Good Reading Podcast

Kyle Mewburn grew up in the sunburnt, unsophisticated Brisbane suburbs of the 1960s and '70s in a household with little love and no books, with a lifelong feeling of being somehow wrong – like ‘strawberry jam in a spinach can'.In this book, Kyle describes this early life and her journey to becoming her own person – a celebrated children’s book author, a husband and, finally, a woman. She...

When Rod Barton applied for a job at the Australian Department of Defence he had no idea where it would lead. For the next few decades he found himself disarming militia in Mogadishu, flying to Baghdad as a UN weapons inspector and hunting for Iraq's so-called weapons of mass destruction. In this extraordinary behind-the-scenes account of a life straight out of an adventure novel Rod Barton u...

As he reluctantly celebrates his 100th birthday, Jack Furey casts his mind back to his experience during World War II as a police sergeant in Far North Queensland. Here, the arrival of the Americans to set up a new airforce base has brought with it a swag of trouble. The small town of Wangamba is plagued by rumours of prostitution and backyard abortions and violence soon erupts. In an atmosphere o...

*Content warning: This podcast contains discussions of sexual assault and violence against women. Listener discretion is advised.' Kathryn Heyman's childhood was marked by violence, poverty and chaos. She was left with no real example of how to create a decent life but she had one thing in her favour – she was a reader. The power of stories provided a means of escape and a pathway to a r...

Homecoming is a work of extraordinary beauty that awakens the voices of four generations of Elfie Shiosaki's family. Written using archival records, family letters and oral history, it is the culmination of five years of research that shares stories of indigenous resistance and renewal. Homecoming weaves a vivid tapestry of history, language, memory, landscape and spirit that asks something s...

A huge celebrity in her day, Kate Kelly was eventually forgotten while the reputation of the Kelly Gang graduated from folklore to cultural icon. Kate was a talented horsewoman and often ran decoy for the Gang and was present at the infamous gun battle at Glenrowan. In later life she changed her name in an attempt to escape the notoriety but her life ended in tragedy. Kate was found drowned in a l...

'Remember' is the first non-fiction novel from neuroscientist and 'Still Alice' author Lisa Genova, which delves into how memories are made and how we retrieve them. In this episode, Heather Lewis chats to Lisa about the process of writing her first non-fiction novel, how she got started in neuroscience, and some mind-blowing facts about the brain.

This anthology of Australian surf writing celebrates the diversity of surf culture from epic surf adventures in Mexico to the relationship of humans with the sea and to Taj Burrows final campaign in Fiji. Featuring the writing of Sally Breen, Emily Brugman, Sam Carmody Madelaine Dickie, Jake Sandtner and Mark Smith, these non-fiction stories explore the passion, the fear, the joy and the pain of A...

Catherine Leroy, Frances Fitzgerald and Kate Webb arrived in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968 at the height of the war. Leroy was a French daredevil photographer; Frances Fitzgerald a blue-blood American intellectual; and Kate Webb was the first Australian woman to report on the war in Vietnam. Together these three women permanently shattered the barriers to women reporting on war in a field of journalism...

Paula is a dedicated GP who witnesses the brutal murder of her friend and her children at the hands of their estranged husband and father. Paula is haunted by the thought that she couldn’t protect them when they most needed it. Soon after a patient with suspicious injuries attends her surgery and Paula is faced with a decision that could make this woman safe but also compromise everything her trai...

Helen Fitzgerald vividly portrays small town life, and a woman and a land in crisis in her latest thriller 'Ash Mountain'.Fran vowed she'd never return to Ash Mountain but circumstances draw her back to a blisteringly hot summer in the rural town of Ash Mountain. Confronting the past and dealing with future are sidelined by an impending disaster – a mega-fire is roaring towards Ash...

After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members. Yvonne Fletcher disposed of t...

Susan Johnson exposes the truths and deceptions in relationships amid a blossoming online friendship between two women in 'From Where I Fell'.Pamela and Christhani live on different continents, but through a series of email exchanges the two women begin sharing the stories of their lives. Although temperamental opposites they soon establish a connection based on the common ground of grie...

