Good Reading Podcast

Book talk and author interviews to help you discover your next favourite read.

Tracy Ryan on The Queen’s Apprenticeship

Tracy Ryan on The Queen’s Apprenticeship

Two women from different worlds in Renaissance France cross paths in a way that changes both their lives. One is Marguerite de Navarre, a King’s sister. Powerful, privileged and widely admired, Marguerite must ...
Charlotte Wood on Stone Yard Devotional

Charlotte Wood on Stone Yard Devotional

A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place of her childhood, holing up in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro. She does not believe in God and doesn't ...
Rachelle Unreich on a story of survival in A Brilliant Life

Rachelle Unreich on a story of survival in A Brilliant Life

Over seventy years had passed since Mira Unreich was freed from a concentration camp in Germany. On that spring day in 1945, she found herself alive, against all odds. In the decades that followed, she never ...
Katharine J Adams on the magic of Tonight, I Burn

Katharine J Adams on the magic of Tonight, I Burn

Penny Albright is a daughter of the thorn coven, forced to patrol the veil between the realms of Life and Death. Each night, one thorn witch—and only one—must cross the veil by burning at the stake. Each morning, ...
Quentin Beresford on Rogue Corporations

Quentin Beresford on Rogue Corporations

Crown Resorts, the Bond Group, James Hardie, HIH Insurance, Geoffrey Edelsten’s Allied Medical Group, 7-Eleven, and Rio Tinto, the list goes on… Australia has suffered from a continual sting of business scandals. ...
Andy McNab on an SAS mission in The Rescue

Andy McNab on an SAS mission in The Rescue

It's 2012 and in Northern Afghanistan, an international crisis has erupted. A group of NGO workers have been kidnapped by local insurgents and are now hidden in a winding mountain region. After attempts to ...
Robyn Davidson on time in Unfinished Woman

Robyn Davidson on time in Unfinished Woman

In 1977, twenty-seven-year-old Robyn Davidson set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert to the sea. A life of almost constant travelling followed. From the deserts of Australia, ...
Gail Jones on her prize-winning book, Salonika Burning

Gail Jones on her prize-winning book, Salonika Burning

Salonika Burning by Gail Jones has been announced as the 2023 Historical Novel Society Australasia prize winner in the Adult category. Find out more about the prize and shortlisted titles HERE. Macedonia, ...
Paul Bangay on ‘A Life in Garden Design’

Paul Bangay on ‘A Life in Garden Design’

This illustrated memoir explores the evolution of one of Australia’s finest design minds. A visual delight, it ranges from photos of childhood gardens and goats to hand-drawn plans for Paul’s earliest designs. ...
Val McDermid on DCI Karen Pirie in ‘Past Lying’

Val McDermid on DCI Karen Pirie in ‘Past Lying’

Edinburgh is haunted by the ghosts of its many writers. It is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime. ...
Levi Pinfold on ‘The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac’

Levi Pinfold on ‘The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac’

'The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac' is official companion to the Harry Potter stories. The ultimate compendium of wizarding lists, charts, maps and all things magical! Discover magical places, study wandlore, ...
Molly Schmidt on racism in ‘Salt River Road’

Molly Schmidt on racism in ‘Salt River Road’

Salt River Road is a compelling coming-of-age novel about grief and healing set in a small town in the 1970s. The Tetley siblings’ lives are falling apart after their mother’s death. Left to fend for themselves as ...
Sasha Kutabah Sarago on ‘Gigorou’

Sasha Kutabah Sarago on ‘Gigorou’

Gigorou (jig-goo-roo) means ‘beauty’ or ‘beautiful’ in Jirrbal, the language of Sasha Kutabah Sarago’s grandmother. Growing up, Sasha didn’t feel gigorou. At a young age, she was told, ‘You’re too pretty to be ...
James O’Hanlon on spiders in ‘Silk and Venom’

James O’Hanlon on spiders in ‘Silk and Venom’

There are more than 50 000 species of spiders. They surround us in our daily lives and, contrary to popular belief, the vast majority are completely harmless to humans. James O’Hanlon takes us from his backyard to ...
Anna Funder on a forgotten wife in ‘Wifedom’

Anna Funder on a forgotten wife in ‘Wifedom’

When Anna Funder returned to the work of her literary hero George Orwell looking for escape and inspiration, she began re-reading his books and biographies. Anna Funder uncovered his forgotten wife – and it’s a ...
Susan Duncan on community in ‘Sleepless in Stringybark Bay’

Susan Duncan on community in ‘Sleepless in Stringybark Bay’

When five couples pool their resources to live in a house located where a turquoise lagoon meets the sea, the quirky little offshore community of Cook's Basin is shocked. How will ten people - one in a wheelchair ...
Madonna King on online safety in ‘Saving Our Kids’

Madonna King on online safety in ‘Saving Our Kids’

The crime of sextortion has reached epidemic proportions. Fuelled by both sex offenders and organised scammers it targets our most vulnerable online. Children are some of the internet's most prolific and most naive ...
Deborah Fitzgerald on ‘Her Sunburnt Country’

Deborah Fitzgerald on ‘Her Sunburnt Country’

Many Australians know lines from Dorothea Mackellar’s classic poem ‘My Country’ by heart. However, very little has been written about the poet’s extraordinary life. From her childhood and youth in Sydney’s Point ...
Kirsty Manning on trauma in ‘The Hidden Book’

Kirsty Manning on trauma in ‘The Hidden Book’

Spanish fighter and photographer Mateo Baca is imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, 1944. He is ordered to process images of the camp and inmates for photo books being made for top Nazi ...
Wendy Holden on young Diana in ‘The Princess’

Wendy Holden on young Diana in ‘The Princess’

Britain, 1961: the beautiful blonde baby Diana is born to Viscount Althorp, heir to the Spencer earldom. However, Diana grows up amid the fallout of her parents’ messy divorce. She struggles at school but finds ...
Otto English on the myths of ‘Fake Heroes’

Otto English on the myths of ‘Fake Heroes’

From the author of Fake History, comes a shocking yet hilarious look at 10 of the greatest liars from our past. Otto English examines these previously unquestioned idols and exposes what they were trying to ...
Roger Simpson on Dr Jane Halifax

Roger Simpson on Dr Jane Halifax

A near-fatal car accident has left Jane Halifax in a coma. When she wakes, she has no idea who she is. Initially comforted by unlikely spectres from past cases, Jane is unaware of everyone else’s concerns: the ...
Kate Mildenhall on ‘The Hummingbird Effect’

Kate Mildenhall on ‘The Hummingbird Effect’

One of the lucky few with a job during the Depression, Peggy’s just starting out in life. She’s a bagging girl at the Angliss meatworks, a place buzzing with life as well as death, where the gun slaughterman Jack ...
Peter Papathanasiou on a sinister road trip in ‘The Pit’

Peter Papathanasiou on a sinister road trip in ‘The Pit’

Bob is sixty-five years old, confined to a Perth nursing home. But thirty years ago, he killed a man in the remote northern Kimberley mining region. He offers to show Sparrow where the body is, but there's a catch: ...