Good Reading Podcast

April Clarke-Cliveden is vivacious, bright, and occasionally vicious—the ultimate 'It' girl, She quickly pulled Hannah Jones into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily. By the end of the year, April was dead.

A decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realises that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Ruth Ware about what it takes to be the 'It' Girl at an Oxford college, how exploring differences and divides can form the basis for great characters and settings, and why isolation and claustrophobia play such potent roles in her thrillers.

After twelve years in corporate banking, Michelle Lee gave up her career for a life beyond the office. Trekking the 100km Kokoda trail in 2012 sparked Michelle’s love for extremes adventure and she is now Australia’s first woman to row any ocean solo. In 2019 she completed a 68-day solo, unassisted row across the Atlantic Ocean, battling the elements, her own self-doubt and the obstacles she overcame just to get to the starting line. Alone is the story of Michelle Lee's determination to push boundaries and to test herself on the quest to reach her full potential.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Michelle Lee about how her upbringing brought about a very specific mindset, the physical, mental and emotional challenges she encountered in preparing for and undertaking a race across the Atlantic, and what she learned about herself along the way.

A mystery illness is making people bake ancient cakes, speak dead languages and then fall asleep and never wake up. When Trilby Moffat's mother Arwen catches this strange sickness, Trilby must find her only other surviving relative, a 300-year-old aunt who lives in a secret antique shop on the edge of time.

The Dangerous Business of Being Trilby Moffat is the story of how one ordinary girl finds herself on a deliciously fast-paced adventure, fleeing to an island where time doesn't exist, where cats are particularly rude and cake is always on the menu. Here she will take on the most treacherous job of all time.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs is joined by young podcaster Grace Grenfell to really put the pressure on Kate Temple to reveal just how dangerous it is to be Trilby Moffat. Together we explore why words and cake are so important to Kate Temple, what exactly Benjamin the thylacine is doing in this story, how we might find our way to the Lost In Time Antiques store, and what Kate really knows about time.

Treasure House is the story of the Stewart Dawson dynasty: watchmakers and jewellers, Australian pioneers of Jazz Age popular culture and entertainment, property tycoons and philanthropists. They counted stars of stage and screen, earls and princes among their connections. It's also a story of marital duplicity and deception, hubris and abuse of privilege, hedonism, fraud, and criminal violence. Treasure House traces the rise and fall of a once great family that left a trail of victims and damaged lives.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Geoff Nadin about how he came upon the story of the Stewart Dawsons, the marketing ingenuity and business acumen that laid the foundations for a great family fortune, the glamour and excess of the Stewart Dawsons enterprises in 1920s Australia and the eventual squandering of a legacy and final plunge into obscurity.

Elaine Pearson is the Asia Director at Human Rights Watch and a board member of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women. Elaine has spent a lifetime defending human rights around the world. From human trafficking in in Nepal to the 'drug war' in the Philippines, to the treatment of detainees in Papua New Guinea and in Australia and her experiences in Sri Lanka and Nigeria. Chasing Wrongs and Rights is a deeply personal survey of human rights abuses and governments' failure to address them. It sometimes shows humanity at its worst, but also introduces us to people at their best – compassionate, resilient and determined individuals pressing for change.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Elaine Pearson about her early experiences as an advocate for Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women at the United Nations in Geneva and how it shaped her career, the refugees in detention on Manus Island that she met and reported on, the time she spent in an Amsterdam prostitutes window, and the challenges that countries across Asia pose for human rights into the future and what we can do about it.

When climate scientist Joelle Gergis set to work on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her awake at night. The evidence gathered by the world's top climate scientists showed that impacts on our climate were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.

Joelle Gergis takes us on a journey through the science of the IPCC's report and shares her personal reflections and insists there is cause for hope - if we embrace cultural and social change we can create a better world. Humanity's Moment is a climate scientist's personal guide to rekindling hope and a call to action to restore our relationship with each other and with the planet. 

In this episode Gregory Dobbs talks to Joelle Gergis about her role as a lead author on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's latest report on the state of the planet, the evolving research that scientists undertake, the social and cultural change that we need to embrace in order to overcome the greatest challenge humanity has every faced, and the hope we should all harbour in our future.

Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. Now, with her parents and brother both killed in a vicious civil war, Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors. Salama is thinking about leaving, but who will help the people of her beloved country? With her heart so conflicted, her mind has conjured a vision to spur her to action. His name is Khawf, and he haunts her nights with hallucinations of everything she has lost. Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are decide how she will fight for Syria's freedom.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Zoulfa Katouh about the forgotten war in Syria and her deep connection with her homeland, why young people need to know about the psychological effects of war, and the powerful symbol that the lemon tree represents in Syrian culture

When Lucia and her dad come to stay for a week, Idris hadn't prepared himself. Lucia loves spying and is convinced that Idris' mum is a spy. But even Idris has to admit that there is something unusual about their family trip to the zoo. Were his eyes playing tricks on him but did someone secretly drop something into his Mum's bag? And who is the Countess and what's happened to all the pangolins in the zoo? Maybe it IS time for some spying after all, so together Idris and Lucia go on the hunt for the answers.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs is joined by young podcaster Leo Grenfell who gives Andy McNab a real grilling on all things about spies. We find out if Andy has ever been a spy, how Andy and Jess French managed to write a book together, and what Leo himself would do if he was a spy.

London 1937. Two sisters, Ida Cook, a budding romance novelist and Louise, an ordinary typist for the civil service  share a passion for opera. They use their meagre savings to travel to Germany and Austria to hear their favourite opera stars, many of them Jewish. On the eve of World War II these middle-aged spinsters became part of a network that outwitted the unsuspecting Nazis and helped twenty-nine Jewish families escape persecution. Overture of Hope is the story of the Cook sisters' humble beginnings to the great opera houses of Europe and the unlikely rescue missions they undertook. 

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Isabel Vincent about how the Cook sisters became part of the inner circle of the German opera world, the moral dilemma faced by Clemens Krauss one of Hitler's favourite conductors, and the ingenious methods Ida and Louise used to smuggle Jewish refugees and their belongings out of Nazi Germany.

Hidden deep in the jungles and mountains of the Southwest Pacific during World War II were Australia's secret army – a group of men and women who reported every movement of the Japanese invaders to Allied intelligence.

The Coastwatcher organisation was formed from a group of volunteers – plantation owners, policemen, missionaries and government officers living in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Armed with basic radio technology they were tasked with watching over Australia's porous northern border. They faced not only exhaustion, tropical diseases and malnutrition but were in constant danger of capture and torture by the Japanese military. Their work proved critical to the outcome of World War II.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Michael Veitch about the state of naval intelligence for the Royal Australian Navy prior to World War II, the impact of the bombing of Pearl Harbour on Australia's intelligence capacity, and the stories of brave men and women who risked their lives by a manning a critical communications network from remote islands in the Pacific.