Good Reading Podcast

When Anna Funder returned to the work of her literary hero George Orwell looking for escape and inspiration, re-reading his books and biographies, Anna Funder uncovered his forgotten wife – and it’s a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work and her practical nous saved his life. But why – and how – was she absent from the story? Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer – and what it is to be a wife.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Anna Funder about writing a 'counter-fiction' to those presented by George Orwell's earlier biographers and their 'fiction of omission' and why Orwell the artist and Orwell the man may be entirely different.

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 and one with a hauntingly familiar face - survive where the only way in or out is by boat? When a member of the household is found floating face down in the bay, the police insist the death was accidental but the bizarre circumstances have locals scratching their heads. Former journalist turned café owner Kate Jackson is curious to discover why a group of retirees in their late seventies would choose such an isolated location. Then a throw-away line in an old magazine story leads to shocking revelations.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Susan Duncan about why everyone is so happy in the boat-only access hamlet of Cook's Basin, and how the continuity of life and character throughout her stories explores the fragility of love and relationships and the healing power of kindness.

The crime of sextortion has reached epidemic proportions, fuelled by both sex offenders and organised scammers targeting our most vulnerable online. Children are some of the internet's most prolific and most naive users, and increasing numbers are finding themselves caught in an evil web of networked manipulators.

Up to 70 percent of all new sexual exploitation content online is victim-produced, and much of it follows the same script and the abuser then blackmails their victim - for money or for more content. It's a script well-known to Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, who, for three decades, headed up Taskforce Argos, the expert arm of Queensland Police dedicated to hunting down online predators and rescuing children from abuse. In collaboration with Rouse, Madonna King tells the story of their investigations, from undercover cases to operations on a global scale, exploring what makes a victim and what makes an abuser, and distils the work that goes into bringing down perpetrators.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Madonna King about how 'sextortion' works and why it differs between boys and girls, Madonna explains the detailed and time-consuming work it takes to track down a predator, and how we must all begin that difficult conversation in order to foster greater awareness.

Many Australians know lines from Dorothea Mackellar’s classic poem ‘My Country’ by heart, very little has been written about the poet’s extraordinary life. From her childhood and youth in Sydney’s Point Piper and Pittwater, to discovering her love for the Australian landscape on her brother’s farm in Gunnedah, Dorothea engaged with the intellectual elite of Sydney and abroad as she embarked on a decades long literary career that saw her linked to some of the leading lights of her day.

Battling against a masculine tradition of Australian bush poetry led by Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, Dorothea Mackellar boldly carved out a place for herself, leaving an indelible mark on the Australian imagination. Now, for the first time, the poet's unconventional life story is told – a hidden gem of Australian history, and a tale of one woman’s extraordinary passion for her poetry, her family, and her country.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Deborah Fitzgerald about the boon and the burden of Dorothea Mackellar's most famous verse and the deep feeling she harboured for Australia and its landscape, and the remarkable contribution Dorothea Mackellar made to Australian literature.

Imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, 1944, Spanish fighter and photographer Mateo Baca is ordered to process images of the camp and inmates for a handful of photo books being made for presentation to top Nazi figures. Just five books in total, but Mateo manages to make a secret sixth book and, with the help of a local woman, Lena Lang, it remains hidden until the end of the war.

Seventy-five years later, thirteen-year-old Hannah Campbell's Yugoslavian grandfather, Nico Antonov, arrives in Australia to visit his family, and one of the gifts he brings with him is an intriguing-looking parcel wrapped in a flour sack, which Roza, Hannah's mother, quickly hides. Later, Hannah sneaks off in search for the mysterious package. She is horrified to find in it a photo book full of ghastly historical photographs of a terrible place full of people suffering. At first Hannah has little context for what she sees, but over the years, as she experiences love, grief and trauma, she understands what these photos came to mean, for herself, her freedom and for those who risked their lives to 'bear witness' to history. 

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Kirsty Manning about the role of the Mauthausen concentration camp in the Nazi regime's grand plan, the way Kirsty's research leads her to distil real people into fascinating characters, and how the the trauma of war filters down through generations, altering the course of their lives.

