In this month’s Book Club episode, Julia Gillard and her co-host Sarah Holland-Batt explore Highway 13 by internationally acclaimed Australian author Fiona McFarlane.

The award-winning book is a series of loosely connected short stories focusing on the lives of everyday people who have all been affected by a single serial killer in a small Australian town.

Paul Biga is arrested and charged over the brutal murders of at least a dozen backpackers and hitchhikers along an Australian highway in the 1990s.

The reverberations of his crimes stretch far and wide, with McFarlane delving into the past and the future, and across continents, to explore the impact on those with strong links to the killer, as well as those with an interest in the case.

Julia and Sarah discuss how the book connects to real life cases and places and which stories left the biggest impression on them .

Show notes:

Highway 13 is published by Allen & Unwin and available in most good book shops.

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In this episode Julia Gillard sits down with former New Zealand Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern.

Jacinda was just 37 years old when she was elected Prime Minister, and a few months later became the second leader in history to give birth while in office, when she welcomed her daughter Neve.

This year Jacinda published her memoir - A Different Kind of Power - an aptly named book for someone who always pushed back against stereotypes and assumptions about what leadership is, and asked the question, what if kindness came first? 

In this conversation Julia and Jacinda discuss their experiences as women leaders, Jacinda’s journey to the Prime Ministership and what life looks like for her now post-politics.

Show notes:

A Different Kind of Power is published by Penguin and is available at all good bookstores.

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In a special Book Club episode, Julia Gillard sits down with Global Institute for Women’s Leadership Chair Professor Michelle Ryan to discuss The Book of Guilt by New Zealand author Catherine Chidgey.

The Book of Guilt is a deeply unsettling exploration of autonomy, identity, and morality.

It’s set in an alternate England in 1979 – where Hitler’s assassination in 1943 led to a negotiated peace and a chillingly different trajectory for post-war Britain.

The story follows three identical boys: Vincent, William, and Lawrence, who are the last remaining residents of a bleak, run-down state children’s institution. 

The boys are part of a mysterious government project, called The Sycamore Scheme, subjected to meticulous routines, daily medication, and round-the-clock surveillance.

In a conversation recorded at GIWL at ANU in Canberra, Julia and Michelle discuss the book’s twists and turns, and how it explores humankind’s treatment of those deemed “the other’.

Show notes:

The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey is published by Penguin Books and is available at all good bookstores.

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When Katherine Bennell-Pegg was in high school, she was asked to write down three career options to pursue. She wrote down one - astronaut.

Last year, she not only fulfilled that ambition but she made history in doing so, becoming Australia’s first female astronaut and the first person to qualify as an astronaut under the Australian flag.

For this episode, Julia met Katherine at the Australian Space Agency in Adelaide, where the mother-of-two is the Director of Space Technology.

They discussed the intense training she’s undergone, her passion to progress action on global issues like climate change, the importance of diversity in space and why space travel is worth the risks.

Show notes:

Learn more about Katherine Bennell-Pegg and the work of the Australian Space Agency:

https://www.space.gov.au/Katherine-Bennell-Pegg

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In this month's Book Club episode, Julia Gillard and her co-host Kathy Lette discuss Tell Me Everything, the latest novel by Pulitzer Prize winning author Elizabeth Strout.

Tell Me Everything is Strout's 10th novel, and it returns readers to the fictional town of Crosby, Maine - where several of her novels have taken place. It also features many of the characters from her previous books, including Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge.

In this story, the town lawyer Bob Burgess takes on a case defending a man suspected of killing his own mother. But, as Julia and Kathy discuss, the case is only one part of a sprawling story that examines love, grief, family, the importance of friendship and everyone’s search to find meaning in their life.

Show notes:

Tell Me Everything is published by Penguin and is available in all good bookstores.

Learn more about Kathy Lette at https://www.kathylette.com/

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In this live event recording Julia sits down with the UK's Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities Bridget Phillipson. 

In a wide-ranging conversation, they reflect on her journey from a working-class upbringing in Sunderland and running a domestic abuse refuge, to becoming a Cabinet Minister in the first Labour government for 14 years.

The pair discuss the state of gender equality today, tackling misogyny and violence against women and girls, and emerging divisions between young men and women on gender roles and women's rights.

They are later joined by Kelly Beaver, Chief Executive of Ipsos UK and Ireland, to discuss the latest findings from a global study of attitudes towards gender equality, carried out jointly by Ipsos and the Global Institute for Women's Leadership.

Show notes:

To learn more about the latest research by IPSOS and GIWL head to https://www.ipsos.com/en/international-womens-day-2025

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In this Book Club episode, Julia Gillard and her cohost Sarah Holland-Batt dive into Audition, the latest novel from Katie Kitamura.

Audition follows an unnamed actress as she rehearses a play that blurs the lines between performance and personal history. When a mysterious young man appears, claiming to be her son, she’s drawn into a spiral of uncertainty that challenges her sense of self and reality.

Together, Julia and Sarah unpack the novel’s themes of identity, motherhood, and the shifting boundaries between truth and fiction. They explore how the story's psychologically rich but uncanny style highlights the tension between who we are and who the world asks us to be.

Join us for a thoughtful discussion on power, performance, and the quiet ways women resist being written into roles they didn’t choose.

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Cheng Lei was riding high in a successful career as a news anchor in China when her life changed in an instant. 

Lei is a Chinese born Australian citizen and mother of two, who spent more than three years detained in a Beijing prison after being wrongly accused of illegally supplying state secrets. 

In this emotional and candid conversation, Julia and Lei delve into her early life in China and then Melbourne, her exciting journalism career around Asia and the ordeal that changed her and her family’s lives forever. 

Show notes

Cheng Lei’s book A Memoir of Freedom is published by Harper Collins and is available at all good bookstores.

Her documentary Cheng Lei: My Story is available via Sky News.

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In this month’s book club episode Julia Gillard and Kathy Lette discuss Fundamentally, by Nussaibah Younis. 

It’s the British author’s debut novel and it follows the story of Nadia Amin - an academic disowned by her mother and dumped by her long-term partner, who accepts a job with the United Nations in Iraq to rehabilitate ISIS women so their home countries will take them back.

While struggling to get the program off the ground amidst the opaque world of international aid, Nadia meets Sara, a fellow Londoner who was radicalised when she was just 15 years old.

Julia and Kathy delve into the book’s dark humour and complex characters, and its exploration of faith, identity and family.

Fundamentally is published by Orion, an imprint of Hachette Australia.

https://www.hachette.com.au/nussaibah-younis/fundamentally-shortlisted-for-the-2025-womens-prize-for-fiction

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In this episode of Julia's Book Club, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt delve into Theory & Practice by Australian author, Michelle de Kretser.

Short-listed for the Stella Prize, the seventh novel from the Miles Franklin winner tells the story of a first generation immigrant from Sri Lanka living in Melbourne in the 1980s.

The young academic is writing a thesis on Virginia Woolf, who this podcast is named in honour of, when she begins a love affair with a man who is in a "deconstructed relationship".

Part fiction, part essay, Julia and Sarah explore the themes of feminism, class, jealousy, maternal relationships and how to cope when the failings of those we most admire come to light.

Theory & Practice is published in Australia by Text Publishing.

https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/theory-practice

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