Good Reading Podcast

Fifteen Feet Tall is Warren Rankine's own account of a journey from trauma, tragedy, sadness, to, success and self realisation. Others may have put him on a path. Ultimately he forged his own. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Warren Rankine about his memoir - story of childhood trauma, personal development, growth and achievement. Warren is joined by Tracy Yong who helped bring his stor...

Usually when a friend is dying, there’s not much you can do. But what if there was? James O’Loghlin’s best friend at university was Jum Wallner, but once careers and kids came along, they drifted apart. That was, until the day Jum felt a pain in his side and remembered he had grown up in a house filled with ‘Mr Fluffy’ asbestos insulation. Nearly everyone who contracts an asbestos disease gets it...

Australia is a country celebrated for its wildlife, yet native species are in crisis. In the last 200 years, Australia has lost more biodiversity than any other developed nation. In this book, award-winning science writer Justine E. Hausheer encounters pygmy possums that live high in the Snowy Mountains, hears the booming calls of bitterns from their adopted home in the Riverina’s rice fields, cro...

After suffering a loss, Janine and her husband, Kamal, need a fresh start. They leave their family and everything they know in Manchester and move to Bamblethorpe, a picturesque Lancashire village where they expect nothing but peace and quiet. It’ll be just what Janine, a thriller writer, needs to work on her next manuscript. But the peace of their new village life is disrupted when longtime local...

For Amy, being a doctor was supposed to mean winning at life. Helping people. Saving lives. Having a secure job. Earning good money. Tick, tick, tick, tick. But now, in her second year in a city hospital the reality is a world away from Amy's med school dreams. She is finding out that people don't always want to be 'helped', the pay barely covers rent, her hours are ridiculous,...

Three first responders – a paramedic, a police officer and a firefighter – are motivated by a desire to serve the community. But they are drawn to their work by more complicated impulses as well: a need for control, an acute awareness of danger, and childhood experiences they are still running from. Peter, a paramedic, served at high-profile disasters including the Port Arthur massacre and the Bea...

Peter Marralwanga (1916–1987) was a leading figure in one of the great art practices of the world. He grew up in western Arnhem Land surrounded by artists painting in rock shelters and he learned to paint this way himself. The subjects of his paintings were the Djang who made his country and placed the spirits of people within it. Marralwanga’s story highlights the way bark painting became importa...

In Raven Mother, Jane Messer weaves together her Jewish family’s tragic story – stretching back and forth between Berlin, Israel, Palestine, Melbourne and Sydney. Messer retraces the steps of her Jewish grandmother Bella, as she tries to understand her life in pre-war Berlin and Mandate Palestine, to post-war Melbourne where she didn’t survive the surviving, and why her father was abandoned in Eng...

Theresa Miller has spent decades working as a journalist and now media trainer, coaching people across all industries – from CEOs and academics to climate campaigners, entrepreneurs and artists – to communicate confidently, clearly and concisely. In Speak Up, she shows you how to successfully share your expertise and experience with an audience – whether it’s creating an inspiring work presentatio...

In 1986 on Phillip Island, a young woman called Beth Barnard was savagely murdered and her boyfriend’s wife, Vivienne Cameron, went missing. The police immediately jumped to what they thought was the obvious conclusion: in a jealous rage, Vivienne had killed Beth and then herself. Vivienne’s body was never found. But Vikki Petraitis wasn’t convinced. The official line didn’t explain all the eviden...

Debra Dank had long been desperate to paint a fuller picture of her family, to add flesh to the name-bones and the few precious stories she possessed. Debra had been aware of her father's five siblings, some of whom had died before she could come to know them, but there were always whispers and gaps and silences. Her parents had experiences that affected how Debra grew up, but hers seemed to...

As a seventeen-year-old officer Aaron Tait was deployed to a war in the Middle East. Far Horizons is the story of what happened next. From war zones to slums, Aaron Tait has travelled to and worked in more than 70 countries across the globe as a military officer, humanitarian and social entrepreneur, and now writes to help people live deliberate lives filled with purpose. Far Horizons is a globe-s...