Britain, 1961: the beautiful blonde baby Diana is born to Viscount Althorp, heir to the Spencer earldom. But Diana grows up amid the fallout of her parents’ messy divorce. She struggles at school but finds refuge through romantic novels. She dreams of falling in love and being rescued by a handsome prince.

In royal circles, there is concern about the Prince of Wales. Charles is nearing thirty and the right girl needs to be found, fast. She must be young, aristocratic and completely free of past liaisons. Pure and innocent.

Eighteen-year-old Diana Spencer is just about the only candidate. Her yearning to be loved dovetails with royal desperation for a bride. But the route to the altar is perilous. There are hidden dangers. Ruthless schemers. Can Diana’s romantic dream survive?

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Wendy Holden about creating a voice for the young Diana Spencer, the characters both real and imagined that brought Diana Spencer and Charles together, and the role the British press played in this fractured fairytale.

From the author of 'Fake History', comes a shocking yet hilarious look at ten of the greatest liars from our past, examining these previously unquestioned idols and exposing what they were trying to hide.

Whether it's virtuous leaders in just wars, martyrs sacrificing all for a cause, or innovators changing the world for the better, down the centuries supposedly great men and women have risen to become household names, saints and heroes. But just how deserving are they of their reputations?

Exploring everything from Captain Scott's reckless hunt for glory and Andy Warhol's flagrant thievery to Coco Chanel's murky Nazi past, Otto English dives into the hidden lives of some of history's most recognisable names. Scrutinising figures from the worlds of art, politics, business, religion and royalty, he brings to light the murkier truths they would rather have kept buried away, at the same time as celebrating the unsung heroes lost to time.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Otto English about the narrative arc of the hero that all these candidates share, the JFK post-assassination myth constructed by Jacqueline Kennedy, the revolutionary Che Guevara who turned out to be a brutal murderer, and the curious case of the Bunyip aristocracy that Australia narrowly avoided.

A near-fatal car accident has left Jane 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 police who believe she was deliberately run off the road; a lawyer whose files were in her car at the time of the accident – files he should never have lent her; her neurosurgeon who fears a relapse; and her partner, Tim, who has to cope with the fact Jane remembers almost nothing of the last two years – including their relationship.

A young woman called Luna keeps luring Jane back to the present. Linked to a thirty-year cold case from Jane’s past, Luna has a quest of her own she can only solve with Jane’s help. But if Jane wants to help Luna, she first needs to heal herself, and there just might be reasons beyond the accident that are hampering Jane’s recovery.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Roger Simpson about delving into the character of Dr Jane Halifax, the frightening prospect of amnesia and Jane's pathway to recovery, and the layers of complexity that make this story critical to understanding Jane Halifax, forensic psychiatrist.

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 has caught her eye – and she his.

How is her life connected to Hilda’s, almost a hundred years later, locked inside during a plague, or La’s, further on again, a singer working shifts in a warehouse as her eggs are frozen and her voice is used by AI bots? Let alone Maz, far removed in time, diving for remnants of a past that must be destroyed? Is it by the river that runs through their stories, eternal yet constantly changing – or by the mysterious Hummingbird Project, and the great question of whether the march of progress can ever be reversed?

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Kate Mildenhall about bringing historical fiction and speculative fiction together to create great stories, how playing with AI and ChatGPT led to insights into what ChatGPT can do, and how working with different literary elements led her to the creation of new structures.

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: Sparrow must travel north with him under the guise of being his carer. They are accompanied on the drive by another nursing home resident: Luke, thirty years old, paralysed in a motorbike accident. As they embark on their road trip through the guts of Western Australia, pursued by outback police and adrenaline-soaked miners, Sparrow begins to suspect that Bob's desire to head north may have sinister motivations. Is Luke being held against his will? And what lies in store for them when they reach their goal?

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Peter Papathanasiou about his affection for road trip stories and what confined spaces can to do a character, how his characters are always more than they appear to be, how the intersection between the Australian outback and the mining industry cultivates a 'do or die' mentality.