Good Reading Podcast

Aimee Maguire is about to lose everything because she can’t afford to pay the rent in her Byron Bay alternative book shop. Her engagement is also on an official time-out. Then the arrival of her micro-influencer niece, Freya, sets off a chain of events that ends with Aimee tangled up with a group of influencers-turned-reality TV stars, exposing her to the absolute worst of humanity. There just might be a silver lining somewhere, amid the chaos, but Aimee needs to embrace the one thing she’s been fighting hard – change.

This is a story of the cashed-up celebs, desperate wannabes, cranky Karens and cringeworthy hashtags – everything we love and hate about reality TV – that's 'The Hemsworth Effect'

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to James Weir about why satire is the only way to write about reality TV, how 'The Hemsworth Effect' really is changing lives in and around Byron bay, and how even a 'Byron Karen' can learn to move with the times.

A Chinese astronaut is found dead in a NASA training environment in Houston, Texas. No one can explain how he got there. Amid fears of a diplomatic catastrophe, the CIA dispatches Timothy 'Hangman' Blake to investigate a convicted kidnapper who works in the facility. Blake is deeply insane, afflicted by terrible urges he can barely control - but he's also brilliant. A secret Chinese spacecraft may be surveilling the United States, though Blake can see something much more sinister is going on. He might just survive long enough to uncover the truth but even if he does, will anyone believe him?

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Jack Heath about somehow making a cannibalistic antihero likeable, how Timothy Blake can be both an asset and a liability for the CIA, Jack's fascination for science fiction and accidentally inventing new genres of fiction.

In this compelling and comprehensive work, renowned historian Frank Bongiorno presents a social and cultural history of Australia’s political life, from pre-settlement Indigenous systems to the present day.

Depicting a parade of dreamers and schemers, Bongiorno surveys moments of political renewal and sheds fresh light on our democratic life. From local pubs and meeting halls to the parliament and cabinet; from pamphleteers and stump orators to party agents and operatives – this enthralling account looks at the political insiders in the halls of power, as well as the agitators and outsiders who sought to shape the nation from the margins.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Frank Bongiorno about the nature of indigenous politics before colonisation, the early figures and institutions of the colony that have had lasting impacts on the way we live today, the issue of immigration that has shaped Australian politics since the early years, and the reasons behind the relative stability of Australian politics through two centuries of colonisation.

Growing up Wiradjuri is a collection of personal stories by Wiradjuri Elders. The writers are Uncles and Aunties who came of age in New South Wales in the 1950s and 1960s.

In a strong collective voice, they share their stories of the difficulties of marginal life, backbreaking labour and family separation, but also of fond memories of their own Elders, Aunts and Uncles who cared for them and taught them culture. Contributors describe happy memories of family and community life on country, working the land, sitting around campfires, hunting, fishing, and playing games in the bush with their cousins, brothers and sisters. They talk about the values that were imparted by parents and grandparents, what it means to come from a family where everyone takes care of each other during hard times, and the work they have done to build stronger communities.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Anita Heiss about bringing together this collection of short stories from Wiradjuri Elders, how the common values of family, care, friendship and fun that are part of these stories are things we all share, and how we can all play a part in reconciliation by reinvigorating indigenous culture through great storytelling.

'The Passion of Private White' describes the meeting of two worlds: that of the intensely driven anthropologist Neville White, and the world of hunter-gatherer clans in remote northern Australia with whom he has lived and worked for half a century, mapping their culture and history in breathtaking detail. As White began to understand this ancient culture struggling between the demands of Western modernity and the equally pressing need to preserve their lands, customs, laws and language, he was also trying to transcend the mental scars inflicted on the battlefields of Vietnam. When White began taking his old platoon mates to the homeland, two wildly different groups found in each other some of the solutions and some of the therapy they both needed.

This book is the result of Don Watson's has had his own fifty-year relationship with Neville White: it is a towering achievement, a profound insight into both our recent and our deep history, the coloniser and colonised.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Don Watson about his fifty-year friendship with Neville White, what brought Neville White to study the clans of North-Eastern Arnhem Land and the moment Neville crossed the line from scientific observer to activist and advocate for a nation of people struggling between competing demands.

