Good Reading Podcast

Daryl Van Tongeren has been researching social psychology and the virtue of humility for over ten years. As the first book on humility in the field of psychology, Humble is a milestone in the exploration of the benefits of humility to the individual and to society. This remarkable book shares the foundational research and new ideas about why humility is important, how to nurture it for personal an...

Things are getting messy for Stella Prentice: her husband is away; she's juggling a full-time job with family that includes a demanding four-year-old and a tricky stepdaughter. Stella reluctantly hires an au pair in the hope that she will help lighten the load. Elise, a staunch feminist and Stella's mother-in-law thinks this is a terrible idea but promises not to meddle. Ava, the much-an...

Sam Vincent was a twenty-something writer working in Canberra when he gets a call from his mother – his father has got his hand caught in a wood chipper. When Sam returns to the family farm to help out, it is the beginning of a process that leads him to think differently about the farm, his father and his relationship with both. Sam's farming apprenticeship is an education in grit and shit bu...

Vince Reid left the small town of Manson a decade ago, promising never to return. But now an insurance company wants him to investigate a claim on a suspicious car crash and he is forced to relive all that drove him away from the place he grew up. As Reid's investigation unfolds, nothing is as it seems: rumours are swirling about the popular woman who crashed the car, killing her husband - th...

In August 1925, Audrey Jacob shot dead her former fiance Cyril Gidley in full view of hundreds of guests at a charity ball in Perth's Government House. This was supposed to be an open shut case of wilful murder – until lawyer Arthur Haynes is assigned to her defence. Haynes' ability to find the right legal angle and to play the press and the jury, led to a sensational result.  In this ep...

Teacher and single Mum Alex is escaping the city in search of new start with her young daughter; Bellbird River matriarch Victoria finds herself at a crossroads when globe-trotting, opera-singing cousin Gabrielle moves back home; town baker and Bellbird River fixture, Janine is confronting her past and her present; and newcomer Debbie is trying to leave a painful past behind and create something n...

Jason Bourne has faced many killers in his time but none more dangerous than the assassin that calls himself Lennon. Bourne believes this elusive killer has a new employer called the Pyramid. The only clue to the group's agenda is a young German woman whose identity turns out to be a lie and who now lies dead in a Washington D.C. Park. Finding the truth about this woman may be Bourne's o...

To the first European colonists, Australian wildlife was bewildering. Marsupials, monotremes and the vast array of birds and snakes were strange and hostile. A bustling animal trade soon developed in both directions. While rabbits, foxes and starlings were unleashed on the Australian landscape, native animals soon found themselves as stuffed or live specimens in zoos and private collections around...

As liberating Allied forces surged towards Paris following the D-Day landings of 1944 a group of downed airmen were being held in the infamous Fresnes Prison. Amid great secrecy, 168 airmen – including several from Australia and New Zealand – were evacuated to the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, accompanied by orders for their execution. At Buchenwald they witnessed such extreme depravity...

Meet Carol, Sofia and Bonnie whose lives have been intertwined since primary school. Their hopes, dreams and heartaches have been shared for decades. Through the observant eyes of journalist Melissa, we witness the pressures that threaten to unravel some long-held secrets that have never been shared.  Together they are the Tap Cats, a Queensland-based tap-dancing group facing unexpected challenges...

Young journalist Jules Roth is handed an intriguing assignment: to find a painting stolen by the Nazis 75 years ago. Little does she know that ruthless art dealer and powerful heiress, Margaux de Laurent, is on the same mission. De Laurent gets everything she wants and has the money and resources to back it up. Their goal is to locate Ernst Engel's expressionist masterpiece that has deep fami...

Dean is a small-time thief funding a drug habit. Sarah is a junior police officer on extended stress leave. Mary, a former school teacher, is an alcoholic living on the edge. Their paths cross at the local leagues club when Dean's grand plan for an armed robbery comes undone. Now irreversibly linked, each must decide who to betray, who to trust and who to protect. What they choose to do will...

Twenty years ago, Cyrus Haven's family was murdered by his paranoid schizophrenic brother Elias. Now Elias is being released from a secure psychiatric hospital and the question of forgiveness is on Cyrus' mind. As Cyrus prepares for the Elias' homecoming two women go missing and one man is dead. Evie Cormac, now the ward of Cyrus, has an incredible gift for spotting a liar and witne...

In Telltale , Carmel Bird seizes on the enforced isolation of the pandemic to re-read a rich library of books from her past and to reconnect with people, time, place, myth, image and the whole experience of her writing life. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Carmel Bird about the reading rules she set for herself during pandemic lockdowns, how an early memory was sparked by a fascination with...

A discarded nineteenth century painting depicting a magnificent horse and its proud black groom is the starting point for Geraldine Brooks' deep dive into one of the darkest periods in American history.  Kentucky 1850. Enslaved groom Jarret, forges a close bond with a foal that will carry it to the highest echelons of thoroughbred racing in America. On the eve of the Civil War an itinerant yo...

In 1977 Vera 'Toddie' Hays and Florice 'Beezie' Bessire thought they were about to embark on the trip of a lifetime when Vera's nephew Vern Jr made them an unbelievable offer: drive a camper van from Stuttgart to Bombay and finally to Australia. Little did they know the van was packed with two tonnes of hashish. Betrayed is the fascinating inside story of Toddie and Beezie...

In the 1990s Phil Barker left the male-dominated world of the Daily Telegraph to work on magazines such as NW and Woman's Day . It was the golden age of Australian magazines with circulation at an all-time high. But along came the internet. A failure to deal with the challenges of the digital world saw a once great industry fall into decline. In Axed! Who Killed Australian Magazines , Phil Ba...

A violent workplace attack nearly 30 years ago left Wendy Davis with trauma that has permeated her entire life. The police investigation at the time was woefully inadequate and Wendy found herself virtually ignored while the perpetrator faced only relatively minor consequences. Despite being plagued by anger and guilt, Wendy tried to bury the incident and move on with her life. The experience resu...

Dr John Tickell is a medical doctor, health researcher and author who has spent decades studying the health and longevity of people around the world. His formula of Activity, Coping and Eating, draws on his medical experience, extensive international research, and the lifestyle patterns of the longest living people on earth. Your Best Immunity: Build Resistance the ACE Way is your guide maintainin...

Adam Bowman, a second-string journalist at a Sydney newspaper, may be the only person with enough inside knowledge to uncover the links between a murder on the grounds of a private school and the notorious 'Blue Moon Killer'. But Bowman will have to venture into the darkest places of his childhood to piece together a series of shocking crimes. Detective Sergeant Rose Riley is part of the...

Margaret Cunneen worked for 30 years as a Crown Prosecutor on cases involving murder, pedophiles and rapists and became a specialist in child sexual assault law. In 2019 Margaret took up practise as a defence counsel. The Boxing Butterfly is Margaret Cunneen looking in the rear-view mirror. It chronicles an eventful career which included cases such as the Skafs gang rapes, the Robert “Dolly” Dunn...

Carolina Fonçeca is a lonely sixteen-year-old girl confined to a remote Brazilian sugar plantation in the 1850s. Her life changes when the French explorer, naturalist and diplomat, the Count de Castelnau stumbles out of the Amazon rainforest, delirious and near death. With a head full of Balzac and dreams of Parisian life, she nurses him back to health and makes the decision to follow him back to...

Austria, 1936. Esther Simpson works for a British organisation that rescues academics from the cruel Fascist and anti-Semitic regimes taking hold in Europe. On a dangerous trip to Vienna, Esther falls in love with Harry Singer, a young Jewish academic and musician. When Harry is detained on the Isle of Man while waiting for news of his parents, Esther pleads with the government for his release. Wh...

By the age of twenty-five, Sophie Cachia was a happily married mother and digital marketing expert with a very successful business powered by by documenting her every move online. Then, in a single moment, everything changed. Sophie met a woman who prompted her to question her own life and relationship. 'And Then There Was Her' is a frank and deeply honest memoir, documenting Sophie&apos...

May 1915. As war rages in Europe, Australian nurse, Sister Cora Barker, leaves her home in Adelaide for England, determined to make her own contribution. She arrives at Harefield House – a stately home donated by its expatriate Australian owners. There she helps transform it into a hospital that is also a little piece of home for recuperating Australian soldiers. As casualties mount, the hospital...