Nora Fawn's daughter Hope disappeared four years ago and only maintained contact through her big sister Joy. But last night Hope rang Nora to say, 'I'm coming home, I'm getting married, the wedding is in three weeks and it's your job to organise it.'Desperate to regain her daughter's love and prove her worth as a mother Nora accepts the challenge. Through the med...

Bec and Kate are sisters, but they couldn’t be less alike. Bec lives the domestic dream with her surgeon husband Stuart and three perfect children. So why is she so attracted to free-spirited Ryan? Kate’s life is hardly a dream. But when she meets Adam – tall, kind, funny – things start looking up. Until she finds out he’s been keeping secrets from her. Then there is the incident both sisters are...

A young woman gets ready to go to a party. She arrives, feels overwhelmed, leaves, and then returns. Minutely attuned to the people who come into her view, and alternating between alienation and profound connection, she is hilarious, self-aware, sometimes acerbic, and always honest. And by the end of the night, she’s shown us something radical about love, loss, and the need to belong. In this epis...

Michael Brissenden's second crime thriller Dead Letters brings counter terrorism expert Sid Allen into the sordid and complicated world of Canberra politics. From the seedy backstreets of 1980s Sydney to the corridors of power in contemporary Canberra, Sidney Allen must pursue the truth behind a baffling crime. Dan LeRoi, rising star of politics and Chair of the Joint Committee on Intelligenc...

We're more connected that ever before says Maggie Hamilton and yet feelings of loneliness and isolation have never been more prevalent. We are now more affluent and busier and yet we are leaving our homes less and less as we become more dependent on technology to communicate. 'We've become strangers, exiled from people and situations that are meaningful to us.' says MaggieWhen...

In secluded Devlins Reach, on the shores of the Hawkesbury River, three bodies are unearthed in an excavation site. When a wilderness expert, Park Ranger Taylor Bridges, is called in to assist local police, he soon discovers the town has an unsettling history – one to match Taylor's own haunted past. But the quiet location and picturesque beauty of The Reach are hiding something darker than T...

Aaron Smith's new memoir holds up a unique mirror to Australia. What he sees is at once amazing, disturbing and revealing. The Rock explores the failings of our nation's character, its unresolved past and its uncertain future from the vantage point of its most northerly outpost, Thursday Island. Smith was the last editor, fearless journalist and the paperboy of Australia's most nort...

Australian and New Zealand crime and thriller writing is booming globally, with antipodean authors regularly featuring on awards and bestseller lists across Europe and North America, and overseas readers and publishers looking more and more to tales from lands Down Under. Hailing from two sparsely populated nations on the far edge of the former Empire - neighbours that are siblings in spirit, vast...

It is 1953 and Melbourne society is looking forward to coronation season, the grand balls and celebrations for the young queen-to-be. Tilly Dunnage is, however, working for a pittance in a second-rate Collins Street salon. Her talents go unappreciated, and the madame is a bully and a cheat, but Tilly has a past she is desperate to escape and good reason to prefer anonymity. Meanwhile, Sergeant Far...

Tim Flannery’s new book 'The Climate Cure: Solving the Climate Emergency in the Era of Covid-19' marks a change in attitude toward those in government and the lack of action in the fight against climate change. 'The Federal Liberal/National Party is the last blockage in the fight against climate change,' says Tim Flannery. While state governments and local councils are doing gr...

Ground-breaking music educator Dr Anita Collins' new book The Music Advantage draws on the latest international neurological research to reveal the extraordinary and surprising benefits of children learning music. Music plays an important role in brain development that promotes learning, concentration and the ability to persevere with challenging tasks. Gregory Dobbs talks to Anita about the...

Sergeant Nick Chester has dodged the Geordie gangsters he once feared and is out of hiding and looking forward to the quiet life. But gold fever is creating ill feeling between prospectors, and a new threat lurks in the form of trigger-happy Americans preparing for doomsday by building a bolthole in the valley. As tensions simmer, Nick finds himself up against an evil that knows no borders and no...