Tom Keneally is the winner of  the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Society's prize for his story 'Corporal Hitler's Pistol'

How did Corporal Hitler's Luger from the First World War end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, New South Wales, in 1933? When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband, not only does she scream for divorce, attempt to take control of the child’s future and upend her comfortable life, but the whole town seems drawn into chaos. A hero of the First World War has a fit at the cinema and is taken to a psychiatric ward in Sydney, his Irish farmhand is murdered, and a gay piano-playing veteran, quietly a friend to many in town, is implicated. Tom Keneally tells a compelling story of the interactions and relationships between black and white Australians in early twentieth-century Australia.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Tom Keneally about what brought him back to the Kempsey of his childhood, the four strands of history that this novel explores, and the power historical fiction to add new perspectives on where we've come from as individuals and as a nation.

Katrina Nannestad is the winner of the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Society's prize in the Children and Young Adult category for  Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief

It's spring, 1942. In an idyllic Russian village the sky is blue, the air is warm and sweet with the scent of flowers. But it's the height of World War II and the German Army are advancing on the Eastern Front and suddenly an entire Russian village is razed to the ground. Only six-year-old Sasha remains and he is alone in war-torn Russia. Found alone in the forest, Sasha is 'adopted' by a group of Red Army soldiers as they drive back the invading Nazis. Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief is a story of war and destruction but also an enduring tale of love and friendship and of survival in the most difficult of times.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Katrina Nannestad about turning a true story into an award-winning novel for children, the strategies she uses in casting stories of war that children can relate to, and why historical fiction has an important role to play in discovering and explaining history to young people.

In 'Bear Learns How to be a Rainbow' winter is coming and Bear is feeling sad, lonely and scared. But Bear discovers he can be the sun and as bright as the daylight sky. But what will Bear do when the rainbow disappears and winter arrives?

Bear loves eating blueberries and reading. In 'Do Bears Who Eat Blueberries Go Bananas?' Bear reads something that makes him feel worried. This 'sticky thought' follows Bear everywhere but his friend Kookaburra has a plan that will help Bear chase that sticky thought away.

With Jennifer Whelan’s whimsical illustrations and engaging storylines, and Deirdre Brandner’s practical toolkit resource, children's troubling thoughts and emotions are addressed in fun and uniquely engaging Bear adventures. 

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to author and illustrator Jennifer Whelan and educational psychologist Deirdre Brandner about the importance of addressing troubling emotions in young children, and the simple storylines and attractive colourful illustrations that underpin their evidence-based approach to building self-regulation in young children.

In the midst of an unfolding disaster, seven people are trying to survive on a small boat in a world completely transformed by an apocalyptic flood. Haunted by entwined pasts, the characters must voyage from a small town through a world that seems increasingly fantastic. Each will face their past, some will die, and the boat will take some to a miraculous new world but only fifteen-year-old Charlotte will discover that death is not always death.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Allen C Jones about how his experimental approach to poetry and prose somehow became a page-turning thriller novel, what the microcosm of seven people in a tiny boat floating in a vast featureless body of water can tell us about humanity, and how a universal disaster could have unexpected outcomes.

As heir apparent to his father’s global media empire, Lachlan Murdoch is one of the world’s most powerful people. Yet despite a life in the spotlight, Lachlan’s personality, politics and business acumen remain enigmatic. In this compelling biography, acclaimed journalist Paddy Manning explores Lachlan Murdoch’s upbringing, political beliefs and role as head of Fox Corporation – the man ultimately responsible for Fox News. This is a book about power, apprenticeship, politics and succession in a high-stakes world.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Paddy Manning about Lachlan Murdoch's early life in a family where business and family were inextricably linked, Lachlan's meteoric rise through the family newspaper business and early successes and failures as a businessman, Lachlan's role and responsibility as Chief Executive of Fox News, and what might happen at the passing of Rupert Murdoch.