Good Reading Podcast

Meet Leslie Bird, the irascible matriarch of a big bonkers Bird family, coming-of-age and to the boil, as the secrets and slights that have shaped her and her hapless husband's lives impact their children in the most profound and complex ways. 'Things She Would Have Said Herself' is a darkly funny, deeply moving novel that documents the lengths and breadths one woman will go to, to...

The islands of Prospera lies in a vast ocean in splendid isolation from the rest of humanity, or whatever remains of it. Citizens enjoy privileged lives dedicated to the highest creative ideals. When their life time is up they are despatched to the mysterious island, The Nursery, to be 'reiterated' as a fresh-faced teenagers. Proctor Bennett is a Ferryman, a specialist enforcer whose job...

Meet the Tobin family... Joy is an immigrant who left Ireland with her three children under difficult circumstances. She is a troubled mother who has spent her life running and hiding from her past while trying to raise her children in New Zealand as best she can. Conor, the high-achieving son is a high-profile media figure and CEO. He's walking a fine line between self-promotion and self-det...

This is a story about Clare, Louisa and Chris. And sometimes Paul, and less often, Beth. It is about what to do when your husband tells you that he doesn't love you anymore. And what to do when your wife leaves you after too many rounds of IVF. It's about helping your new friend with her funeral catering business, and discovering that, sometimes, the most unlikely of pairings are the ver...

Kylie Schnabel has a perfectly ordered life - but that's about to be disrupted by one disastrous week. As the eldest child in a single-parent family, Kylie's always had more important things on her mind than smiling for random strangers. Controlling her job, her home, her romantic life and - most importantly - her family takes all her concentration. She's always succeeded, though, b...

The Laughter Effect is a timely reminder that we could all do with a little more lightness in our lives. Ros Ben-Moshe shares the science of laughter and the practical ways to include more of it in our days. Drawing on positive psychology and neuroscience, along with practice and wisdom from humour and laughter therapy, Ros Ben-Moshe offers a new dimension to self-care, elevating mindfulness, grat...

Novelist JB Blackwood is on a cruise with her husband, Patrick, to celebrate their wedding anniversary. For days they sail in the sun. They lie about drinking, reading, sleeping, having sex. Patrick is a legendary film director and JB's one-time professor. Much older than JB, Patrick is a maverick film director and a cult figure - a god in the eyes of many. But now his success is waning while...

In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of studying at Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. M...

Tanya Plibersek was elected to federal parliament aged just twenty-eight, and has lived almost half her life in the public eye. She is the longest-serving woman in Australia’s House of Representatives. But how much do we know about what drives her, what she values, and what we can expect from her next? Margaret Simons draws on exclusive interviews with Plibersek, her political contemporaries, fami...

Centering on St. Joseph's, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, Christine Kenneally shares the stories of survivors who have fought to expose the truth and hold the powerful - many of them Catholic priests and nuns - to account. As these stories have come to light, the laws in Vermont have been forced to change, including the statute of limitations on prosecuting them. Christine also exposes the...

In June 1926, a posse of police officers and white civilians murdered at least twenty Oombulgurri people at Forrest River in the Kimberley. After the massacre, a conspiracy of silence descended. Witnesses vanished. One of the massacre’s perpetrators was Bernard O’Leary, a former soldier whose land holding was known as ‘the underworld’. At the 1927 Royal Commission into the killings, O’Leary was po...

Everyone pays a premium to live in Esperance. The wealthy community of Esperance is picture-perfect. Big houses, stunning views, beautiful people. A brand new running track for the local club to jog around in the evenings. From the outside, it looks like paradise. But the women of the town know the truth: you can hide anything - from wrinkles to secrets from your past - if you have enough money. Y...

The British Navy, the largest in the world, is for the first time in a century under serious threat. World War 1 is imminent. Three very different characters converge to change the course of history. The eminent female archaeologist Gertrude Bell is exploring the ancient treasures of Persia. The charismatic Englishman Jackie Fisher, Admiral of the Fleet, is battling to convince the British Navy to...

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the kerb, and in the blink of an eye five people are dead. It's a rich man's car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals, and calculated political inf...

Chronic pain is a major cause of human suffering. Yet pain that persists for three months or more is often unrelated to any physical injury. So why does it still hurt? Research over the last few decades shows that many of us — sufferers of chronic pain and health practitioners alike — are victims of a trick of the nervous system. Where we believe that pain has its root in a damaged body, it is the...

The Australian Autism Handbook is the go-to guide for parents whose children have been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. It is a practical and comprehensive guide to every aspect of raising an ASD child, including early signs and symptoms, getting a diagnosis, the importance of early intervention, and expert advice on finding your way through the medical maze. This new edition book has b...

The Smash Hits Nick vs The World is the life and times of tennis bad boy Nick Kyrgios. With his unconventional playing style, constant battles with authority, a knack for bad behaviour and an uncontrollable temper, Nick continues to make headlines in sport whether he’s winning or losing. Kyrgios: The Smash Hits celebrates Australia’s ultimate tennis headliner featuring yarns, quotes, interviews an...

Aimee Maguire is about to lose everything because she can’t afford to pay the rent in her Byron Bay alternative book shop. Her engagement is also on an official time-out. Then the arrival of her micro-influencer niece, Freya, sets off a chain of events that ends with Aimee tangled up with a group of influencers-turned-reality TV stars, exposing her to the absolute worst of humanity. There just mig...

A Chinese astronaut is found dead in a NASA training environment in Houston, Texas. No one can explain how he got there. Amid fears of a diplomatic catastrophe, the CIA dispatches Timothy 'Hangman' Blake to investigate a convicted kidnapper who works in the facility. Blake is deeply insane, afflicted by terrible urges he can barely control - but he's also brilliant. A secret Chinese...

In this compelling and comprehensive work, renowned historian Frank Bongiorno presents a social and cultural history of Australia’s political life, from pre-settlement Indigenous systems to the present day. Depicting a parade of dreamers and schemers, Bongiorno surveys moments of political renewal and sheds fresh light on our democratic life. From local pubs and meeting halls to the parliament and...

Growing up Wiradjuri is a collection of personal stories by Wiradjuri Elders. The writers are Uncles and Aunties who came of age in New South Wales in the 1950s and 1960s. In a strong collective voice, they share their stories of the difficulties of marginal life, backbreaking labour and family separation, but also of fond memories of their own Elders, Aunts and Uncles who cared for them and taugh...

'The Passion of Private White' describes the meeting of two worlds: that of the intensely driven anthropologist Neville White, and the world of hunter-gatherer clans in remote northern Australia with whom he has lived and worked for half a century, mapping their culture and history in breathtaking detail. As White began to understand this ancient culture struggling between the demands of...

Tom Keneally is the winner of  the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Society's prize for his story 'Corporal Hitler's Pistol' How did Corporal Hitler's Luger from the First World War end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, New South Wales, in 1933? When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband,...

Katrina Nannestad is the winner of the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Society's prize in the Children and Young Adult category for  Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief It's spring, 1942. In an idyllic Russian village the sky is blue, the air is warm and sweet with the scent of flowers. But it's the height of World War II and the German Army are advancing on the Eastern Front and suddenly an en...

In 'Bear Learns How to be a Rainbow' winter is coming and Bear is feeling sad, lonely and scared. But Bear discovers he can be the sun and as bright as the daylight sky. But what will Bear do when the rainbow disappears and winter arrives? Bear loves eating blueberries and reading. In 'Do Bears Who Eat Blueberries Go Bananas?' Bear reads something that makes him feel worried. T...