasionally challenging – Just Saying encapsulates Hugh Mackay's highly personal reflections on 25 quotations from some of the world's greatest thinkers...

Award-winning author Greg Haddrick was in conversation with Michael Brissenden on Greg's new book The Mushroom Murders. A family lunch. Three deaths. What really happened? The shocking story of a weekend lunch laced with a highly toxic mushroom, and a triple murder trial that gripped the world, shattered a family and gave a mother a life sentence. On 29 July 2023, Erin Patterson hosted a family lu...

Meet the author - Tony Abbott by Experience ANU

Tony Abbott was in conversation with Chris Uhlmann on his new book Australia. A history. How an ancient land became a great democracy.

Kate Reid was in conversation with Alex Sloan on her new book Destination Moon. A memoir of fast cars, French pastries and finding purpose. Destination Moon is an open-hearted memoir about passion and finding purpose from the woman whose mid-career, 180 degree turn, led her from the elite world of Formula 1 to opening in 2012 Melbourne's famous Lune Croissanterie, that has gone on to revolutionise...

Best-selling Canberra author Chris Hammer was in conversation with Michael Brissenden on his latest crime fiction novel Legacy, in which Martin Scarsden flees an assassination attempt but lands in even more trouble with a deadly family feud leaving him at death's door Someone is targeting Martin Scarsden. They bomb his book launch and shoot up his hometown. Fleeing for his life, he learns that now...

Omar Musa was in conversation with Karen Viggers on his new novel Fierceland, a globe-spanning epic of power and family secrets. How do you mourn your father when you know his secrets? After many years abroad, Roz and Harun return to Malaysian Borneo for the funeral of their father Yusuf – and to reckon with their inheritance. A renowned palm-oil baron during Malaysia’s economic rise, Yusuf built...

Virginia Haussegger was in conversation with Frank Bongiorno on her new book Unfinished Revolution. The Feminist Fightback. In 1975, the fight was alive. It was the year the United Nations declared International Women’s Year as a marker of progress and aspiration. Fifty years on, award-winning journalist Virginia Haussegger shines a light on the feminist revolution in Australia, capturing its spiri...

Sulari Gentill was in conversation with Chris Hammer, on her new novel Five Found Dead, which uses the Orient Express’s famous literary history as a framework for a discussion of journeys, loyalty, hope, and, of course, murder. When Meredith Penvale and her writer brother, Joe, step aboard the iconic Orient Express, they're embarking on a journey steeped in both luxury and mystery. The train, a li...

Paula Gerber was in conversation with Kim Rubenstein on her new book Sex, Gender & Identity: Trans Rights in Australia. Why are trans people so hated? Barely a week goes by without pointed media stories about the trans community, usually targeting trans women. They are likely to have a sensationalist headline and a salacious tone, and the writing is often ill-informed and vilifying. Favoured topic...

Elizabeth Finkel was in conversation with Joan Leach on Elizabeth's new book Prove It: A Scientific Guide for the Post-Truth Era, a compelling journey through science's big breakthroughs, by an award-winning Australian science writer. Humans developed the scientific method over centuries. Its departure from what came before was that theories should be fuelled by data, not opinion. Today, the insti...

Tracy Lee Holmes was in conversation with Phil Coorey on The Eye of the Dragonfly, a candid, wide-ranging and passionate book, part memoir, part manifesto, in which she shares both her stories and her views on sport’s most dramatic issues. The dragonfly sees in 360 degree perspective, and that’s what Tracey Lee Holmes has always done in her sports journalism. Over four decades, she has taken us be...

Marian Wilkinson was in conversation with David Pocock on her Quarterly Essay Woodside vs. the Planet. How a Company Captured a Country. Why is Australia doubling down on fossil fuels? The world may have committed at Paris to hold back dangerous climate change, but Australia's fossil-fuel giant Woodside is doubling down: it has bold new plans to keep producing gas out to 2070. Support from the maj...

Michael Brissenden was in conversation with Chris Hammer on Michael's new novel, MTA, a dark, gripping thriller that explores the complexities of identity, a search for truth, and the unyielding forces of corruption in a world where lives are lived on the fringe and nothing is as it seems. Lake Herrod, a once-thriving community, now lies in the shadow of a nearly dry lake. The town, like the water...

Bryan Horrigan was in conversation with James Edelman on Bryan's new book Corporate Social Responsibility in an Age of Existential Threats.

Adam Courtenay was in conversation with Alex Sloan on his moving memoir My Father Bryce. Dynamic, complex, driven: Bryce Courtenay was all of these as well as one of Australia's most beloved authors. To his son Adam, he was larger than life, mercurial, and impossible to know completely. In this moving, unforgettable memoir, Adam searches for the real Bryce.

Liz Cameron was in conversation with Alex Sloan on her new book Cult Bride How I Was Brainwashed – and How I Broke Free, ‘an intriguing and powerful memoir,’ in which Liz asks how are people like you and me brainwashed into cults? As an 18 year-old on her gap year in Canberra, Liz is approached at a shopping centre by a woman who asks her survey questions about her Christian faith. Liz is slowly b...

Katherine Biber was in conversation with Kate Fullagar on her new book, The Last Outlaws, a gripping work of historical true crime and a richly revealing examination of our nation at its birth. Brilliantly reconstructed from contemporary narratives, it's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith meets Killing for Country. In the winter of 1900, Wiradjuri man Jimmy Governor and his brother Joe murdered nine p...

Sam Guthrie was in conversation with Mark Kenny on his gripping new espionage thriller and debut novel, The Peak. Written with an extraordinary insider knowledge of China, the realities of global power and the inner dealings of the Australian Government, The Peak weaves an intriguing story of friendship, love and betrayal. Political hatchet man Charlie will do anything to protect Sebastian, Austra...

Graeme Turner was in conversation with Frank Bongiorno on his new book Broken: Universities, Politics and the Public Good. A strong higher education system is fundamental to civil society. The building of knowledge and the dissemination of information is vital to the proper functioning of our democracy. At the economic level, higher education is in the top three of our export industries; internati...

Two times Gold Dagger winning, and twice Edgar short-listed author, Michael Robotham was in conversation with Chris Hammer on Michael's new PC Phil McCarthy crime fiction novel The White Crow. *This podcast contains explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Journalist and recipient of the 2024 Press Freedom Award, Cheng Lei was in conversation with Michael Hertel on her new book Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom, the extraordinary true story of journalist Cheng Lei whose life was abruptly transformed when she was detained in China on false charges of espionage. Harrowing, fierce and often darkly humorous.

Toby Walsh was in conversation with Andrew Leigh on his new book The Shortest History of AI, everything you need to know about the origins and future of artificial intelligence through the examination of six key ideas.

Internationally acclaimed epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre was in conversation with Sanjaya Senanayake on her new book Vaccine Nation Science, reason and the threat to 200 years of progress, a gripping journey through the past, present and future of vaccines.

Marcel Dirsus was in conversation with Allan Behm on his book How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive.