Good Reading Podcast
Episodes
399 episodes
Dr Barbara Lemon on a unique record of Australian history in, 'The Memory Tapes'
The Memory Tapes is a new podcast from the National Library of Australia that brings history to life through the voices of the people who lived it. Drawing on one of the nation’s most significant oral history collections, the series explores re...
Elisabeth Storrs on her heart-breaking story of love and war in, 'Fables and Lies'
World War II Berlin. Freyja Bremer, a patriotic museum assistant, marries Kaspar Voigt, an ambitious SS scholar, to protect her father. Yet she is unaware her husband is instrumental in Himmler’s twisted quest for Aryan supremacy. As she strive...
Danielle Binks on war, friendship and finding common ground in 'Shakespeare in the Orchard'
Langwarrin, Victoria, 1914. The whole world is at war. In Langwarrin on the Mornington Peninsula, fourteen-year-old Jack Thorning is the best marksman in military cadet training. His brother, Matt, taught him everything he knew, after their fat...
Warren Rankine on childhood trauma and finding your feet in 'Fifteen Feet Tall'
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 Warre...
James O'Loghlin on mesothelioma and friendship in 'The Accidental Activist'
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 pai...
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Justine Hausheer on the fight against extinction in 'The Vanishing Wild'
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. H...
Jess Kitching on love, loss and new beginnings in, 'The Secrets of Strangers'
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. ...
Kerry Jewell on her compelling, candid and darkly funny novel, 'A Little Unwell'
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 m...
Martin McKenzie-Murray on the shadow world of first responders in 'Sirens'
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...
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Luke Taylor on Peter Marralwanga, Painter of the Djang of Western Arnhem Land
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 p...
Jane Messer on her compelling memoir, 'Raven Mother: War, family and inheritance'
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 unders...
Theresa Miller on stepping up to the microphone and making an impact in 'Speak Up'
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 concisel...
Vikki Petraitis on a forty-year-old true crime mystery in, 'The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron'
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, Vivie...
Debra Dank on family, culture, connection and the power of memory in 'Ankami'
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 co...
Aaron Tait on his journey from war to peace in 'Far Horizons'
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 ...
Vicki Bennett on her story of love, war, and intergenerational healing, 'The Letters'
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 famil...
Chris Blake on his gripping crime thriller set on New Zealand's wild west coast, 'Softly Calls the Devil'
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 keep...
Henry Reynolds’ ground-breaking re-examination of Australian colonisation from the top down, in 'Looking From the North'
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 r...
Amra Pajalic on her thrilling Balkan war murder mystery, 'Time Kneels Between Mountains'
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 ...
Joanna Nell on her heart-warming story celebrating life and love in, 'The Funeral Crashers'
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 ecc...
Suzanne Leal on her Historical Novel Society Australasia 2025 award-winning novel for young readers, 'The Year We Escaped'
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 plac...
Tasma Walton and Robbie Arnott on their Historical Novel Society Australasia 2025 award-winning novels
'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...
Katie Edmiston from Queensland State Library on 'How do you Library?'
"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 p...
Garry Disher on the fifth in the Hirsch crime thriller series, 'Mischance Creek'
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, ...
Inga Simpson and Tannya Harricks their new picture book for children, 'The Peach King'
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 gr...
