Good Reading Podcast

The day after the 2015 Paris terror attacks, twenty-eight-year-old Canadian Jamil Jivani opened the newspaper to find that the men responsible were familiar to him. He didn’t know them, but the communities they grew up in and the challenges they faced mirrored the circumstances of his own life. His book, 'Why Young Men' traces Jivani’s education as an activist fighting one of today’s mos...

‘It was cathartic, it was sad, it was humbling, it was joyful. I feel very exposed. But I don’t regret it.’ – Bernadette Agius on writing 'I’m Staying at Richard’s,' a heartwarming memoir on the joys and challenges of raising a son with Down syndrome. In this episode, Bernadette breaks down misconceptions, shares some hilarious memories (like that time Richard unwrapped the entire family...

When she was a young girl, author and animal rights advocate Ondine Sherman wrote a letter to the editor of Animal Liberation magazine vowing that she would dedicate her life and career to improving the lives of animals. In 2019, she has more than made good on that promise, having co-founded the Australian animal protection institute, Voiceless, and published the Animal Allies series, a collection...

Join Emma Harvey as she chats with the cover star of our September issue, Philippa Gregory, about her spectacular new series that exchanges the prosperity of the royal courts for the tidal marshes of 15th century Southern England. 'Tidelands' by Philippa Gregory: bit.ly/2ZN90eZBuy any book from Booktopia this month and get FREE access to the digital edition of Good Reading: bit.ly/2jVr7j...

Paullina Simons fans have been waiting in eager anticipation for another book from the prolific and internationally bestselling author of the Tatiana and Alexander series. Now she’s rolling out three at once. In this episode, hosted by Emma Harvey, Paullina shares memories of growing up in Leningrad, drinking raspberry moonshine, and challenging readers' expectations in her genre-defying new...

On Christmas Day in 1957, Ngarrindjeri man Joe Trevorrow admitted his 13-month old son, Bruce, to Adelaide Hospital. Within days, Bruce was living with another family, and Joe would never see his son again. In his new book'A Stolen Life: The Bruce Trevorrow Case',writer and politician Tony Buti meticulously and empathetically chronicles the story of Australia’s first and only successful...

Last year, Melbourne co-authors Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus enchanted readers everywhere with their hilarious debut rom-com 'The Book Ninja'. Now the powerpair are back to chat about their new book, 'While You Were Reading,' a warm and witty tale of friendship, first dates and beloved second-hand books. In this episode, Ali and Michelle talk to gr's Emma Harvey about balan...

What was life really like in the early years of the colony of Botany Bay? Upon arrival, convicts and free settlers faced the perils of an unknown continent, thousands of miles from home and with a very uncertain future. This new Australian history shines a light on the illness, the chaos, the delusion and the terror experienced by everyone who arrived on these shores. Gregory Dobbs talks to James...

Katherine Rundell has tiptoed along tightropes, piloted small planes, illegally strutted across the rooftops of Oxford, galloped through herds of zebras in Zimbabwe and hunted for tasty piranhas in the Amazon. The Costa Award-winning author tells Angus Dalton how her daring adventures inspire her children’s novels including The Explorer and her new book about a daring heist in 1920s New York, The...

When he was ten years old, Armando Lucas Correa’s grandmother told him: ‘Cuba is going to pay very dearly for what they did to the Jewish refugees.’ She was referring specifically to the 1939 voyage of the St. Louis, an ocean liner that transported 937 Jewish refugees out of Nazi Germany to Havana, Cuba. Upon their arrival, the Cuban government refused to accept the passengers, and the United Stat...

In 1994, location scout Claire Montgomery is trying to secure permission to shoot a TV show at a historic art deco cinema near a country town in Northern Queensland. In 1950, we meet Lena Lee, an ambitious Hollywood actress holding out for bigger roles and better characters, who is challenged by the male-dominated film industry and a scandalous affair. In her decade-spanning new novel The Cinema a...

Two hundred years from now, people are migrating en masse to the poles to escape soaring temperatures. Fifteen-year-old Finch lives with his father in a near-deserted coasted town south of Sydney. Soon they must follow the great migration south, but before they go, a newly arrived couple become a point of infatuation for young Finch. Craig Ensor's The Warming is a beautifully written story ab...

Crossings, the novel billed as the most daring debut in decades, is made up of three compelling stories: a letter written by lyric poet Charles Baudelaire to an illiterate young girl, a noir romance story in wartime Paris that begins in a graveyard and a tale about a woman with paranormal powers. They all weave together to create a stunningly imaginative story about seven lifetimes and two souls....

The so-called 'discovery' of Australia's world famous fauna is overwhelmingly associated with European men like John Gould and Joseph Banks. But Indigenous Australians had been living alongside these animals for tens of thousands of years, and it was their sophisticated zoological knowledge that allowed European naturalists to bring the attention of the world to Australia's biz...

When nomadic Irish author James Delargy experienced the Western Australian outback, something about the landscape enthralled and terrified him. He channelled that awe into 55, a new thriller with a terrifying premise. Two men turn up to a police station with the exact same story of being kidnapped by a serial killer - and each accuses the other of being the murderer. Angus Dalton chats with James...

If you’ve ever wondered just what Bitcoin is and why you should care about it then Finn Brunton’s new book, Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, And Technologists Who Built Cryptocurrency, is essential reading for the modern citizen. Gregory Dobbs talks to Finn about the genius and the madness behind the development of cryptocurrency.

The True Story of Maddie Bright by Mary-Rose MacColl follows a young serving girl on Prince Edward’s 1920 tour of Australia, a journalist hunting a story that could rock the literary world, and a reclusive elderly woman in Brisbane with secrets to keep. Mary-Rose MacColl joins Angus Dalton to talk about celebrity, the royals, why lost infants often show up in her stories, and how a baby crow came...

In Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak, there are five Dunbar brothers living a chaotic suburban existence alongside a border collie, a cat, a pigeon, a mule and a furious goldfish named after the King of Men. Their father, the Murderer, has fled, and their mother, the Mistake Maker, is dead. The Book Thief author joins Angus Dalton to talk about the decade it took to write Bridge of Clay, his reverenc...

The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone is a sharply written literary mystery infused with nostalgia that leaves its readers guessing. Journalist and author Felicity McLean joins Angus Dalton to talk 90s cuisine, the art of ghostwriting, Australian Gothic, and which iconic Aussie actor accidentally catalysed the writing of her novel. Listen on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2NGVDYKListen on Google Podcasts: bit.ly...

As an award-winning writer and a professor working in the realm of pharmacology and medical research, Susan Hurley has been published in both literary magazines and medical research journals. She joins the Good Reading podcast to tell Angus Dalton about her life-saving research, the realms of medicine and biotechnology, and a medical trial that sparked the idea for her new thriller, Eight Lives. L...

Now the author of four novels who works in one of Australia's biggest publishing houses among blockbuster titles like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Boy Swallows Universe, Matt Howard never planned to make a life surrounded by books. In this episode of the Good Reading podcast, Angus Dalton pays a visit to Matt's office to talk about his latest novel, The Time is Now Monica Spar...

There's a war on truth, and the liars are winning. So goes the warning of veteran investigative journalist Stephen Davis about the state of our media landscape. In his new book, Truthteller, Stephen reveals the 'toolbox' of methods used by governments and corporations to mislead the public and dodge accountability. Here he tells Angus Dalton fascinating stories from his life as a jo...

Chocolate serves as a muse for many a writer, but did you know that the arrival of the delicious elixir in England catalysed a movement towards a more literate, engaged and sober society? For this episode of the Good Reading Podcast, historical fiction author Karen Brooks joins Angus Dalton to tell us more about chocolate's transformation of 17th-century London and her new novel, The Chocolat...

In her first book for adults since 2004, 'Gravity is the Thing', treasured children's author Jaclyn Moriarty writes about a mysterious self-help book called 'The Guidebook' that is sent to selected mailboxes one chapter at a time. Jaclyn joins Angus Dalton in this episode to talk about getting sucked in to self-help, why she would like an external committee to be in contro...

Archivist and curator Vanessa Finney unearths Australia's earliest natural history photographs in Capturing Nature, her new book that reveals how scientific photography began at the Australian museum. From tiny inch-long fish to whale skeletons as long as buses, the museum's camera captured thousands of extraordinary images that have never been seen by the public. Angus Dalton heads to t...