When rebellious Ruby is bequeathed her late grandfather’s personal letters, she is pulled from peacetime 1973 Australia, to 1917 World War 1 France. Without identification or any way home, she sets out to right a wrong that has broken her family for generations. She meets her young grandfather, an Australian soldier, who has a secret family – a French wife and daughter. Ruby is the only person who...

Things are going well for Matt Buchanan. After some hard times, life is peaceful as sole-charge constable for the small, isolated settlement of Haast on New Zealand's wild West Coast. He's made friends among the locals, won their trust. He keeps their little world safe. And he's working in spectacular surroundings - the fierce Tasman Sea, the dense beech forest, the dark, cold swamp...

When acclaimed historian Henry Reynolds moved from Hobart to Townsville to teach Australian history in the 1960s, he discovered the books of the period covered very little about northern Australia and First Nations peoples. He set out to help remedy the situation and ended up transforming Australian history in ways he could never have imagined. In 'Looking from the North', Reynolds again...

Overnight, Seka Torlak’s life as a regular teenager is upended as Srebrenica, her once peaceful town, falls under siege and she faces starvation, shelling, and sniper attacks. When desperately needed antibiotics and food disappear and are sold on the black market, Seka vows to investigate the corruption and bring the culprits to justice.   As the war ravages Srebrenica, Seka's resilience is t...

Retired academic Martin Pottinger's romantic aspirations for the delectable head of his former university's archaeology department, Professor Mary Blake, seem about to be realised. If only he could devise a plan to manage the demands of his eccentric elderly mother, Edwina. Recently bereaved Grace Cavendish spends her days helping out at All Souls Church, making it her mission to drown o...

'I am Nannertgarrook' is based on the true story of Tasma Walton’s ancestor, a powerful, heart-wrenching novel about maternal love that endures against pitiless odds. Kidnapped by sealers and enslaved far from her homeland, Nannertgarrook has a spirit that refuses to bow/ From her idyllic life in sea country in Nerrm (Port Phillip Bay, Victoria), Nannertgarrook is abducted and taken to a...

Europe, 1940. With war on their doorstep, German classmates Klara and Rachel, and French brothers Lucien and Paul, are forced to leave their homes. They are taken to Gurs, a French detention camp in the south-west of France. It's a crowded place, with little comfort and even less food. When Klara and Rachel are promised safe refuge in a remote French village, Lucien and Paul are anxious to jo...

"How do you library?" is a statewide campaign that aims to expand visitation and encourage deeper engagement and participation at libraries across Queensland by highlighting the diversity of services, programs, resources and surprising things people can do at their local library.  Libraries offer much more than you think; they are places for everyone to connect to knowledge, ideas, techn...

Constable Paul Hirschhausen is checking firearms. The regular police audit: all weapons secured, ammo stored separately, no unauthorised person with keys to the gun safe. He’s checking people, too. The drought is hitting hard in the mid-north, and Hirsch is responsible for the welfare of his scattered flock of battlers, bluebloods, loners and miscreants. He isn’t usually called on for emergency ro...

When Little Peach Tree was just a sapling, all they could see was row upon row of other peach trees. And, on top of the hill, watching over the orchard - the Peach King. As seasons pass, bringing cycles of change, Little Peach Tree grows and grows. But darker changes are stirring. Soon rain is scarce, the forests turn brown, animals flee and the sky turns red. To protect the orchard, the Peach Kin...

For Blake 'Blakey' Johnston growing up around the beaches of Cronulla, life was good and surfing was everything. At sixteen, he turned pro and took off around the world, chasing his dream to become the world's best. The thing about dreams, though, is that they change - sometimes by choice and sometimes by circumstance. For some people, that change can be too much. 'SwellBeing:...

Jessie Hickman was a woman who lived outside the norms of her time. A brave and formidable woman, Jessie lived a life full of adventure, action and danger. At the age of eight she joined a travelling bush circus, learning to perform as a whip cracker, sharpshooter and rough rider. She would perform dangerous feats, like tightrope walking or handstands on bare-backed ponies. When the circus closed,...

When 37-year-old Leila suffers a health tragedy, she doesn't recover as quickly as she expected. Her partner, James, suggests a year away from the city - they'll stay on his family farm, where the wide, open spaces and clean country air will help her come to terms with her grief. But the property is remote and the house oppressive. Leila is disturbed by strange noises, fleeting visions a...